What is Genzilla?
Genzilla is a concept that I've been toying with in my spare time for a platform-independent, open source genealogical research and library tool based on the exemplary Mozilla platform. Currently Genzilla is only a concept in my mind as I continue to gather my thoughts on the purposes and goals of the project, and branch from web development into application development. Everything about this is in limbo, right down to the name (for the record, I hate the name Genzilla, it's more of a temporary name than anything else... I'll let someone better at marketing decide upon a name).
Why Genzilla?
My concept for Genzilla was born primarily out of frustration with the current tools that are available for both amateur and professional genealogists. All of the tools presently on the market are either immature in their development, platform dependent, feature lacking, not intuitive, or just plain dated. Furthermore, I don't like the way most models work for cataloging sources and media. It's frustrating, and often times they both get lost in the sea of individuals in one's research. Do I have a better idea? No. But I know there must be a better way.
On top of having a stable, intuitive tool for entering and managing genealogical data, Genzilla should offer the ability to make advanced recommendations on research and relationship/fact calculations. There is so much opportunity for genealogy to benefit from a system like that, but I've yet to see a system that will do this. Genzilla should routinely look at the user-entered data, find similarities, and remind the researcher that there may be a "Eureka!" worth looking at. For example, it could analyze when children were born, where they were born, and what events may have transpired with other close family members during a period of time, and report to the researcher its "thoughts" on scenarios that might have happened during this time. This of course is no replacement for human intuition and research, but if there's a possibility that Genzilla can open up a door that a researcher hadn't before considered, it would be a valuable tool.
What's needed?
Well, everything. Backend and databasing, interface programming, interface graphics, developers familiar with XUL and JavaScript, and especially a fleshed out plan. Essentially, all I have is a vision, and I'd like to appeal to like-minded people out there to help flesh this thing out.
What's planned?
Some of the key features of Genzilla will be:
- Cross platform application based on XUL and the Mozilla framework.
- Focus on open standards.
- Ability to import and export from most, if not all, of the widely accepted genealogical data exchange formats (GEDCOM, GENTECH and the various XML flavors, Family Tree Maker and other native program formats).
- Able to manage large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
- Easy to use, intuitive interface that facilitates a quick understanding and shallow learning curve for professional and amateur genealogists alike; a focus on getting the job done instead of requiring vast amounts of computer knowledge to configure and run.
- Source indexing and application system that allows users to quickly create a source based on predefined templates (i.e., newspaper article), upload a graphic image of the source, and drag and drop that source to a fact that might exist.
- Similar indexing and application system for media. Quick addition and indexing of family photos and the ability to drag and drop a photo to multiple individuals. If I had to give an example of this functionality, it would be Adobe's Photoshop Album program.
- Eventually, a lofty goal would be porting the application to a "lite" version and offering it for use on handhelds such as Palm and PocketPC for researchers on the go.
- Online publishing and community development, something like PHPGedView?
- A focus not on creating a better product than other solutions, but rather developing a tool that works in turn with other applications based on open standards. It's quite possible that the vision for Genzilla will merge with or disappear in favor of another open source project out there; this product is not important, but the end solution of a product that accomplishes these goals is essential for genealogists.
Thoughts on any of this? Contact me.
