Installing GeneWeb under OS X

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Traces in terminal window at GeneWeb start.

The simplest install is as follows (process verified on OS X Yosemite):

• Download the appropriate version. The latest stable version available is geneweb-6.07.tgz.
• Double-clicking on the downloaded .tgz file creates a subfolder /geneweb-6.07.
• Rename this folder to your liking, for instance /MyGeneWeb
• Move this folder where you prefer.
• Start GeneWeb by double-clicking the GeneWeb.command in this folder (not gwd or gwsetup). This should open a terminal window and browser window with the start page of GeneWeb.

Starting page for GeneWeb.

Note that on recent macOS versions, executable code must be signed for execution to proceed. For unsigned executables (which is currently the case for GeneWeb), one must

click-right and select the "open" option. After one such process, double-clicking will be accepted.

• If the terminal windows just opened indicated "failure", this may be due to some idiosyncrasies of your environment.

Try the following:

• Open the file GeneWeb.command in a text editor
• Replace the line

trap 'kill $pids' 1 2

by

killall gwd

killall gwsetup

and save the result back to disk.

• Start GeneWeb by double-clicking the new GeneWeb.command.

When GeneWeb is running on a machine, it behave like a web server and will accept URLs following a precise syntax. You can lauch GeneWeb with a lot of parameters, for example as a Unix daemon or behind a real HTTP server with CGI.

With this direct and simple installation approach, the bases created and managed by GeneWeb are located in /MyGeneWeb/bases. To setup GeneWeb in a more elaborate configuration, where code and bases are separated in two distinct folders, see the bases page.

Multiple versions install

Installing multiple versions of GeneWeb is possible. The following section describes one approach. One of its benefits is to make more explicit several aspects of the folder structure expected by GeneWeb.

The first step is to organise a folder structure which will contain the various elements. Although style and taste may vary, here is a proposal for such a structure which is rather general, identifies the various components associated with GeneWeb and is amenable to changes.

All the genealogy files are located in a folder called Genealogy sitting in “Home”, and containing two sub-folders "GeneWeb" (sources and binaries), “GeneWeb-Bases” (bases and other base specific data. a specific base may be called base in the following discussions and examples) and two command files launching each one particular version of gwd and gwsetup (see below):

iMac-H:Genealogy Henri$ cd ~/Genealogy/
iMac-H:Genealogy Henri$ pwd
/Users/Henri/Genealogy
iMac-H:Genealogy Henri$ ls -al
total 24
drwxr-xr-x   5 Henri  staff    170 14 oct 12:57 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 81 Henri  staff   2754 14 oct 13:28 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 Henri  staff  10244 14 oct 13:28 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x   8 Henri  staff    272 14 oct 12:59 GeneWeb
drwxr-xr-x  13 Henri  staff    442 14 oct 13:04 GeneWeb-Bases
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 Henri  staff   3036  8 sep 12:14 Gw-Mac-6.08.command
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 Henri  staff   3160 20 sep 05:55 Gw-Mac-7.00.command
iMac-H:Genealogy Henri$ 

Folder structure under Mac OS X for GeneWeb (source code and binaries).

In this organisation, the GeneWeb folder contains one or several GeneWeb distribution (detailed organisation of one distribution folder), and the GeneWeb-Bases folder contains one or several genealogy bases.

This setup has the advantage of maintaining active at least two running versions of GeneWeb which may be handy for moving bases from one version to the other.

The two folders gw-6.08-alpha-src and gw-7.00-Mac and file gwget-7-00.sh relate to GeneWeb sources and will be discussed in section #From sources.

Starting gwd and gwsetup

Traces in terminal window at GeneWeb start.

With this folder organisation, clicking on $HOME/Genealogy/Gw-Mac-7.00.command (download it here, you have to execute a chmod +x on this file to use it) will open a terminal window, kill previously running versions of gwd and gwsetup, start a fresh one and open the same start page as above.

From sources

The folders gw-x.yy contain sources for version x.yy of GeneWeb. Executing the Makefile in this folder (after having Installed OCaml) will create a distribution folder containing all data necessary for execution of GeneWeb. Renaming this distribution folder to GeneWeb-x.yy-Mac and moving it into the GeneWeb folder discussed above brings us to a known situation.

The file gwget-7-00.sh is a shell script that will fetch the latest version of GeneWeb (currently version 7.00) from the GitHub repository, compile it and move the resulting distribution folder appropriately.

Of course, the structure above can be extended to more that two versions of GeneWeb, and to more than two bases. Appropriate editing of the shell scripts and command files may be necessary.

GeneWeb Manual

• Download and install GeneWeb program under GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD; on Mac OS X, Linux or Windows using Docker; or in CGI mode behind a web server.
• Understand GeneWeb server, homonym, consanguinity.

Use and manage genealogical databases

• Import Gedcom .ged or GeneWeb .gw files with gwsetup or in command-line.
• Update datas (add/remove individuals and families), merge duplicates, type dates.
• Use wikitext syntax, macros, keyboard shortcuts.
• Clean, recover, rename, save, archive a database.
• Merge and split multiples databases.

Technical annex

• Personalize CSS, header and trailer, templates, lexicon and declension.
• Configuration file .gwf (for templm), wizard notes, passwords for friends/wizards and access restrictions to databases.
• Add images in notes, further remarks for experts.