Using Reunion to Publish to the Web

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Linda Thomas on July 16, 2009 at 12:38pm

Katie,

I've done this. I didn't much like Reunion's template either. I ended up cloning one of their templates and doing some serious mangling. It's not wonderful, but I like it better than the default. Most of my work went into the person sheets. I haven't done much to the family group sheets.

I have the files at home, but I'd be happy to send them to you. Do a friend request and send me your email address and I'll send them off to you if you want.

Permalink Reply by Valerie Craft on July 16, 2009 at 12:50pm

I created my site using Reunion: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~beginwithcraft/

I used the Web Family Cards without person sheets format. It isn't quite what I would like to create (for example, only one census listing is displayed), but it is what it is. I like the compact look of the cards, and adding the person sheets would just create so many more files to upload and makes it complicated to navigate.

If anyone wanted to compare notes, I'm game.

Permalink Reply by Shae on July 16, 2009 at 1:00pm

If you choose the 'Open in Safari' option when creating your web cards, your computer will save the files to a location on your hard drive, then open the index page in Safari. After you do that, if you go to that folder, where you elected to save the web cards during the creation process, you will find a sub-folder called 'css'. Inside that folder are the files that determine the look of your web cards.

You can edit those files, thereby changing the look of every file in the entire web cards series. If you have never edited css files, this is going to look overwhelming and probably worse than Greek, but there are a lot of editors out there that can help you do this. One is CSSedit by MacRabbit. They have a trial version of that program that lets you edit and save smaller files.

There are also a lot of tutorials online that are free where you can learn how to manipulate properties in a CSS style sheet.

If you go this way, once you edit things to your liking, you need an FTP program, such as CyberDuck, to send your files to your actual web site location.

I hope this helps a little bit.

Permalink Reply by Joan Foster on July 16, 2009 at 1:54pm

I'm interested in this discussion, but not to upload to the web. But I would like to edit Reunion's webcards to "publish" them on DVDs for private distribution, usable by anyone's browser or platform. Would working my way through the CSS style sheets, or using any of the programs suggested herein (MacRabbit, for example), achieve or affect this for me? That is, after getting my cards as I like them, would I just need to change the "upload" instructions to "burn" instructions? Also, how can I save my new CSS style sheets as templates for future webcards?

Permalink Reply by Bonnie Elsten on July 16, 2009 at 4:53pm

As a mac user, have you looked at the templates in iWeb? It's part of the iLife software that came with your Mac.

Permalink Reply by Vernon Smith on July 16, 2009 at 7:36pm

Hi Katie

I have a Freepages site on Rootsweb that I created with Reunion.
It is at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vernonsmith/index...
I only added two things, a mailmerge facility to avoid displaying my email address, and a counter. For both of these I used code available on Rootsweb. I used Dreamweaver to edit the code that Reunion generates.

Vernon

Permalink Reply by Linda Thomas on July 16, 2009 at 7:50pm

I've attached a zip of the folder containing the styles for Reunion I use. I'm not a graphic designer, but, at least for now, it's what I'm using. To use, unzip the file and then place the resulting directory in your ~/Library/Application Support/Reunion/Web Styles directory. Then you can select it from Reunion's web preferences.

Hope it's useful!

Attachments:

• Linda Style.zip, 87 KB

Permalink Reply by Kaye Mushalik on October 19, 2009 at 12:32pm

I can't find the "Reunion" folder in the Library/Application Support!
Kaye

Permalink Reply by Roberta Frederick on October 24, 2009 at 1:55pm

Kaye,

Are you looking in your hard drive or under your user name? I located the correct place under my user name in the finder. Hope that helps since you haven't had a reply from anyone yet - I'm no Mac whiz for sure but that's how I did it. Gotta test it out next :-)

Roberta

Permalink Reply by Kaye Mushalik on October 24, 2009 at 3:32pm

Linda,
Thanks so much for your "Linda Style" for the web files. I finally found where they needed to go and then "published" to a web folder on my desktop. Your style is great! Especially like the male/female symbols. I wonder if anyone else has developed their own styles.

Roberta,
Thanks for your helpful reply. Realized that I had somehow "lost" my home folder from the left sidebar on Mac. Someone helped me retrieve it last weekend while I was at MacCamp. Your response to my dilemma reminded me that I had that back. Sure enough, I was able to find the Reunion Web Styles folder/directory and load Linda's "Linda Style" folder!

Kaye

Permalink Reply by Roberta Frederick on October 26, 2009 at 10:16am

Yay! For once I was able to help someone else - usually it is the other way around. Glad you got it done.

Permalink Reply by Roberta Frederick on October 24, 2009 at 1:51pm

Thanks for this. I put it in my copy of Reunion and will give it a try soon.