Changes to the 'Files

I completely agree but I don't see how a search for anything shouldn't be narrowed down alphabetically or some other logical user friendly way. I just don't understand it.

I have to agree too...it is unlikely now I will renew my DG subscription solely based on the unfriendly search changes.

My frustration actually sent me on a mission to see if anyone else was having difficulty with the new PF platform...which brought me here to this thread.
Unfortunately, Nope I'm not the only one!

I had the same issues that are stated above, logic in the new platform should have been considered.

With the same logic about the tech people, Its like saying I'll have my roofer build my boat...there both wood, there both construction.

Searching the plant files here was always a little hit-and-miss, but it rewarded persistence and remained my favorite site for in-depth information and real-gardener comments on most everything I was trying to decide about buying/planting. But for a couple of months now I've been completely perplexed!

Before this, a basic search in the plant files would often fail to get what I wanted, but "more results" would get me a list where I could usually find it. Now, "more results" just kicks me to a generic page with non-pertinent stuff. I did manage to finally find something just now that multiple searches had not found, but ten minutes later I have no idea what I did differently to make it work!

I scanned this thread and it sounds like "advanced search" now has a lot of added features. But when I search for something all I want is that particular plant. I don't need to filter by color or genus or whatever. Why can't a basic search just turn up a plant when I have the name right? Or at least "more results" that are actually more results?

An example:
"Fritillaria persica" turns up many fritillarias and only at the very bottom of the list is an "ivory bells" variant (with no photos) that is actually "fritillaria persica," but "more results" has nothing in it. However, "persian fritillary" turns up a "fritillaria persica" (the more common purple one) that I would never have found if I didn't already know it was there because I put photos in that file.

Here is "Fritillaria Persica" as entered into the "Searching Dave's Garden" search box. There are actually 8 non-persica types before the Ivory Bells at the bottom. Under that is a clickable "more results" (not "more plants"), which dead-ends to the general page. This is the link that used to get me a fuller listing if I didn't get what I needed in the original search.

Oh Redbudzz-I see what is happening- you are using the "Search Dave's Garden" box in the upper right, not the PlantFiles search box in the mid left of the Plant Files page. The search DG box seems unable to search for two words, and seems to only work for one word, which is lousy but has always been that way I think.
For Terry- This is probably what almost everyone is doing. There is so much stuff on the page, and it is organized kind of like the Microsoft 'Tiles' thing that is so hard to use because there is no organization to it, and the eye is not led to the important stuff. Important stuff needs to be front and center, and made easy to find. And where you have TWO search boxes on the page, a note or something would help people know which to use.

Yes, Pistil, that's what I've usually done, and it used to work in it's imprecise way. In fact, I kind of like getting the article links too. While I do use the "plant search" box at times, it is always the "search DG" box that is visible, and it is confusing in just the way you say. Not only that, but after using the "plant search" box, the resulting search results page or plant page doesn't show the "plant search" box at all... This could also be a valuable fix, Terry -- so that after either finding or not finding what you're looking for, you can continue with the same kind of search you've just done. I think that is generally what people expect, not having to backtrack to the search page. Personally, I like to do this because then I can easily follow my breadcrumbs back to something I found earlier.

Regardless of how the search boxes are rearranged, I still think the "more results" link should provide more results -- that seems broken.

Thanks for your help!

First off, I'm not opposed to change. . .BUT I'm very opposed to change for change's sake!! Why "fix" something when it ain'[t broke???

Every yeaer, I make heavy use of PF to plan what to plant in my gardens as I'm rather a beginner and need to search by requirements. . . .period. I don't know common names or taxonomic classification, and don't have a preference for color: outside basic requirements, the options are open. The OLD PF was very user friendly, letting me enter requirements and bringing up plants that met them; as opposed to the NEW PL, which is NOT user-friendly etc.

Specifically, I tried to use PF to plan next year's gardens , entering basic requirements in general search (result:nothing, it wouldn't search without some form of a plant name) So I tried advance search (results: 1st & 3rd attempts: nothing, same as general search) and 2nd search gave 21 pages but the first 3 pages were rampant with plants that did NOT meet the requirements so I quit in frustration).

The new "look", with large banners and other distracting stuff, make PF LOOK like its modern, with expected search features. . . . but once past the opening page, the NEW PF is LESS user-friendly, search results are questionably reliable as this feature has been "improved" to the point of being largely useless, etc.

