Time to voice your opinion on what columns to keep/drop

We always had photos in the access by status which meant we could print out specific and much shorter lists with photo for reference. I have a status list of things like "on order "and another a "arrived "and then a planted status by years, like "planted in 2013" as well as some odd lists, like" Mia" or "fall bulbs arrived" . When I do a status on fall bulbs arrived I then can sort that list by genius or by bed. The bed one is so helpful in hauling out the correct bulbs to be planted and then to have the visual to help with the placement in a particular bed. As of now we still can't do a secondary sort when we do a sort of the whole journal. I could do a sort by bed and then print out only the newest plants to get a print out that contained photos but that is way more time consuming and a great waste of paper as some beds only have a couple of new items. Just hoping they can return the photos to the Access by Status in the new year. Patti

Patti is right about this. I haven't looked at my journal via Status for a while because I've been concentrating on individual plant entries. I still don't understand why there were these changes to the RID/Photo column in the first place as it seemed that everyone was happy with the way it worked before.

I'm still miffed that access to the journal search is so bad since the changes - if I am in a Category or a Status or a TO-DO there is no search available. I have to either open a new tab to My Journal, or use the back button to go back to the My Journal page before I can search - this is a pain in the neck! I used to use the search all the time to go directly from one thing i was looking at to the next thing I wanted to look at and you can't do that now.

I'm also with Patti on the sorting thing. Why is it, when I open a Category my records come up sorted by Genus then species then cultivar (which is only as it should be) but I cant do a search for a Genus (say Gasteria) and then sort the results of the search by species? Arrgh!

Okay, I'm pretty sure we can address the search and photo issues for the other, more indepth views of your journals. As soon as we can get this teed up on our priority list we will. (Please bear in mind that very few people use their journals, so you're a small - but passionate - group :-)

The problem with sorting is not new - we've never had a good sorting logic (if you sort by cultivar or species, it simply alphabetizes EVERYTHING in the table by that column, and it's been that way for as long as we've had journals.m I'll see if we can do better, but I'm not holding my breath...in my experience, this is a fairly common issue with database tables...it's harder than it looks to create logical hierarchies that can intuit and anticipate every scenario a user may attempt.)

Thanks for the update. I realize that the numbers using the journal features is small, but as the DJ journal is nearly great already, I think it could be used by a much larger number if tweaked a bit more. Paring it with the DG fabulous plant data base, there is no journal on the market today that is even close to it at any price. I think aside for having more customized sorting and a blank column for personalized use it could be sold or used by many more "passionate" gardeners. I think the biggest hurdle for many is just understanding how to set it up to function as a Garden Inventory System as apposed to what it is now called, A Journal. I keep seeing people confused about the difference in the Journal and the Blog. I also think that some people without some background in inventory control or spread sheet management may find it is hard to see how to set up categorizes and status sections for their particular needs. I think for all of us it would be wonderful to see various templates as examples of how different DG people use it . It has endless possibilities and I know only the way I currently use it. I have looked at others and got some ideas, but I doubt many except current dedicated users do that, but I could be wrong.

Every time I pull mine up to give someone the answer to a question about a plant in my garden, they are dumbfounded that I have the date planted , source of purchase, bed location, genius, species, cultivar, and then drilling down to have other information like price paid, description and cultivation notes all in one spot and with a photo! Priceless. I wowed a group of the national judges from the American Daffodil Society by its efficiently and ease of use when they were visiting our spring display a few years back. I wandered about with my iPhone and could answer in a second every question about any of the over 400 cultivars in our collection. It was like magic and I appeared so smart. They knew almost all the names by sight, however they wanted to know about the vendor of many and the date when I had planted certain clumps and how much they cost for how many bulbs planted. So useful but too little known about as an invaluable tool. Patti

This message was edited Dec 18, 2013 12:16 AM

Thanks for the update Terry. I know you are busy and things have to wait their turn. I've often thought that with a bit of tweaking the "Journal" could be a salable product in it's own right! You may not know this but I've got a certain amount of history in both database design, and inventory management. What I don't have is the knowledge of modern computer languages and program construction that your techs presumably have.

I would be happy to liaise with the technical staff about potential requirements if that is what is required to get these changes off the ground. I would also be happy to take suggestions from any of the other current Journal Users on this subject if it would help to have one person to oversee the process.

Ciao, KK.

