Cocoa interface to GEDCOM file [closed]

Question

The only full-fledged GPL Cocoa editor for GEDCOM 5.5 files (GenerationX) was last released in 2003: http://sourceforge.net/projects/generationx/ It looks unstable under Snow Leopard and would badly need a revamp.

Someone recently posted a proof-of-concept application (unrelated to GenerationX) on Google Code, but it looks like an unmaintained project: http://code.google.com/p/cocoa-gedcom/

Is there any Cocoa developer interested in genealogy and willing to resurrect any of these projects? Or any other projects with a decent release cycle I am not aware of?

The Mac genealogy software market is dominated by pricy and feature-bloated proprietary solutions. A no-nonsense open source GEDCOM-compliant framework for Mac OS would be a blessing.

Rambert

That's more of a rentacoder.com question. :/ – Impolitic

"any other projects with a decent release cycle I am not aware of?" this bit is not – Rambert

Does it have to be Cocoa, or does it just need to work on the Mac? Would you be interested in a Java app that ran on the Mac? – Fuzz

Jay, I am not a big fan of Java apps on Mac OS in general. I have seen this one on SF: sourceforge.net/projects/genj but haven't tried it yet. – Rambert

Answer 1

Did you check out GRAMPS? (Written in Python, using Gtk. So it doesn't look native on OSX, but works.)

Teetotalism

Answer 2

There is MacPAF, but I'm not sure what the status of it is.

Fuzz

This also hasn't seen activity in over a year – Ugric

MacPAF hasn't released any files yet, but I have just heard from the author of cocoa-gedcom that the MacPAF maintainer is contacting developers for a possible relaunch of the project. So that sounds like the most promising option at the moment. As a temporary solution, I have found PAW2U, it's not open source but it does the job, until some other product becomes available. lanopalera.net/Genealogy/AboutPAWriter.html – Rambert

Another proprietary solution is GEDitCOM The trial version reverts to a fully functional read-only interface to a GEDCOM file at the end of the trial period. Still, I'd like to see something (1) open source, (2) with an active community, (3) with read AND write support. – Rambert

... and I have just discovered that there's an objective C iPhone app called GedView (closed source as well). The developer of GedView has written a GPL application in .NET called Gedcom.NET(here's the SF project page) – Rambert

Answer 3

If you are still looking into Genealogy-Software, you might want to try the free program "Familienbande".

It's available for Mac and for Windows, free for personal use, supports GedCom and it is well maintained. I only use the German version (the developer is German) but since he has some native speaking US contributors, I assume the English version should also be usable.

The UI needs some getting used to, but for a free program, it is absolutely perfect.

Give it a try under: http://www.familienbande-genealogie.de/en/index.html

Regards Thomas

Jiva