Suggestion/enhancement for tradelists vs. inventory list

Several folks on this thread were discussing how it's getting difficult to do trades with tradelists as people are using them for inventory rather than trade availability. Thread- - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1038977/

Here are some suggestions:

I have often thought that an inventory page would be a useful feature for DG, until I realized I could just disable the items in my list.
I still think a separate inventory page would be nice, and then the item could be moved to the trade list, so it would help avoid this problem. You would start out with a blank tradelist, fill in inventory first, and rather then disable, have to ENABLE from your inventory to your tradelist to have it show up. You have to purposefully move it to make it seen.

Also with an inventory list you could keep track of your available trade quantities, which is something the tradelist does not do, as well as seasonal availability; spring or fall, etc.

I want to bump this post up because it needs serious attention. I just started a thread concerning the same subject matter and am waiting for replys. I keep my personal inventory on my own computer, but an inventory page on DG would be excellent. Also,it would be good to pick your own photo, in case that's not available already... I'm kind of a newbie here!

I am definitely planning on making an inventory application for DG. It's in the works. :)

Thanks Dave!

Alright Dave! Thank you so much, convenience of an inventory list will be a great addition and asset! I'm really looking forward to having an inventory list!

Quick question: would this inventory system behave exactly as the tradelist application?

I will be thrilled with whatever is decided for an inventory system ... I have been thinking of doing a personal inventory on my computer where I can list my plants alphabetically and make notes re: care, culture, color of bloom etc. for each but I have yet to get very far. I began a list of my Hoya plants but it's buried somewhere so it's been a bit of a hassle to keep it updated.

I love the idea of having a system with our information here on DG .. I could access my own list as well as info in PF at the same time!

< Quick question: would this inventory system behave exactly as the tradelist application?>

It depends of what you mean. Do you mean content wise (fields?) or something else?

To me it would be separate, with the same base features as the trade list, but more, and most importantly for a different purpose.

Examples:
You could just take the existing tradelist, turn it into an inventory list, add quantity info (for those of us who keep track of that) and seasonal info (what season it's available it). And then change the tradelist to be an extension of this, where it only shows up on your tradelist as available when you enable it.
Basically you put things in your inventory list (that is your base list) then enable /disable to make it public.

So it could be like what we have now for a tradelist (with more features), and instead of automatically enabled, you have to manually enable it (instead of manually disabling it) And when it is enabled it shows up in a different color or font so it's easy to find.
Then the inventory list is the main list, and the trade list is a representation of that list that you wish to make public.

In any case an inventory list would have more fields that the current tradelist. It would definitely need a column for quantity, availability dates, field where you can add DGnames for people you sent the plant/seeds to (could feed from trader tracker?), notes fields, etc. If you added notes fields like your diary of growing condtions (germination, soil ph, sun or shade etc) you could also use this data to populate more info into plant files. (activate/deactivate from your inventory list to have it show up in plantfiles?)
Most of the people I know that use inventory spreadsheets mostly use them to track inventory during swaps and trades, and for germination rates, etc.
I'm almost thinking out loud here of a way to tie together all the features of DG driven from an inventory sheet. That's my dream anyway. :)

How is that for a use case? ( I should mention that in my day job I'm in Software QA- which might explain the lengthy use case :) )

Patricia

Patricia,

This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for - thank you! Your post has been very helpful to me in my planning of this feature.

Dave

I use my trade list as my own personal inventory now, and have everything disabled, so it doesn't show up on a trade list. The only additional column I would like to see is a place to list where I got the plant from, or if grown from seed.

Deb

I use the jounels for everything not for trade(yet). Plant material,seeds,WS,my own personal plant stock,etc.It's not a prefect system yet but it helps me keep track of what I have on hand,what I need to propagte or sow and so on.

Peggy