Posted by Brian Cryer on 09/22/06 08:38

"Andrew" <sorry.no.email@post_NG.com> wrote in message
news:2776h2l104m6e5kb4hk5va7f10i19gqmvi@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 13:08:56 +0100, "Brian Cryer"
> <brian.cryer@127.0.0.1.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>>"Andy Dingley" <dingbat@codesmiths.com> wrote in message
>>news:1158832121.755518.295940@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>>>
>>> Andrew wrote:
>>>> Does anybody have some ideas about this?
>>>
>>> Best way is to use SVG. Works beautifully, but there's a chunky
>>> learning curve. One day I plan to write some export filters for some of
>>> the genealogy tools.
>
> snip >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>>Also, and back on topic, is there any evidence that search engines (i.e.
>>google) will actually read svg? I'm certain that you won't find an svg
>>file
>>being returned in the search results. I think that requirement was implied
>>in the original post.
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> Thanks for your thoughts. I guess I sounded more than a little
> mercenary when I was hunting for search engine indexing of names in
> genealogy records :-) This is important to most family history sites
> but as well if these records are placed as images any browser or
> person who cannot see images loses access to the information contained
> within them.

I think you are being a little hard on yourself. It isn't "mercenary" to
want search engines to pick up the text. I can see why you would want it.
Quite a reasonable requirement.

> Could there be a case that these records are actually tabular data?
> An HTML table would probably be more straightfoward than wrestling
> with svg or grappling with increasingly bloated css.

Tables or lists may well prove to be the easiest way forward. I suspect the
difficulty is to use a table or list AND preserve the relationship between
family groups.

I'm sure you could structure the information in a table and format it so it
looks like a family tree - but it might be ugly to create and purists here
would turn away in disgust.

I suspect a list, and css might be a better way, but you could spend days
playing with different layout options.

When you do come up with something please let me know. I'd love to see it.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian

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