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.

Each Dashboard tree card also has controls to rename, duplicate, or delete that tree. Duplicating creates a separate editable copy. Renaming changes only the label. Deleting removes the tree and cannot be undone, so confirm the tree name and people count carefully.

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. Choose Everyone to display the whole connected family at once; choosing a new subject returns to the normal subject-centred view.
• 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, husbands, and wives: add one or more partners. Salasilah uses spouse as the general term for a husband or wife.
• Married / Divorced: in the person's Family section, click the pill beside a spouse to toggle the marriage status between Married and Divorced. A divorced spouse remains connected so their shared children and family history stay intact.
• Unlink: use the unlink icon beside a parent, spouse, or child when the relationship is wrong. Unlink removes only that family link; it does not delete either person. For a spouse, this removes the marriage link entirely, unlike marking it Divorced.
• Move Parents / move family: use Move Parents to replace a person's current parents. Choose the new mother first, then the father from her recorded spouses. Use this when someone was attached to the wrong family rather than deleting and recreating them.
• Delete person: open the person's editor and use Delete person at the bottom. Deletion cannot be undone. If the person is correct and only a connection is wrong, use Unlink instead.
• 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 mode / light mode: use the Dark / Light toolbar control to change the app appearance. The separate Theme control changes the tree-card colours.
• Repair (owners): the badge counts people who are disconnected, have only one recorded parent, or whose two known co-parents are not linked as spouses. Open Repair and choose an item to edit the relevant person and add the missing link. Repair is a checklist and does not alter relationships automatically.

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 named email (an email allowlist), invite someone to help build a branch, let them take their own copy, or grant trusted people live access. A live view or live-access grant is different from an ordinary share: it shows the full, current tree without redaction and is intended only for someone you trust.

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).

1. Assign a branch: choose Help build it when sharing, enter the contributor's email, and choose the person their branch should start from.
2. They work in a copy: after signing in and accepting, the contributor adds or corrects people without changing your main tree.
3. Monitor progress: the Dashboard's collaboration panel shows when their copy changes and lets you open it before merging.
4. Review the merge: Salasilah shows additions, updates and conflicts first. Nothing is written until you resolve any questions and choose Apply merge.
5. Undo if necessary: use Undo merge to reverse that merge's changes. The contributor's copy and work remain intact.

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.
• GEDCOM import / export: GEDCOM (.ged) is the standard plain-text format for moving a family tree between genealogy applications. Import it from the Dashboard or choose GEDCOM in the tree's Export dialog. It includes people and family relationships, including living people's names, but not Salasilah photos, private notes, biographies, or tags. GEDCOM cannot be password-encrypted by Salasilah, so store and share the file securely.

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, and it is open to everyone — anyone with a Google account can sign in and start building right away. There is no approval step and no waiting list.
• 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.
• Invite someone to start: use Invite on the Dashboard to copy the shared Salasilah join URL. Anyone who opens that URL and signs in can start their own tree; it does not give them access to yours. Use a Share or collaboration link when you intend to give access to an existing tree.

Glossary