WinGeno is a new program, version 1.0 was released on 2007 Dec 10. It was developed by Ingo H. de Boer for MUTABOR, a non-profit organisation that works for the German youth welfare service. WinGeno requires Windows 2000, Windows XP or better with Microsoft .NET.
WinGeno is a free download and many download sites will no doubt lump WinGeno in with all other genealogy programs - but it is not a genealogy program. It is a genogram editor, a program for drawing genograms.
As genogram editors go, WinGeno is a simple one. As the home page notes, it support family relations, but does not support social nor emotional relations.
The program is a free download, less than a megabyte small. Installation is easy and includes an uninstall program.
The main screen is a drawing canvas. There are several buttons along the top to select what to draw. Once u draw an item, a property list appears on the right hand side of the canvas.
The interface is as simple as the rest of the program. For example, drawing a line between two items demands that you select both items first instead of allowing you to select one item, draw a line and land on the other item.
There is no help file. The help menu item opens a Adobe PDF file instead, and although the program is English, the manual is in German only. I first thought that this was a small programming error, that the program was always opening the German manual, but the real problem is that the what’s supposed to be English manual is actually a copy of the German one. Apparently, the code is fine, but program was released before the translation was done.
WinGeno does not import or export GEDCOM files. Its own files use a proprietary format and the *.geno extension. This proprietary format is not documented, but as it is XML-based, it is not hard to make sense of it. Drawings can be exported to several graphics formats; BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF. I tried a few formats, and the JPEG files are clearly of lower quality than the other formats.
The website claims drag & drop of images into Office applications, but the program does not seem to support the Windows clipboard; I did not manage to copy and paste images directly into other programs, not even image draw programs like Microsoft Paint. It is only possible to copy and paste within the program.
WinGeno is simple genogram editor. It does not try to be more than that, and
that keeps it simple. Its own format is XML-based and it supports export to
various bitmap formats.
Its most noteworthy limitation is that it support exports to bitmap formats
only. It would be nice if it exported to vector-formats such as WMF and SVG.
WinGeno 1.1 adds the ability to zoom in and out, and now has true Windows help files while retaining the Adobe PDF files. Copy & paste still does not work, and vector output is not provided yet.
| property | value |
|---|---|
| product | WinGeno |
| version | 1.0 |
| organisation | Ingo H. de Boer |
| website | WinGeno |
| price | free download |
| requirement | Win32 with .NET (Windows 2000 or better) |
| note | |
| Verdict | Simple genogram editor. |
| Rating | Not a genealogy program. |
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.