The problem with the "Access by Status" not showing photos is the same as the original problem mentioned here. The RID/Photo column was removed, but the "Entries" column remains. "Access by Status" should use the same layout as the normal view, with the "Entries" column removed, if necessary, due to programming restraints. Personally, I used the Entries column to find items that might need to have info added. The column I use least is the "Begin Date"- which brings up another bug. "Begin Date" in "Access by Status" is in the format "May 16, 2012", which is good. When viewing my Journal entries by "Access All Items", the format is "May 16", missing the year. This makes the "Begin Date" column totally useless. The date appears properly when viewing individual categories, however.

Hi everyone,

I agree with Sallie - I also use the entries column to see which plants need more information, though not all the time as my work flow is more often FROM the photographs I have taken TO my journal, rather than the other way around. What I really want to echo though, is the comment about Begin Date! The disappearance of the Year from the Begin Date was occurring BEFORE the major changes last year - it looks like it attempts to "word wrap" the date but it is cutting off the year when that goes down to the second line - it is a PAIN! Sallie did make a mistake though - it is not happening in view by status - the year word wraps and is still visible then, it is happening in Search and it always has! You can see an example of this in the third photo I have added to this post.

What IS happening in View by Status is that when you click on "Click here to prepare the items on this page for printing" all you get is a blank page headed Items of status: "Unknown" in a large font and nothing else. The URL for the blank page is http://davesgarden.com/tools/journal/printbystatus.php?status=15892 What is even weirder is that if you are in a Category and you click on "Click here to prepare the items on this page for printing" you get Viewing all items and it displays what I think is your whole journal (NOT the items in the category where you clicked) in some random order under the URL http://davesgarden.com/tools/journal/printbycat.php?cat=50491

Another thing I've been meaning to mention about dates is this bit of weirdness. Have look at the sample pictures attached - the first one is viewing an entry and you can't see the start date unless you type it into your initial comments! In fact, often the ONLY way you can see your actual start date for an entry, FROM THE ENTRY is to edit it, as shown in the second photo. This can be very dangerous as it is then possible to change something by accident which may lead to loss of data.

In particular, anything you type within double quotation marks around it will disappear when an entry is edited - I find this particularly annoying as I use double quotes to distinguish between descriptive names I have made up for a plant and formal cultivar names as I don't want to find myself passing on incorrect names to other people. When you look at the second plant down in the third picture you will see just such an entry - if I edited the entry JFS0435 "small grey leaves" Adromischus ? the text "small grey leaves" will disappear from the entry upon opening the edit screen and then if you save it without noticing the missing text and replacing it, you have lost the information.

Another thing which bugs me is that at the moment the behavior of the words in the orange headers on the entry pages is very inconsistent. You have 4 headers as follows:
Initial Comments: (No Date - it SHOULD inherit and display the "Begin Date")
Oct 11, 2006: Action I performed : [This is fine]
Sep 15, 2013: Status Update [This is fine]
Aug 10, 2007: TODO (This is now UNREADABLE you have a red TODO on an orange background - all you can see is the date on a blank orange bar! This should be a simple fix - change the word colour to Black or Blue, or change the bar colour to green or blue - I'd prefer the latter as I find the orange obnoxious for my eyesight)

Finally, I'd like to get some of the other journal users opinions on the drop down box for What type of entry is this? "Action I performed" has always confused me and I muddle it with "Status Update" at times. I'd like to be able to distinguish between things I do (like repotting which would be "Action I performed") and things the plant does (maybe call it Observation) (flowering, setting seed, etc). In my head "Status Update" doesn't mean that - I associate it ONLY with changing the value in my status column and sometimes when the plant does something it changes Status and sometimes it doesn't - My current statuses are Bulbs Planted, Dead, Dormant, Dug & Stored, Extinct, General, Germinated, Healthy, On Order, Out of Stock, Propagated, Seed Sown, Sick, Unknown, and Finished. What do other people use?

Half the time if something changes Status (ie going from seed sown to germinated often doesn't get an entry, I just use the checklist to make the Status change every few days because it is a process rather than a definable event (unless you have only one seed!) If I have photos of the germination process I would prefer to put those photos under the heading of "Observation" but having a plant die on me is a change of status I would actually record with an entry. On the other hand, if a "Healthy" plant is flowering it doesn't change status but probably does get a photo and an entry - but this is not a entry I am happy calling "Action I performed" OR "Status Update".

I'd like to propose adding the possibility of "Observation" or something of similar meaning to the list in the drop down box for What type of entry is this?: I'd really like to hear what other people think about this idea and how they use the Type of Entry choices at present. I would especially like to know which one should be the default (ie the one at the top of the list should be the one you use most so you only have to change it when you need a different type of entry)

Anyway, I think that is more than enough from me to be going on with. I look forward to hearing from you all,

Ciao, KK.