Salasilah — Users Guide

What Salasilah is

Salasilah is a tool for recording your family lineage as a tree of people and the relationships between them, then sharing selected parts of it — privately and safely — with relatives. It also computes Faraid (Islamic inheritance shares) over the people in your tree, for learning and reference.

A few ideas are worth understanding up front, because the rest of the app builds on them:

Quick start

1 · Create a tree

From your Dashboard, create a new tree and give it a name (e.g. “Hassan Clan”). You can own several trees — each is a separate lineage. Open a tree to enter the tree view, where all the building and navigating happens.

2 · Add people

A brand-new tree is empty. Click + Add Person in the toolbar to add the first person — usually yourself or an ancestor to build outward from. Enter at least a Full name; everything else is optional.

Once someone is on the canvas, grow the family from the Family section of their card / edit panel:

• Add son / Add daughter — a child (gender is set by which button you click).
• Add father / Add mother — a parent.
• Add spouse — a partner.

For any of these you can either create a new person or link an existing one already in the tree. When you add a child you'll be asked for the co-parent (the child's other parent) so the lineage is unambiguous. See Relationships for the details.

3 · Navigate

• Move around: drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, or use the floating nav pad. Press F to fit the whole tree on screen.
• Show more / fewer generations: open the Generations control in the toolbar and use its Ancestors ↑ and Descendants ↓ steppers to set how many generations appear around the subject.
• Re-center: click a card to focus it; press T to make the highlighted person the new subject, or C to center back on the current subject.
• Choose what shows: the Show menu toggles siblings, aunts/uncles, spouses, dates, and photos.
• Find someone: press P (or /) to jump to search.

4 · Share it

Click Share. In Simple mode, one click creates a read-only link protected by Google sign-in — no passcode is required. The recipient can explore the shared tree but cannot change it. Switch to Advanced when you need more control — see Sharing in depth.

5 · Calculate Faraid

On any person's card, click the Faraid calculator glyph (or press K on the highlighted card). Salasilah treats that person as the deceased (si mati) and computes each heir's share from the relatives currently visible on the canvas. You get a Sijil Faraid (certificate) you can download as a PDF, with a step-by-step Perincian (breakdown). See Faraid — and note the disclaimer: it is for learning and reference, not a legally binding ruling.

6 · Back up / export

• Export the current view as a PDF (or SVG) to print or send — press E or use the Export option.
• Export the whole tree as an encrypted JSON file (you set a password). This is a complete, portable backup — it includes your private notes — and can be re-imported later. See Import / export.

Reference · Person fields

The Add/Edit panel has two modes — Simple (the everyday fields) and Advanced (power-user extras). Toggle between them at the top of the panel; your choice is remembered in your browser. Only Full name is required.

Simple fields

Advanced fields

Reference · Relationships

• Parents: add a father and/or mother to any person.
• Children: use Add son / Add daughter — the button you pick sets the child's gender up front.
• Spouses: add one or more partners.
• Create new vs link existing: for any relative you can create a fresh person or connect one already in the tree (so cousins who marry, or a person who appears in two branches, are linked rather than duplicated).

Tip: while editing an existing person, manage their relatives from the Family section of the edit panel.

Reference · The tree view

• Subject vs focus: the subject is who the tree is centered on; the focus is the currently highlighted card (a cyan glow) that you move with the arrow keys. Press T to promote the focused card to subject.
• Generations: the toolbar's Generations control opens Ancestors ↑ / Descendants ↓ steppers — how many levels of ancestors / descendants show around the subject (0–7).
• Show menu: toggle Siblings, Aunts/Uncles, Spouses, Parent lines, Dates, and Photos.
• Collapse a branch: a card with hidden descendants shows a badge with its child count; press X on the focused card (or use its toggle) to collapse/expand.
• Fit / center / fullscreen: F fits the tree, C centers on the subject, and Fullscreen gives an immersive, toolbar-free view. (In fullscreen the on-card Edit and Faraid buttons are hidden — it's a view-only mode.)
• Dark / light: toggle the colour theme from the toolbar.

Reference · Keyboard shortcuts

Reference · Sharing in depth

A share lets you decide both how much of your tree to share and what the recipient should be able to do. Simple creates a one-click, read-only link protected by Google sign-in — no passcode is required. The recipient can explore the shared tree but cannot change it.

Switch to Advanced when you want to add a passcode, restrict access by email, invite someone to help build a branch, let them take their own copy, or grant trusted people live access. Live access is different from an ordinary share: it shows the full, current tree without redaction.

Managing access: Advanced mode lists your existing links and live-access grants, where you can review or revoke them. The “N shared” badge on a dashboard tree card is a shortcut to the same controls.

Reference · Privacy & redaction

Salasilah is built to protect the living. When you create a share, it automatically:

• Hides the names of living people (and their birth year) — they appear as a neutral placeholder, so a public-ish link can't expose a living relative's identity.
• Drops honorific / noble prefixes from displayed names.
• Strips your private fields — Salutations, Note, and Biography never leave with a share or fork.

Under Malaysia's PDPA, you are the controller of your family-tree content and Salasilah acts as your processor; personal, family, or household use may fall under the household exemption. The full details are in the Privacy Policy.

Reference · Fork a shared tree

Changes made in a fork can be merged back into the source tree — the owner reviews every change before anything is applied, and can undo a merge afterwards. You can also merge one of your own trees into another (say, a small branch you built separately into your master tree).

Reference · Faraid

Faraid is the Islamic law of inheritance. Salasilah computes each heir's share from the people in your tree — entirely on the server, using a dedicated engine.

• Opening it: click the Faraid glyph on a card, or press K on the highlighted card. That person becomes the deceased (si mati), and the calculation uses the relatives currently visible on the canvas — so make sure the heirs you care about are shown.
• Detail levels: the result has tabs — Sijil Faraid (the certificate with each heir's fraction and share), Perincian (a step-by-step breakdown of how the shares were derived, with citations), and Borang Waris (the heir form).
• PDF: download the certificate to print or keep.
• Who counts: only people with Include in Faraid on are counted; gender and living/deceased status matter to the maths.

Reference · Import / export

• View export (PDF / SVG): save the current on-screen view — good for printing a branch or sending a snapshot.
• Full-tree export (encrypted JSON): a complete, portable copy of a tree, protected by a password you set. It includes your private notes/biography, so keep the password safe. Salasilah remembers the password for the last export so you can retrieve it.
• Import: load an exported JSON back in (with its password). If a tree of the same name already exists, the import is named uniquely (e.g. appends “(2)”) so it never overwrites.

Reference · Photos

• Add: upload a file or paste an image from the clipboard (Ctrl+V — handy for screenshots). Accepts JPG/PNG/GIF/WebP up to 2 MB; the file type is verified by its contents, not its name.
• Frame: use Reposition to drag the photo to pan and scroll / use the slider to zoom. The square preview is exactly what shows on the card; the crop saves automatically.
• Remove: clears the photo from the person.

Reference · Account & access

• Signing in: Salasilah uses Google sign-in. New accounts may need approval before full access is granted.
• Your trees: everything you build lives under your account and is private to you until you share it.
• Experience — Simple or Advanced: the control in the top bar. New accounts start on Simple, which keeps power-user tools (like Merge) off the screen until you want them. Switch to Advanced at any time to reveal them, and back whenever you like — it’s your own setting, it sticks across devices, and it changes only what you see, never what you’re allowed to do.

Glossary