mindbend 0 Newbie Poster

Hello people, I decided to make a family tree as a graduation project, I've thought about multiple ways to make it, but I like some fresh ideas, in case i forgot some things.

I'm trying to keep the project as easy as possible, because in the end I will need to explain the code to my teachers.

I already made a schematic how I would like the tree (All family trees look the same anyways so nothing new there).
But the thing where I'm kind of stuck is the way to store/call the whole tree from the DB.
Ok, so when the "user" starts up the webapp. the first time this is the only thing he will see(see img. below).
http://i51.tinypic.com/2uz78rt.png

Those 2 squares are the beginning of the family tree(Of course the user wont see 2 empty squares) in those(and all other) squares the user will be able to fill in the: Gender/Full name/Date of birth those 3 will be available by default. And by option you will be able to fill in the date of deceased.
So after you filled in those 2 main squares the "user" will receive a "pop up?" message telling them what to do next, for the user to add children to the main squares the user will have to right click either of the squares, for a menu to appear and in the menu the "user" will be able to choose add children and/or to make the date of deceased available.
After the "user" chose to create new "children" some new squares will be drawn and will be connected to the squares above(where they were created from) by lines.
Now that I think of it I don't know if it would be better if after the "user" chose to create "children" a default of 3 squares will be drawn, and if the user doesn't require 3 squares they can just be left empty and then being ignored by the DB.
But ya, since I just thought of that I don't know if it's a good idea or not.

So anyways... my concerns were at the algorithm part(auto drawing new relations) since I haven't done that before.
And my other concern is about the DB part like I said above, how would I be able to save the data in a way that when the user comes to the site another time that the family tree looks the same as when the tree was saved last time.

I guess that was about it. To sum it all up a bit if some people got lost:P
I'd like to know if some people got any tips about the family tree.
I'd like to know if people have tips about how to save the tree to a DB but when the "user" logs back in it must be the same as when the user left it.

If I forgot something I will edit this post...

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.