data entry gui for transcription

Can anyone suggest a good simple software tool for transcribing records?
The application is to transcribe BDM, schools admission, ships passenger
lists, etc. We have a number of volunteer transcribers, and it would
really help to have a user friendly tool they can use. These folk have a
variety of PCs; WinXP, Win2000, Win98, Mac, Linux.

Output can be a simply fixed field length plain text file.
The user interface and the dta field lengths will change depending on which
transcription project we are doing.

Something open source would suit, as this is volunteer work, and we don't
have funds to buy software.

Kerry Raymond...

Herein lies the great curse of "inclusiveness" of genealogy societies. Often
there are volunteers for tasks, but most of whom come with complicating
constraints (ancient PCs, can't afford software, no Internet access, etc).
As the coordinator of the activity, you need to decide if you will:

* choose the lowest common denominator that everyone can support (probably
Notepad, or similar) -- problem is that the data will be highly
"unstructured" (stuff in the wrong "columns" etc)
* allow people to use "anything" they have -- problem is that combining
information is now extremely difficult
* pick the "best" solution and exclude volunteers who can't use that
technology for whatever reason -- problem is you derive yourself of willing
workers and possibly lose some goodwill for future projects from those
excluded

What is important here? Achieving an outcome, or being inclusive? Personally
I think it is the right thing to turn down an offer of help when there are
too many complications attached to it. If the person volunteering really
only has an ancient PC running Win3.1 and no Internet access (or whatever),
find them some other project to work on. Don't drag everyone else down to
their level. Don't tie up the coordinator's time doing file conversions etc.
Don't comprise the overall efficiency of the project for the sake of being
afraid to say "thanks but no thanks" to someone. Some people are a
hindrance, not a help. That's life.

Suggestion. It is quite feasible for a person to index a book as a
one-person project. Many otherwise useful books in a family history library
come without an index. Coming up with an index of names (which is usually
what people want for family history purposes) can be done in just about any
software. You simply have to be able to write:

Smith, John; 20
Brown, Mary; 21

or something like that and then someone sorts it alphabetically at the end.
Indexing a book is a task you could give to someone who can't easily
participate in a larger indexing project, and avoids turning away a
volunteer.

Hugh Watkins...

csv or spreadsheet ?

I know of several utilites created for specific census and parish
register projects in UK and DK

could your work also contribute?

Hugh W

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family history

singhals...

I've done a *lot* of indexing using a spreadsheet. When I need to merge
into what someone else has done, we each create a "save as csv" and
exchange; each of us then swaps and imports.

I've done a little indexing using NOTEPAD and inserting the , by hand as
I type. It works better for those who can count and think simultaneously

It's also possible to do it in a word-processing program as a table and
then doing a "sort as Text".

I prefer the spreadsheet approach.

Steve Hayes...

For a large project with many volunteers, it might be possible to write a
special program for the purpose. FreeBMD has such a program.

Older version of BASIC stored sequential access files in CSV format, and it
would be relatively easy to write a program for data input and thus ensure
consistency.

I don't know about new versions, like visual Basic -- but it does have all
kinds of provision for accessing database engines, so it should be possible.

Hugh Watkins...

spread sheet csv

open office

or sun java office

Peter...

Yes, we have been using whatever people have on their PCs; Works, Excel,
dBase, Word, Access, etc. It hasn't worked too well, as the file formats
are too diverse, and it is too easy for people to get field formats wrong.

OpenOffice would be ok, except it is too heavy for some of the older PCs
running Win98 etc.

thanks anyway

Paul Blair...

Given the spread of machinery, operating systems etc, the web is the
only way to go.

This can be done on most servers using a form with user input fields, a
submit button, and a connection to send the data to (you?) in an email.
Easy to set up and use, provided (you?) don't mind transferring the info
provided into the final bucket. Even that could probably be automated...

singhals...

You might want to wander over to the USGenWeb Census Project and talk
the folks running it. When I did a couple census for them, they sent me
a template specific for each census and for my spread-sheet of choice.

Or, given what you're transcribing, think KISS-- use PAF, which is free
and has versions that run on a DOS XT. That'll cover just about any
system other than a MAC. Use the name field for, er, the index name,
the birthdate field for the doc date, the custom ID for an identifier

Hugh W

melsonr...

How much development work are you willing to consider? Seems to me you might
want to consider something web-based, since it's likely that everybody will
have a browser. With a web-based approach, you run your interface as an
application on a web-server, which cuts out the incompatibility problennm and
have the advantage of centralized storage. From what you say, the "template"
wouldn't have to be particularly complex, so development time and effort would
probably be minimal. For ideas on how to do this, check out "Web Database

Peter...

The web based approach won't really work. This is in New Zealand, and
boardband isn't widely available, most people have only dial up access to
the internet.

I was thinking of a simple tool that would give the user a form with fields
to fill in, and it would put the data into a file. Then it is just a
matter of combining these files from all the volunteers.

thanks anyway

applications with PHP and MySQL", Hugh Williams & Donald Land, O'Reilly, 2002,
ISBN 0-596-00543-1.

Hugh Watkins...

a danish user is keen on TNG

but what about when you die
who will maintain the site ?

Hugh W

Bob Melson