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Addon:PlaceCleanupGramplet

4,375 bytes added, 12:39, 6 September 2021
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{{Third-party plugin}}
{{man menunote|Released for Gramps 5.0 x + versions}}[[File:PlaceCleanupMain.png|thumb|right|547px350px|Place Cleanup Gramplet]]The {{man label|Place Cleanup Gramplet== Purpose of this Gramplet ==This was written }} addon uses the WebServices feature from the [https://www.geonames.org/about.html GeoNames.org geographical database] to assist in cleaning up lookup as many as 2,000 placenames per day. ''See ''already existing'[[GeoCodes#Filters|GeoCodes]]''' places. You )'' Selected parts of the validated information can use it for a new place, but the place must then be created with the normal pushed into Gramps {{man menuto correct and improve incomplete [[Gramps_Glossary#place|Add ->Place}} and select the new place in the top window prior to using the Gramplet]] records.
Often when starting with Gedcom imported trees, or when = Purpose of this Gramplet =This was written to assist in cleaning up '''already existing''' places. You ''can'' use it while adding events from census or other sourcesa new place, but the Places that are place must be created are not fully filled in with Latitude/Longitude the normal Gramps {{man menu|Add -> Place}} and Enclosure information. The select the new place names and/or titles are often left with strings of comma separated names that previously required a lot of manual work in the top window prior to clean it upusing the Gramplet.
In When starting with GEDCOM imported trees, the Places that are created are often incomplete or simply don't take full advantage of Gramps features. The place names and/or titles are often left with strings of comma separated names.  Even when transcribing events from census or other casessources, Place data might have be ambiguous about which adminstrative area enclosed a locality and were, in turn, enclosed. Sometimes, Places may have been entered with the proper enclosure hierarchy, ... but without the Latitude/Longitude coordinates needed to show up plot Events on the maps of the Gramps MapsGeography view. Rather than intefere the flow of data or research workflow to validate each Place, it can be more efficient to come back to handle these deficiencies collectively. Cleaning up these shortfalls previously required a lot of manual work to clean up.
The Gramplet assists in merging new places with already present places; when you do a search, if the Place you are looking for is located elsewhere in your Gramps database, and is completed, then you can merge your current place with the completed place.
The Gramplet makes use of the GeoNames database via the web to get information to fill out the Places.
{{man warn|1=Warning: Automated records updates are risky!|2= As always, Back back up you your current tree BEFORE using this any toolthat automates data entry or editting.See [[How to make a backup|make a Gramps XML backup]]|2= While it is usually possible to Undo changes individually, at least within a session, you may decide that you need to restart from an earlier state.<br/>See [[How to make a backup|make a Gramps XML backup]]}} =Usage=
== Installing the Place Cleanup Gramplet ==
The Gramplet can be installed like any other Addon; see {{man label|[[5.0_Addons#Installing_Addons_in_Gramps|Installing Addons in Gramps]]}}
Once The Gramplet can be installed, you should go to Place Tree or Places view (which ever you usually use), and load the Gramplet like any other Addon; see {{man label|[[5.1_Addons#Installing_Addons_in_Gramps|Installing Addons in the bottom bar by clicking the little down pointer at the far top right of the bottom bar, and then using the 'Add a Gramplet…' menu item.Gramps]]}}
Once installed, make the Gramplet visible in the {{man label|Places}} category View and on either the {{man label|Place Tree}} or {{man label|Places}} view (which ever you usually use), and load the Gramplet in the bottom bar by clicking the {{man button| [[Gramps_{{Version manual}}_Wiki_Manual_-_Main_Window#Bottombar_and_Sidebar| &or;]]}} (''Down Arrowhead'' button also known as the '''Gramplet Bar Menu''') at the far top right of the bottombar titles, and then using the {{man button|Add a gramplet}} menu item. === GeoNames account prerequisite ===[[File:GeoNamesFreeWebServices.png|thumb|right|250px|Add free WebServices at the Login screen]] The first time you attempt a search, you will be reminded to obtain and set a GeoNames user ID, which is required for use of their data. You can sign up for the ID at the following link: [http://www.geonames.org/login http://www.geonames.org/login]. The account signup requires responding to a confirmation eMail. Just having a basic GeoNames account isn't quite enough. The Gramplet needs to access to the Web Services. Return to the login screen once you've validated your account, then enable the Free Web Services by clicking the link in the section of their login screen. It is shown in the screen capture to the right. Once you've logged into the GeoNames website, requests from Gramps on the same machine will be part of the same session. If the session log-in expires or you exceed the number of requests allowed in a day, the Gramplet will report failing to find matches for placenames being searched. If a suspiciously high number of failures occurs, try logging in again.
