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Forums: Index > Help desk > Subpages for tree and sensor


Good to see progress on making all of this stuff user-friendly.

Creating tree subpage[]

The advice we see when clicking on a button that promises to produce a tab to take us to a tree subpage (Create tab:Ancestor tree} is encouraging. I hope it starts working soon.

One is told "To finish creating the Family tree page, press the save button. After this step you will have to press the Update Sensor button for the tree tab to appear.". One presses the save button, and maybe a page such as Mary McGregor (1752-1838)/tree appears. Hmmm. One finds one's way back to the edit screen for the person article, with no tab showing. Clicking on the only button that seems to do anything to the sensor page (Update/Create Sensor page) may produce a message like this:

Error: No page was found at Mary McGregor (1752-1838)/sensor.

No advice about what to do next. There is still no tab leading from her page to her tree.

Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:15, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem you have is that you should create the "sensor" page first: it is used as the communication hub between the other subpages, in particular to tell each subpage which tabs to display. So for me the routine is:
  1. "Edit with form" -> "Updated/create sensor page". (watch out for the "?" bug).
  2. On the "sensor" page there is a "Create tree" tab, which you can now use to create the subpage.
  3. now you should get back to the sensor and save it again: the quickest route is probably back to the main page, and back to step 1 above.
For your next query, I suspect that no details are showing to Mary McGregor (1752-1838) because you have not created her "sensor" subpage (as shown by the Category:Globals missing- person). Thurstan 21:49, January 29, 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. But I repeat:
Clicking on the only button that seems to do anything to the sensor page (Update/Create Sensor page) may produce a message like this:
Error: No page was found at Mary McGregor (1752-1838)/sensor.
No advice about what to do next.
If that result was because I had saved the /tree page first, the (Create tab:Ancestor tree} should be accompanied by a warning to that effect. But if not, where is the problem?
I've just tried another "create sensor page" and got the same error:
Edit data
From Familypedia
Error: No page was found at Elizabeth Means (c1776)/sensor.
Investigating with a quick address-bar-tweak to see if there was a /tree page, and being a little careless about what I was adding it to, and therefore actually producing http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:EditData/Sensor_page/Elizabeth_Means_%28c1776%29/tree, I discover this:
Edit Sensor page: Elizabeth Means (c1776)/tree
From Familypedia
Warning: This page already exists, but it does not use this form.
Facts Pages
To finish updating the Sensor page, press the save button.
Then it has the familiar trio "Save page" "Preview" "Cancel", and one can see that the edit box contains {{showfacts tree02}} with just "Preview" "Cancel" below it. "Save Page" doesn't get me any further ahead.
Going back and tweaking the address-bar more intelligently merely reveals that the /tree page exists, as already noted.
Where should I experiment next? I really would like to get far enough ahead of a certain newish "traditionalist" contributor to be able to show him some of his relatives usefully and painlessly displayed!
Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:01, January 30, 2010 (UTC)
I have been caught in the same trap of adding the tree subpage before adding the sensor subpage - See Richard Ray Hunt (1921-1952) and Richard Ray Hunt (1921-1952)/tree. How can I fix this? I wish I could delete the tree subpage and start over. DennisDoty 22:42, February 2, 2010 (UTC)
Hunt's /sensor page was empty, so the /tree page did not have any information. This is restored now, but the server will need a few minutes to catch up. rtol 07:10, February 13, 2010 (UTC)
It has been several hours since your message above, but there are still no tabs visible at the top of Richard Ray Hunt (1921-1952). DennisDoty 18:26, February 13, 2010 (UTC)
Tabs and /tree are now fine. I resaved the pages. rtol 06:57, February 14, 2010 (UTC)

Format of tree subpage[]

Needs tweaking? See Jane Means Appleton (1806-1863)/tree, which at present (for me on Firefox 3):

  • has Jane's details in a panel that covers about 80% of the page width; a trifle unbalanced, but maybe it shrinks somehow when more generations have details?
  • doesn't show her mother's mother Mary McGregor (1752-1838), although she and the relevant daughter Elizabeth Means (c1776) both have links going where they should.

Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:15, January 29, 2010 (UTC)


From today's work on Caddy and Haddy family members, I suspect that the solution requires creating sensor pages and ancestor tabs for all the ancestors. Watch this space. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:09, February 13, 2010 (UTC)

The tree page gets its information from Property:Ancestors on the /sensor page. Property:Ancestors is build up recursively, from old to young.
So, to get the tree right in the first go, you'd need to create/update the /sensor pages of the great-great-great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, ... before you create/update the /tree page.
As the /sensor pages renew themselves once a week or so, you can also be patient. rtol 07:04, February 13, 2010 (UTC)
Can we ignore great-great-greats for a moment and try to get just three generations on a tree? I do a page for Joan Caddy using forms, then a page for her father Fred using forms, then a page for his mother Sarah using forms, then create Sarah's sensor then Fred's sensor then Joan's sensor. If I now create Joan's ancestor tab, should it show grandmother Sarah? If not, why not? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:48, February 13, 2010 (UTC)


This is getting ridiculous. About 9 hours ago I created the pages for the abovementioned Fred and Sarah. About three hours later I gave her a /sensor page and a /tree page, and later a /picture page. Now when I click on her (RED) link in Fred's "general" infobox I get this:

Add Person: Sarah Annie Haddy (1857) From FamilypediaThe page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name, or ask an administrator to help you with the move. Please do not manually move the article by copying and pasting it; the page history must be moved along with the article text.


I ask you! She has a perfectly good article (which I can retrieve from my watchlist or "Recent changes"), with the two standard subpages and a /pictures subpage (not that her article shows tabs). Her article was created from that same link on her son's page. Why does it now not go there?

Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:14, February 13, 2010 (UTC)

The servers are overloaded. The templates here are fine, but only partially executed at present. rtol 14:34, February 13, 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reassurance. That sort of thing can be expected to confuse newbies and experienced users alike. We need more explanations of things that may go wrong. I have been going over some of the instruction pages and tweaking a bit, but you are much more knowledgeable in this area, so I hope you will keep an eye on what I do and maybe preempt some of the "improvements" I might think of making. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:11, February 15, 2010 (UTC)

Progress by January 2011[]

Some of the above error messages have been eliminated (partly as a result of chaos caused by a software upgrade in March 2010) but the procedures are similar and there's no absolute need to create either the tree page (and/or the descendants page) or the sensor page first. I've now created Help:Tree page. Its talk page can be used to continue this discussion. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:10, January 17, 2011 (UTC)