Report Configuration Settings (Config.xml)

Each report skin must have a file named config.xml. The file config.xml contains configuration information for the report generator, such as the parameters and the sequence of HTML/RTF templates to feed to the report generator. The XML configuration does define what object(s) to bind to each HTML templates, and the name of the output files. The following is a typical configuration file.

<Skin Name="Generic Report" Language="EN">

	<Version>1.0</Version>
	<DateCreation>1-Jan-2005</DateCreation>
	<DateLastModified>1-Jan-2005</DateLastModified>
	<SizeKB/>
	<Url Preview="" Download="" />
	<Authors>
		<Author Name="GenoPro" DateFirstModified="Aug-2004" DateLastModified="2005"
			Contact="https://www.genopro.com/" Comment="Creation" />
	</Authors>

<ReportGenerator ScriptLanguage="VBScript">
	<Parameters _PathPictures="http://www.yourwebsite.com/pictures/" />

	<Report Template="init.htm" />
	<Report Template="home.htm" />
	<Report Template="index.names.htm" />
	<Report Template="individual.htm" OutputFile="{id}.htm"
		For="Individuals" LoopItemName="i" SortBy="name.last, name.first" />
	<Report Template="family.htm" OutputFile="{id}.htm"
		For="Families" LoopItemName="f" />
	<Report Template="PictureAlbum.htm" />

	<ExtraFiles
		FamilyTree.gno="FamilyTree.gno"
		FamilyTree.xml="FamilyTree.xml"
		FamilyTree.ged="FamilyTree.ged" />
	<StartPage>default.htm</StartPage>
</ReportGenerator>
</Skin>

<Skin>

This is the root node of the configuration file as required by the XML standard. GenoPro assumes UTF-8 (Unicode) if the encoding is not specified in the file.

Name:
The name of the skin is analogous to the name of a file. The reason why GenoPro does not use the filename as the skin name is because some skins may contain long names with special characters not supported by the filesystem. In the future, skins will be downloadable from the web, and the only method to preserve the skin name is to store it in its configuration file.

The choice of the skin name depends on what the skin does. If your skin generates a phone directory, you may name the skin "Phone Directory". You may have other names such as "Picture Album" or "Generic Report". It is recommended to name the skin in your native language, like "Répertoire Téléphonique" or "Album de Photos" for a French skin.

Language:
GenoPro uses the language code to group skins by language in the Report Generator dialog. The language code is also used by the report engine to load the appropriate language dictionary to translate text in the selected language.

Version:
This field is for your own reference and also for users downloading your skin. If you make modifications to your skin, increment the version number and also update the DateLastModified. It is up to you to decide whatever a modification is minor or major. Eventually GenoPro will display all the skins in a table (similar to the Table Layout) and the version number will appear there. When downloading a skin from the web, the version number will be compared against the version installed. If the value differ, the version number will be displayed in bold to indicate an upgrade is available. (this feature is not yet implemented).

DateCreation:
This is a rough estimate of the date the skin was created. This field is informative to the user (or to yourself) when the skin got created.

DateLastModified:
This is the date of the last modification of the skin. It is recommend to update this value for any change you make, even for the slightest typo. GenoPro will use this value to determine if there is a new skin available for download.

SizeKB:
This is the size, in kilobytes, of the skin. This gives an idea of the size of the skin to download.

Preview URL:
Before downloading a skin or generating a report, it may be useful to preview a sample generated report. For each skin available for download from GenoPro, a sample report will be available for preview. Of course, if you are editing your own skin, you should put the URL of the homepage of your report.

Download URL:
Where the skin can be downloaded. Each downloaded skin is packaged in a single .skn file. The .skn file is similar to a .zip file.

<Authors>
Brief history of each author having modified the skin. The purpose of this list is to give credit to the contributor(s) and provide a method to communicate with them if necessary. If you modify a skin, add your name at the end of the list. If you are writing a new skin from scratch, remove "GenoPro" from the author list.