Once you have an ID, you should set it into the Gramplet via the Preferences button, see below.
{{-}}
== Preferences ==
[[File:PlaceCleanupPref.png|thumb|right|44px|Place Cleanup Preferences]]
The Gramplet Preferences is accessed via the Preferences button (located in the top right of the main view of the Gramplet, next to the Title field). The button should appear as shown to the right.
[[File:PlaceCleanupPref.png|left||alt="Preferences icon"]][[File:PlaceCleanupPrefDialog.png|thumb|right|350px|Place Cleanup Gramplet - Preferences]]
The Gramplet Preferences is accessed via the Preferences button (located in the top right of the main view of the Gramplet, next to the Title field). The button should appear in the far upper right of the Gramplet.
<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
The preferences dialog has the following settings:
* &#x2611;{{man label|Keep Web Links}} checkbox. The GeoNames database contains various URL links to other web data, associated with each place. For example, many places have a Wikipedia link. If you check this setting, the Gramplet will save these web links with the place data. They will appear in the 'Internet' tab of the Place Edit dialog.* &#x2611;{{man label|Add citation and source to Place}} checkbox. If you check this setting, a Citation will be added to each place, citing the 'GeoNames' Source and Repository, with the Citation having a 'Volume/Page:' value with the GeoNames ID number. There will be a Citation for each Place, but only a single Source and Repository.
* {{man label|GeoNames User ID}} field. This contains the necessary GeoNames user ID. You can sign up for the ID at the following link: [http://www.geonames.org/login| http://www.geonames.org/login].
* {{man label|Alternative Names Languages to keep}} field. This contains a space separated list of the [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes ISO-639 -1] 2-letter language code; (: <code><abbr title="English">en,</abbr> <abbr title="Deutsch">de,</abbr> <abbr title="français">fr,</abbr> <abbr title="Italiano">it,</abbr> <abbr title="Español">es</abbr></code>,...)et cetera. As you work with the Gramplet, you will see a list of alternate names available for most places, with the language code for the names. If you want these names automatically checked off for inclusion in your Gramps place, add the code to this field.
* Currently Enclosed Places. When you use the {{man button|Ok}} button after selecting a GeoNames place, the Gramplet may have to deal with a place enclosure. If you are modifying a current place, and your place is already 'Enclosed by' another place the Gramplet has two choices on how to handle changes to the enclosure.
** {{man label|[[File:RadioButton_Selected.png|21px]]Keep current Enclosure}} [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_button radio button selector. ] If you select this setting, and your place is already 'Enclosed by' another place, then no changes to the 'Enclosed by' place value will be made, even if your current enclosing place differs from that provided by the GeoNames data.
**: If there is no 'Enclosed by' place value, and the GeoNames data has an enclosing place, then one will be created, and selected for approval.
** {{man label|[[File:RadioButton_Deselected.png|21px]]Replace with GeoNames Enclosure}} [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_button radio button selector. ] If you select this setting, and your place is already 'Enclosed by' another place, then the current enclosure is replaced by the enclosing place from the GeoNames data. If it did not exist before this, it will then be created, and selected for approval.
**: While this ensures that the enclosure matches GeoNames, it is possible that the previous enclosing place will no longer be used, and will remain in your database.
 
== Main view ==
{{man warn|Use extra caution when changing the Title field|The place data found and pushed to update the Place view will depend on the contents of this field. If you change it in inappropriate ways, you could end up with mismatched place data. <br />For example, if the originally active record in the Place view is "Berlín, Usulután", and you manually type in a Place title of "Berlin, Germany" to search, when you find ''and accept'' the Berlin place, your originally selected Place view record for the municipality in El Salvador will be changed to Europe!}}
[[File:PlaceCleanupFind.png|thumb|right|350px|Place Cleanup - finding a particular place title]]
The Main view has several buttons, a 'Title' field, a small 'xx Matches' status, and a 'Choices' or match results list.
* {{man label|Title}} field. This field shows the Place that is currently under investigation. It provides the search terms that are used for finding a place. It changes automatically to the place title when the Gramps Place view has an active selection. The field can also be modified by the user, just set the cursor in it and edit as normal. This is generally only needed when trying to find a place in GeoNames that might have unexpected abbreviations, or historical hierarchy or other issues which can make finding a match in the GeoNames database difficult.{{man note|NOTE|Changing the Title field should be done with some caution(As an example, your Gramps place hierarchy has "west berliner, west germany". The places found will depend on the contents of this fieldThere are no matches and you wonder if GeoNames only has post-unification names. If Then you change in inappropriate ways, you could end up notice that there is a typographical error with incorrect place dataa trailing 'er'. For Example, if the original place is "Paris, France", and So you change the field it to successfully search for "Berlinwest berlin, Germanywest germany", when you find and accept the Berlin place, your original place will get changed to Berlininstead of that elusive donut.}})
* {{man label|Matches}} status. This small status block is located on the left side of the Gramplet, just below the 'Title' label. It indicates the number of matching places found when searching the local Places list or the GeoNames database. The status also indicates where the matches were found, either 'Local', or 'GeoNames'.
