Editing the Header in Record Editor

As compared to GEDCOM standard the following user tags are added to the Header:

  1. "Title" (tag _TITL) - a string, the name of the tree.
  2. "Background" (tag _BG) - background color of the tree.
  3. "Media directory" (tag _MDIR) - a directory on a local computer or the Internet address of the remote directory in which any other files (media, documents, other trees) related to the given tree (i.e. referenced by Links) are stored.
    The Media directory can be:
    à) subdirectory relatively to the tree directory (where the tree file itself is saved). Example: in some record there is a Link element which File value is "John Smith.jpg". Then, if the Media directory in the Header is "SmithTreeFiles", and the tree file is in "C:\My Documents\Gedcom Files" directory, then the full path to the file will be "C:\My Documents\Gedcom Files\SmithTreeFiles\John Smith.jpg", i.e. the tree directory + Media directory + file name.
    b) absolute directory, for example "C:\My Documents\photos". In this case the file will be searched in the path "C:\My Documents\photos\John Smith.jpg" independently what directory the tree file is saved.
    Obviously, the way a) is more preferable to distribute tree files to other computers - it is enough to transfer with it the whole Media subdirectory, and all links will work.
    Media directory can NOT be a remote directory, for example, "http://www.smithgenealogy.com/trees/files". If the tree file is on a remote server, for example, "http://www.smithgenealogy.com/trees/smith.rel" the Media directory can be specified as a subdirectory - just "files".

    There can be several Media directories specified in the Header. In this case search of files will be done in sequence - if the file is not found in the first directory, it will be searched in the second one, etc.

The general rule for searching a media file if the link to the document is not absolute, is the following:

  1. The directory where the tree file itself is stored;
  2. All Media directories in order, if they exist;
  3. "My Documents" system directory;
  4. "My Documents\My Pictures" system directory;
  5. "My Documents\My Video" system directory;
  6. "My Documents\My Music" system directory;
  7. If the document still not found the message appears...

You can also add Links (tag OBJE) to the Header, though tags OBJE in Header is not specified in GEDCOM standard, but the author has decided to add such opportunity as logically needed - why all other records can have Links to documents, but the tree itself can not?

Tag SCHEMA is supported in a special way - through the User Tags Editor.
See About the "expanded" support of the user tags

Note: at GEDCOM import all Header's elements remain the same they were in the original file. When saved in *.rel file the Header is also saved as is. But when exported to GEDCOM format:

  1. The program checks if the header has elements which are mandatory according to GEDCOM standard: "Submitter" (tag SUBM) and "Charset" (tag CHAR). If they do not exist, the program suggests to create them and to try again.
  2. Elements "Source system" (tag SOUR), "Destination system" (tag DEST) and "GEDCOM" (tag GEDC) are replaced with new (or are added if they do not exist). These new elements are:
    Source system = "Relatives"
    Destination system = "Relatives"
    GEDCOM = 5.5 (version)
  3. Date (tag DATE) and Time (tag TIME) are set to the current date and time.

See also:
Record Editor
Creating and editing links