Suggestion: Create a command-line interface to FamilySearch Tree

LegacyUser

Mark Hamilton Dewey said: It would be nice to have a command-line interface to querie unformatted, text-only data from FamilySearch.org/tree, and to submit edits via the command-line tool, also.

The actual command-line wherein people would use the tool could be embedded in a page on FamilySearch to make it cross-platform and to prevent abuse by third-party programs. Plus, you wouldn't have to authenticate users via the tool itself that way. They could just sign in how they usually do first.

The reason for this suggestion is efficiency. It would be faster to use for many purposes for those who knew how, and take less resources (both on the client and the server). Of course, everyone would still need to use the regular site for some things, though.

I would suggest allowing at least a modicum of script-writing and custom alias commands to be allowed, to automate some tedious commands.

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: Thank you for your feedback.

You may be interested in this site:

https://www.familysearch.org/developers/

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Command line deals with operating system level commands. The feature is most often found in open-source applications.

FamilySearch is still under development and as such, is rapidly changing, with a 1,000 (not a typo) or more changes being applied on a daily basis. Some are patches to take care of behind the scenes problems and others involve fixes to problems found by users.

The API is likewise involved in what it can provide to third-party developers and in the case of major products, like the three fully-certified family tree management programs, those developers are notified in advance of major API change impacts.

FamilySearch is not an open-source application. It is incredibly complex with a lot of interconnected parts, which is one reason for many of the changes. You are certainly welcome to write your own command line code and use the API to interface with the FamilySearch system, whether it is searching the indexed records or working with the massive tree which currently holds over 1.2 Billion profiles.

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: Just a point of clarification, partners and third party developers are not authorized to search historic record indexes or uploaded genealogies. We do not currently expose those systems via the API.

Partners can search the familysearch tree as well as view record hints.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Also, access to the API is limited, is it not? Free direct access for everyone to the API is just ASKING for abuse!

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: From the site:

" The FamilySearch Developer Program is now closed to the general public; however, you may be eligible to become a FamilySearch Solutions Provider if your business is prepared to deliver innovative solutions to help meet the needs and challenges involved in today's family history industry."

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Thanks for confirming that.

LegacyUser

Mark Hamilton Dewey said: I just want to clarify that this suggestion isn't intended to be used by developers, nor by businesses, hence containing the terminal in a web browser to prevent them from being able to access it with third-party software anymore than the GUI-based system. It wouldn't have to be a real terminal with access to the OS. Just a text prompt of some kind to circumvent the need to click and stuff.

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: From what I have seen, this is not something that would target the majority of our users.

I am not a person involved in our user studies however to know if this is something that would have wide support/usage.

If this is a feature you feel strongly about and think has a market to support it, then I expect you could submit to become a familysearch partner to develop and publish this functionality.

LegacyUser

Mark Hamilton Dewey said: Yeah, it's not intended for the majority. Most people aren't into that (although it doesn't take a lot of high qualifications by today's standards to be into such, either). But, it could increase productivity for some heavy contributors (and make a big difference because it could increase productivity by like 3000% or something, potentially). I don't have particularly strong feelings about it (it's just a casual suggestion to give food for thought; I don't have a strong expectation that it'll be implemented), other than I think just about every service (not just FamilySearch) should have such a counterpart - but that's great to keep your words in mind (that I could help to build such a thing). I am a hobbyist programmer of scripts and Python desktop applications for Linux, but I'm not an API programmer, nor do I do much server-side scripting with Python. If I contributed, I probably wouldn't be working on setting up the initial connectivity. I'm great with text parsing in Python, however. So, programming the commands people could enter and things like that would be pretty easy for me by comparison.

LegacyUser

Mark Hamilton Dewey said: Back in the day, people used to accomplish similar things with Telnet. They still do, sometimes, but it's probably not ideal for our purposes, for security reasons.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: I'd like to know more about your suggestion. 
For the query what kinds of things would you be querying?

For edits what kind of things would you want to submit?
Also, for edits, the interface today shows lots of information so the user can make an informed change or add. So Sources, Reason statements and surrounding data (like family member lifespan) are shown to make better decisions. That data would need to be shown, and in a terminal setting that could be very long and non-interactive (the user can't touch that item to see more info).