* {{man label|Search result places}} list. This area lists the found matches. The user should select the correct match for the place under investigation, and either press the {{man button|Select}} or double-click, press 'Enter' or 'Space' to move to the result/edit screen.
:: There are two columns in this list, the names, and the 'Types' columns. The names are comma separated places in the hierarchy, as found in the local database, or in GeoNames. The 'Type' column in the Places view shows the Gramps Type, when showing places from the local database, and shows [https://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html GeoNames types Feature Codes] that includes a Feature class letter followed by a colon, then a type) when showing results from the GeoNames search.{{man notetip|NOTEAvoiding rework|If you search GeoNames for a place in GeoNames that you is already have in your database, the search results may return some entries annotated with a red strikethrough. This indicates that those places are already enclosed by the current place and cannot be selected. }}:: The Type column is provide for informational use only, to help the user determine a bit more about the found place. The GeoNames types Feature Codes are not always obvious; the type [https://poldham.github.io/places/reference/featurecodes.html#format type format] starts with a 'class'; one of 'A'(Administrative place), 'P'(Populated place), or 'S' for 'Administrative place'(Spot). (Of the 9 GeoNames classes, searching <abbr title="Hydrographic Features">H</abbr>, <abbr title="Area Features">L</abbr>, <abbr title="Road / Railroad Features">R</abbr>, <abbr title="Hypsographic Features">T</abbr>, 'Populated place'<abbr title="Undersea Features">U</abbr>, or 'Spot' respectively<abbr title="Vegetation Features">V</abbr> is not supported. ) You can restrict the returned search matches to desired categories with the matching Checkboxes (see below). The remaining part of the type field for GeoNames can be decoded from [http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html| http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html], if desired.* &#x2611;{{man label|Populated}} checkbox. If you check this setting, 'Populated Places' (typically cities, towns, villages etc.) will be returned for a GeoNames search. This setting does not affect a local database search. This is initially enabled, as it allows the search to return what most people expect for a city type search.* &#x2611;{{man label|Admin}} checkbox. If you check this setting, '[[Gramps_Glossary#administrative_division|Administrative PlacesDivisions]]' (countries, states, regions etc.) will be returned for a GeoNames search. This setting does not affect a local database search. . This is initially enabled, as it allows the search to return what most people expect for a county, state, country type search.* &#x274f;{{man label|Spot}} checkbox. If you check this setting, 'Spots' (typically farms, buildings, graveyards, churches etc.) will be returned for a GeoNames search. This setting does not affect a local database search. This is initially disabled, as most place searches don't go to this level of detail.
* {{man button|Help}} button. This brings up this web page.
* {{man button|Find}} button. This performs a search for the place placename indicated in the {{man label|Title}} field. The search is performed in two stages.:** Initially , the local Gramps place list is examined for a match. The local match is only searched among 'Complete' places, those with Latitude/Longitude coordinates and Place Type data filled in. Only the initial segment of the place is used for searching. For example, if you search for 'Paris, FR', and your local Gramps Place Tree data has both 'Paris, Lamar, Texas, United States' and 'Paris, Paris, Île-de-France, France', both will be shown. Alternative names in the local Gramps places are also searched.** The second stage is the GeoNames search. It is performed automatically if the first stage doesn't find any matches. If the first stage did find one or more matches, but none of them were correct, the user can press the {{man button|Find}} button again to do the GeoNames search. Note that the Web Service of the GeoNames search can return only returns ten results at a time, if . If the place you want is not in the first set subset of results, press the {{man button|Find}} button again to see the next ten.{{man note|NOTEFind shops locally before resorting to the net|The 'Find' button changes to 'Find GeoNames' after a local database search where something was found, as . This is a reminder that you can search that online database if the local search did not return what you wanted.}}
* {{man button|Select}} button. After the user selects one of the matches in the 'Choices' list, this causes the result/edit screen to be shown.
* {{man button|Edit}} button. If no suitable places are found, the user can use this to advance directly to the result/edit screen. This can occur if the place you are searching for is too detailed, for example 'My Estate, Paris, TX' or '123 Mains St., Paris, TX'. Since such detailed information is not going to be found in the GeoNames search, you have to edit it manually.