Have yoiu considered putting a button / link so the user can choose to revert (actually USE) the working OLD PF? If y'alls intention is to make the NEW PF look and behave modern ie with the times, this user option should be available: a couple of the other web sites I frequent have this option.

PS I'm using a PC with Windows 7 and Firefox to view this web site. My search requirements were/are no more than 18 inches tall, full sun, average well-draining soil which is slightly alkaline, average water requirements. additional personal preferences: no bushes or shrubs, nothing with poisonous parts , thorns or stickers, continous bloomer from early summer thru fall / frost, drought tolerant. . .

good try but under "Popular Categories" there IS no "Annuals" or "Perrennials". :(

What there is (closest to) is the category "Troppicals and tender perrennials". Not anywhere near what I need, so you might want to consider putting both "Annuals" and "Perrenials" under Popular Categories.

Thanks Terry!

I was planning to stop watching this thread. I decided to check it one last time and I'm really glad I did. Somehow I never realized all the plant types included on the dropdown list, even though I have used the advanced filter.

It allowed me to narrow my search down further & brought up some plants & varieties that I probably would not have found otherwise.

Terry that sounded like a good way to search things, so I tried it-
I found Popular Categories, found Perennials from the drop down menu, then advanced search, and clicked on

I do not remember all the issues that have been address, but I'll share what I believe is a bug in the bug files. :) I have not checked the other Files to see if this is the case there, too.

I was able to get to the Banded Argiope http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/2077 using the search on the main page for the BugFiles. I clicked on the Genus Argiope to see all the other spiders in that genus. It took me to the page labelled "Viewing all bugs from order "Araneae" and family "Araneidae". It says there are eight pages.

Then when I tried both, next and page 2, I end up at a "Searching BugFiles" page, showing a lot of different insects with 614 pages.

I checked my cookies and davesgarden shows up.

Well that was strange-half of my monologue lost!
What I had said, more or less, is that when I tried the search function, and clicked on white flowers, under 6", and zone 8, and filled in all the other boxes too, what I got was a massive list, many pages, but hardly any of them had white flowers!
When I looked a bit closer, I found that all of the ones listed were species that have a white cultivar available, but that is not what came up! There was a purple iris that grows over 6". So this search function is a bit screwy, and not very useful. I never used it before, so I don't know if it worked better then. The way it is now it will turn off all but the most determined user.
Once the function is fixed, I think it needs to be made a bit more accessible, I would never have thought to look under "popular categories" for a search function like this.

Terry,

You're welcome. :) And thank you for passing it on.

I'm now getting ads in PlantFiles. I'm pretty sure I didn't see any yesterday when I was looking up several new plants I'd purchased. In my preferences, I only have the first item checked - "Top Watchdog Ads". Somehow I don't think grandma's wrinkle cream or somebody's cloud server are in that category ;-)

Screenshots show that I am still logged in and that, for some reason, AdBlock appears to not be working either.

The cloud server ad is especially annoying as it stays put as I scroll down the page.

This is Re: BugFiles.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but when I clicked on "Hymenoptera (part 2) - Bees" (on the main page) I got a picture and a little background info about bees at the top of the page followed by lots of pictures of Moths, but no Bees.

You used to be able to click on a family if you didn't know the specific name and get lists of insects in that family, many with pictures.

Is that still available? Am I missing something or is this a glitch in BugFiles? Is anybody else running into this?

Is this possibly all part of the same problem Chillybean mentioned in a previous post?

Thanks

Edited to say: I also tried typing in some basic names like Bumble Bee and Honey Bee. Bumble Bee did come up with a list of Bumble Bees, but Honey Bee only showed a Honeybrown Beetle.



This message was edited Sep 14, 2015 1:39 PM

I just ran into that problem palmbob mentioned earlier, the one where PF search no longer suggests alternate spellings. A DG member had asked me to help with a search for "brugsmansia", a word I copied directly from other DG memeber's correspondence. PF returned no matches even though I knew PF had many brugs. After trying several frustrating attempts with PF, I turned to google where I learned that the correct spelling is, of course, "brugmansia".

The problem as I see it is that the more people have to go to google for help, the more likely they are to just start using google as their main resource.