Author Name:
Name of the author having modified the skin. This could be your given name, your alias or the name of your corporation. GenoPro will display the last entry in the author list as the author of the skin.

DateFirstModified and DateLastModified:
A rough idea when the author started modifying the skin as well as the last time he/she modified the skin. Those values may overlap as multiple authors may modify the same skin. There may be gaps where nobody modified the skin. In the future, GenoPro may display those values, but in the meantime those values are purely informative to the people editing skins.

Author Contact:
Contact information of the author. It is recommend not to use your email address because of spam, and the likelihood your email address will become invalid. It is better to include your home page as contact information because you can include your email address on your website. Other contact information may be your street address if you really want to. If you wish to retain your privacy, leave this field blank.

Author Comment:
This is a comment describing what was modified on the skin. The comment may be something as simple as "fixed a typo" to a more complex modification such as "added a picture album".

<ReportGenerator>

This section relates to the report generator. The other part of the configuration file is mostly informative to the user and ignored by the report engine.

ScriptLanguage:
Define what script language to use for the report engine. Valid values are VBScript, JScript and PerlScript. You may also use a ClassID of the script engine if you want to use another script engine. For instance, the ClassID {B54F3741-5B07-11CF-A4B0-00AA004A55E8} is the same as the script language VBScript.

	<ReportGenerator ScriptLanguage="{B54F3741-5B07-11CF-A4B0-00AA004A55E8}">

Parameters:
The parameters allow you to pass additional information to the report generator. To get the value of a given parameter, use the property Report.Parameters. One reserved parameter name is _PathPictures.

<Report>

Each Report tag designates a template to feed to the report generator.

Template:
The Template tag is the only mandatory attribute for the for the Report tag. If this attribute is missing, then the report generator will display an error. The template is the HTML file to feed to the report generator.

OutputFile:
Name of the file to write in the destination report. If this attribute is omitted, then the name of the template will be used. If multiple reports are generated using the same template, then the output filename may include formatting information to assign a unique filename for each generated HTML page. GenoPro does make sure each output file is unique. If there is a collision (two files with identical name), GenoPro will modify the filename by appending a unique number to it. The output file may contain a sub-folder.

	<Report Template="individual.htm" OutputFile="Individuals/{name.last}.htm" For="Individuals" />

In this example, all the individuals will be stored in the sub-folder "Individuals". The formatting of "{name.last}" will include the last name of the individual in the output file name. In other words, the report will generate a list of files of last names. If two (or more) individuals have the same last name (very likely), GenoPro will assign a unique number to it.

You can get the name of the output file within your script by using the property Report.FileOutput.

For:
Collection of objects (items) for which the report generator will apply the template. The For attribute is the equivalent of a "For Loop" on a given collection. You can get a complete description of the looping, such as the total count of items using the properties Report.LoopItemCount, Report.LoopIndex, Report.LoopItem, Report.LoopCollectionName.

LoopItemName:
The LoopItemName is the name of a global variable to access an object within the collection. This name is typically a single letter of the alphabet, such as i for an individual, f for a family and p for a picture. The other alternative of using the global variable, is using Report.LoopItem as below:

Report.Write i.Birth.Date  ' Write the date of birth of the current individual
	Report.Write Report.LoopItem.Birth.Date  ' Same thing as above

The attribute LoopItemName is valid only when the For attribute is present. If this attribute is omitted, GenoPro will use the first letter of the collection specified in the For attribute.

SortBy:
Sort the collection by a given sort key(s). By default, the collections are sorted by Permanent IDs, however you may wish to sort differently. For instance, if you are generating a picture album, you may wish to sort by date and then by name. For more details visit Collection.SortBy.

ExtraFiles:
Additional files to include to the report. Those files are written after the report has been fully generated. If you do not wish a file to appear, just delete its corresponding attribute. You can access the XML file within your script using the method ReportGenerator.Document.GetTextXML.