* {{man button|Next Place}} button. This causes the Gramplet to advance to the next incomplete Place in the Gramps Places list. Incomplete places are missing any of the Latitude/Longitude or Place Type data. If a place is found that is not used by any Event or encloses another place, you will get a dialog popup message suggesting that the place be deleted.
 
== Result/Edit view ==
 [[File:PlaceCleanupRes.png|thumb|right|550px350px|Place Cleanup Result View]] 
This view presents the found place data for review and potential editing.
* {{man button|Ok}} button. Pressing this modifies the selected place with the new values. In addition, the next level of the place hierarchy will be set into the place. If that next level is already present in the local Gramps place list, and has a matching GeoNames ID, the modifications are completed. If not, the next level in the place hierarchy is shown in the results view.
=FAQ = Faq == 
* GeoNames data is primarily intended for present day usage. It contains little historical information. I have heard that it is pretty complete for United States, Canada, and less so for Europe, although it seems to have all the European cities I have tested so far. If you find an error or omission in the GeoNames data, you may want to tell GeoNames about it [http://www.geonames.org/manual.html| http://www.geonames.org/manual.html].
* GeoNames finds multiple places: Example, 'Santa Rosa, CA'. GeoNames finds both 'Santa Rosa, Sonoma, California, United States' and 'City of Santa Rosa, Sonoma, California, United States'. The way the GeoNames database is structured, they have a 'Populated Place', which generally has lots of Alternate names and postal codes, and an 'Administrative subdivision' for the same place. The 'City of' version is the Administrative subdivision, which generally doesn't have postal codes and alternate names. I personally prefer the first version, which should appear first in the 'Choices' list.
* Timeouts: When using the GeoNames web database with a free account, you will sometimes get a timeout. The Timeout is set to 20 seconds for each request, unfortunately some actions take several requests, so the user may see unresponsive Gramps for up to 40 seconds. You can always try the request again by pressing the last used button. According to the GeoNames web site, if you pay for an account, you may get better performance, as the paid accounts use more lightly loaded servers.
* Not Found: While the GeoNames database contains some historical names, it mostly tries to be up to date with the current times. Many places in a typical family tree are described as of the time the event occurred. So it is entirely possible that the described place no longer exists. It may now belong to a different country, or other administrative subdivision. Or it may have been subsumed with within another larger place. Initially you should try removing the intermediate place data, leaving only the initial segment and the country. You may get a lot of matches, but that may give you a better clue as to the current situation. Or you may have to do some research outside the Gramplet to figure out what it might be called now.
* Place Types: Since GeoNames does not have place 'type' data, the same way that Gramps does, this addon uses an algorithm to attempt to pick an appropriate place type. If a country is known to have a rigid administrative place type structure, such as the United States with its City/County/State/Country, then the various parts of the place hierarchy are typed accordingly.
: If the structure is not always known or used, then the algorithm attempts to assign place types by looking at the place name. For example if the place name includes a word that matches a place type, such as "Harris County" or "Smith Township", then the place type is set accordingly. To do this, all the various place alternate names are scanned, in case the primary name does not include a suitable word.
: If you know that a particular country has a rigid (or even mostly rigid) hierarchical structure, and this addon seems to be getting it wrong a lot, please let the author know at paulr2787 at gmail.com. I can modify the code to make it work better if I understand the correct country structure.
* IDs: When GeoNames is the source of place data, the normal place ID ('P0001') is replaced by a GeoNames specific ID ('GEO12345'). The number portion of this ID is the GeoNames identifier for the place. By using this type of ID, the addon can easily identify when enclosing places are already present in your database, which means that the user doesn't have to do a local search for and selection of each level of enclosing place.
* GetGov, how does this interoperate with the data from GetGov? At this time it does not integrate with that data. If you already have places loaded from the [[Addon:GetGOV|GetGov]] addon, then the ID field will have a GovID. If you want to do a lookup with GeoNames for that place, you should probably set the Place Cleanup preferences for the enclosure to keep the current values. In addition, you should probably use the 'Orig' checkbox for the ID to keep the original Gov ID.
 
= Issues =
 
This tool is fairly complex. Please report any issues or desired enhancements to paulr2787 at gmail.com.
== Notes ==
This is a new tool and fairly complex. Please report any issues or desired enhancements to paulr2787 at gmail.com
I have included a French translation of the tool, mostly as a test of the internationalization code. Since I don't speak French (USA Texas version of English only), please excuse my French.
 
[[Category:Places]]
[[Category:Addons]]
[[Category:Plugins]]
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