Terry's TMG Tips

Using Second Site to Share Your TMG Data

This page updated 14 Nov 2008

Version note: Applies to TMG 6 & 7, and Second Site 2

John Cardinal, long time TMG user and creator of several companion programs for TMG, has written a wonderful program to produce high quality web pages from TMG Project files. It's called Second Site, and you can read all about it on John's website. In it's simple-to-use default mode it produces very nice websites, and it offers seemingly endless options to customize the results for users who prefer to personalize their sites.

The webpages created by Second Site can be placed on an Internet website, or they can copied to a CD to be shared with family members more privately. The program offers a choice of several different output formats for presenting the family history data. The one I prefer for sharing details with family members is called Narrative, and produces output similar to the Journal style reports produced by TMG, but adapted to take advantage of the linking capabilities of webpages. There are also several variations using columnar formats and bullet-item formats, for those that prefer a more structured layout. I use a variation of the bullet format for my "outline" family history webpages which I post in hopes of contacting other researchers working on the same lines..

Websites can be produced in a variety of styles, called Themes in Second Site. Each Theme produces different page appearance, color schemes, and graphical treatments. Within these supplied Themes there are dozens of user options, which allow users to create highly personalized websites. And, adventurous users can create nearly endless customized variations.

I use Second Site in three distinct ways. I use it to create the Outline Family History pages on my own website for those people I am actively researching, the much more detailed Narrative Family History pages I place on my website for those lines which I have substantially completed my research, and I use it to create webpages to share privately with family members or other serious researchers. There is an abbreviated example of this more personalized style my Sample webpages. To me, these three applications require very different styles of webpages, as can be seen in those examples, and discussed in my article on Sharing.

Second Site user Keith Winters has created a Gallery of Websites created with Second Site featuring over 300 sites. Viewing some of these examples will give an appreciation for the wide variety of styles that Second Site can produce.

In my articles here I'm offering a few suggestions based on my experience in using the program in ways that match my style of using TMG, as outlined in many of the articles on this site. There are articles on the following topics:

General Information Understanding and using Second Site

Second Site Basics - getting started, John's "Six steps to Second Site"

Overview - Understanding the tools available to customize your site

Refining Your Site - a few tips on customizing your site

Intermediate Features - Customizing Customizing features to achieve the results you want, some more advanced techniques, and dealing with some common situations.

Controlling the Details - fine-tuning the details of your site

Special Issues - using Split CDs, International issues, and more

Adding Maps - maps can give a new dimension to your site

Notable Ancestors Index - dress up your site with a special index to people of interest

Creating a Minimalist Site - using Second Site to create a "bare bones" style site

Creating Virtual Sub-Sites - using Second Site to create a site with sections for each family line

If you need help in finding the best way to apply the program to your application and preferences, I would suggest subscribing to John Cardinal's Second Site support list, where John and other users are always ready to provide help. And don't forget to consult John Cardinal's very helpful and comprehensive Second Site website.

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