While trying to find brugs in PF (using the wrong spelling), I found another thing which I think needs serious adjustments. When the advanced search tool failed to find the misspelled 'brugsmansia', I tried the link to search by genus. That tool would be MUCH more useful if the pages were broken down by letters of the alphabet, so that one could quickly jump to the 1st letter of the word for which he/she is looking. Brugmansia was on the 39th page! That made for a lot of frustration clicking on page links to get to 39. I did jump forward by 10s (or as many pages as possible), but it was still frustrating. I cannot begin to imagine the frustration of searching for Zenobia or even Yucca using that tool.

Edited to fix typo.

This message was edited Sep 14, 2015 2:29 PM

And neginners like me sre apt to misspell things ESPECIALLY if you don;t know about the plant yet!

I really hate to say this. In fact, I've started this post a few times and tossed it. I can see that a lot of work went into the new PF advanced search tool, but, honestly, I liked the old one better. This one has way too much 'stuff' for my taste. Just my 2 cents.

I can see how all that new stuff may come in handy some day if I want to look for things of a certain color or things that grow in a certain zone range, etc, but for just plain old searches by common name, genus, species, etc, the kind of searches I do 99.99% of the time, I much prefer the old tool. I wish you had left an option (link) to use the old tool (like the option you used to have). Again, I know a lot of work went into the new tool, and it may well be helpful for some people.

That said, although it's a little cluttered for my taste, I can use new tool just fine. Just stating my preference. I realize that it's human nature to hate change. As I was saying recently, I think the cavemen who embraced change were probably eaten by saber-tooth tigers before they had the chance to pass on their genes, leaving the human race to inherit only the foot-stomping, change-hating genes instead.

Forgot to mention that, based on my 1st impression, I actually do like the way the new advanced search tool presents results. I only used it once, but so far I like that part better. After saying the things I didn't like, I thought I should give kudos to the one I did like.

Lol at the change-hating foot-stomping cavemen, DreamOfSpring!

Thanks, Terry! I kind of figured it might be the same issue with BugFiles, but I wasn't sure.

DOS ~ hahaha, I guess I'm one of those that inherited the change-hating gene. I like to use the same coffee mug every day. Eventually it breaks and I'm forced to use different one. Then the change is actually kind of nice. :o)

And good Old Blue - my 2001 Camry with 468,000 miles.

Quite sad when she was towed away to the great Recycler in the Sky...

At least you knew where it went! Lol

I am actually getting used to the new PlantFiles. I am on there a lot as I add new photos. I think the homepage of PlantFiles looks a lot more professional and I love all the plant photos that are on it.

Also now that I know where to look for things, I find searching is not such a misery! I actually found a thread yesterday I was looking for in about 2 seconds where I had mentioned the word lachenalia 5 years ago. That was great.

Like Dream of Spring, I too mostly use the PF's search to find a specific plant. I usually have the genus and specie name and have no interest to search by color on and on. It would be great if you could add another SEARCH button directly under the boxes that you add in family/genus/species etc so you do not have to scroll all the way down to the end of the page after all those other search items. Just makes it faster.

I was on Yelp last night and I see they too have poster comments now superimposed on the bottom of each photo instead of totally below the photo. I was thinking if this is the new way to fit on held held devices, maybe they figured a way to have many more of the photos available for viewing at one time instead of the 4 PFs now has in a scroll bar for Yelp still has a big gallery of photos you can see at a glance.. We could copy it!!!

So after all my complaints, most of which had not been voiced outside of my head, the new PlantFiles ends up not being the worst thing ever. LOL And I am glad about that!!! I probably will even like it more than the old way after a bit more time.

And I so appreciate how you all are trying to tweak it to be even more user friendly. I know many of us have been very negative. It must be so hard to be on the receiving end of that for so long. And you never got testy! Pretty good!

Just to be clear, I was trying to explain my own resistance to change when I wrote that caveman thing. :-)

I went from Wikipedia (where I learned of the existence of "celtuce" to PF. I ctrl-V Lactuca sativa var. asparagina" into the first search thing I came across and bam. I got a picture and Farmerdill's comments on it. Pretty smooth!

Once I figured out where to start a common search ie not advanced or a search for all of DG, it was really easy. I'm not great with computers so even if there is a glitch I assume it's just me.