Online journal - getting started

It should show up right away. There's a bug that occasionally happens where the link won't get made for some plants. I have it happen to me about 5-10% of the time on plants that I import. I've tried going back later and re-importing the plants where the link didn't come through and it still didn't work, so it must be something weird with those particular plants. The other thing to check though is whether you're looking in the right place for it--when you click on "view" to view that entry, the PF link is all the way at the bottom of the page under all the options of things you can do to your entry, is it possible you just weren't scrolling down far enough to see it?

I double checked all three entries (Daylily Casual Pleasure, Daylily Aurora's Wedding, and Daylily "Bably Blues"), but none of them had the link at the bottome of the view page entries. Strangely, I'm positive that yesterday I entered a Daylily called "Enchanted Butterfly" manually (not using the plantfile) and today it had the link to the plantfile under initial information, but after I edited part of that field, the link disappeared. I then deleted everything and started again to add plants from the plantfile with no luck in getting the links to show up.

There's no way you could have had a link to Plant Files unless you imported it from PF, manually created entries can't have that. Also, if you edit some of the fields (common name, genus, species, cultivar) then I think the link goes away because it's no longer the same plant that's in PF. So if you've been editing any of those fields that could be why your link's not there.

It's possible there's just a problem with some of the daylilies--I tend to grow things from a number of different genera so I only notice the problem occasionally, but I remember someone else who was entering a bunch of plants of the same genus ran into the problem with a lot more entries. So my suspicion is that there are blocks of plants in PF that have something wrong with them that won't allow the link to be created.

I'm still not 100% sure you're looking in the right place for the link, so just to doublecheck, here's a screenshot from my journal, as far as I know you have to be on the page that looks like this in order to see the PF link, it won't show up anywhere else.

Thanks for all the info. I checked your thumbnail and my view pages do not have the link to the plantfile at the bottom like yours. This, for me, is a serious drawback to using the journal as I had intended. Did you by any chance try loading one of the daylilies I mentioned from the plant file to one of your jounals to see if you can reproduce this problem? I was loading mine to the default journal.

How can I request a bug fix for this problem? I would also suggest a way to link directly from the user's journal page to the plantfile to facilitate loading large numbers of plants. I have quite a few daylilies to load, so I'm hoping this bug with can be fixed before I spend all that time populating my journal. Aside from the daylilies, I have about 100 hostas to load, but haven't tried any yet.

Just tried a couple of other things and I think I've solved my problem by a different route. I loaded Hosta "June" from the plantfile into two different categories - one at level 1, and the other at level 2. Neither had the link when I viewed it. But I tried cutting and pasting the link from the plantfile page for Hosta "June" into the Initial Comments field and that worked fine. Now I can link back to the plantfile from the view page using that link.

While learning how to use and update my Journal, I've need help from time to time. Searching this thread for answers has helped every time. Thank you to everyone for their contributions to this thread.

Over the last few days I have added 11 categories, 8 statuses and 52 items -- I think I started in my default journal, although it always showed 0 items, the top of the page said I was in my Default Journal. When adding the items, I was able to use the Access by Category section. Last night, I decided to create a new Journal called Plant List and moved all of the items, I thought were in my Default Journal, to the Plant List journal -- I received a message that the move was completed. Now I can no longer access any of the items I created. The Access by Category section is gone and I can't even access the items by status or from the TODO list -- all say I have no items. I tried changing the journal from Default to Plant List and still nothing. The main Journal summary page shows I have 11 categories, 8 statuses, 52 items and 2 journals (default and Plant List), both show 0 items.

I noticed a few others in this thread had a similar problem and tried some of the things they did (logout and back in again, rebooting, changing internet security/privacy, making my journal public) -- no of that worked.

Please Help!!! I'm addicted to my journal and going through withdrawl.

Michael

There does seem to be something weird going on--I went to look at your journal and it shows that you have 52 items, but then for both your individual items it says that you have 0 items in them. I don't know where your entries are hiding, but I don't think this is something you can fix yourself--hopefully Dave or Terry will be along shortly and be able to help you with it, but if you don't hear anything in a day or two, you might try using the "contact us" link at the bottom of the page to request assistance.

Thanks ecrane3! I also sent this in an email using "contact us".

ecrane3 -- haven't heard from anyone from "contact us". Does it usually take a few days?

They usually respond within a day or two in my experience (although I am usually contacting them about people illegally advertising, and there may be a separate queue for things like that which are going to impact the larger DG community vs things that just affect one person). Over the weekends things can be slower, the admins have families and gardens too! The first thing I would check is to make sure you really sent the message--after you type up your message, the first screen it takes you to is just previewing your message, you then have to click send from that page or else the message doesn't really go through. Go into your D-mail, in there you should see the message you sent, if you don't see it there they you probably never actually sent the message. But if it's been sent, then they have it so you'll just have to be patient, for all I know there might be 50 other people in front of you in line waiting for their journals to be fixed too!

Now I have started using my journal! How do I make the settings so I can allow other users to view my journal?
Beth

When you first go into your journal, under the heading "Main Menu" you'll see a link for privacy settings.

thanks!

I AM LOST! I need to delete my entries to my JOURNAL and start over after i have a better concept of how it works. I always keep a notebook, and it is easy; this may be to much for me right now and I will have to come back to what is a great tool, maybe the next spring/winter and try then after some reading up on it.

How can I clear all of the journal out to start fresh in a future time???
THANKS
fernman23 aka:Darren

First you need to delete all the entries in the journal, then if you go to your journal main page, under the main menu header you'll see an option to manage journals, and in there you'll see instructions to delete your journal. Or if that's too much work, you can just leave that journal alone and make a new one which you can do any way you want (making a new journal is also one of the "manage journals" options.)

I can honestly say, I have no idea how to do anything with my journal.
It looks like I did stuff to it a few years ago, but i can't remember how.

Dave, can you delete everything I did to it so I can start fresh.
I tried but it wouldnt delete lol.

Dear Terry,
This thread is just too long. i saved items under a jounral called cactus and succulents and one underr orchids and one called Summer 2006. Then i decided I would put my cactus and succulants by catagory and subcatagory (famiy, species etc.) I can't open any of the plants i've already saved to put into new catagories and don't know what to do. Could you look at it and tell me how to find my stuff and hopefully how to move some of it so it's a little more orderly?
Thanks,
Maureen

I wonder if you're going into your journal the wrong way? There are two ways to get to your journal, one way you see your journal the way everyone else on the site would see it (if you've marked it public) but when you go in that way then you can't edit it, you can only look at things. The way to get to it so you can edit is to go to the "My Tools" tab, then go to the link for your journal. Once you're in there you should be able to open the plants you have and change categories however you want.

This thread was designed mainly as a how-to to get folks started, but it has gotten too long, so I'm going to close it to any additional comments.

If you have specific questions (or comments/suggestions) about the journals, please feel free to start a new thread in this forum ;o)