Journal "wish list" requests here, please

If I could add entries directly from the Plant Files to my journal, I'd be more inclined to work on the Journal. Besides, if a plant isn't in the plant files, maybe it would encourage some to add it to the plant files?

So, add me to the list of others above who would like to add to my journal from the plantfiles, or Langbrs wish #1.

I just thought of something I would like today, as I'm planning for my 2006 vegetable garden.

My ideal journal would have the feature where I could copy an item from one journal into a new or different journal. For example, I would like to copy my artichoke entry from my 2005 vegetable garden journal into my new 2006 vegetable garden journal.

Hi Clover1,

I think you can accomplish that if you (1) clone the item and then (2) move the clone to other journal.

My ideal journal would allow me to post a photo on the far left of each entry... for example, if I have an entry for a certain plant, I can choose a photo (thumbnail) in the row of that entry... would vastly help me to not only find things, but appreciate them more.

Sign me up for that wish, please. ; )

I'd love to be able to download/synch my journal to my palm pda so that when I'm outside I can access the info.

I know this isn't quite as convenient, but sometimes I take my wireless laptop out to the garden. It worked really well when I took inventory to add all of my existing items to my journal at startup.

That's a good suggestion, however, I'm still in the dark ages with no laptop and dial-up connection.
Sigh

Someday.....

:)

I would love to be able to do a mass edit of selected entries. This would allow me to take a group of plants that have the same location and only do one edit. I am doing a list of 20+ hosta that are all being planted together in the same bed, so it would save me all those location edits. Or if I wanted to make new entries of a group of cultivars I was adding to my garden (IE:Japanese Iris), I could then go back and do a mass edit to give them all the same genus rather doing each entry. And if they were being planted together I could do just one more mass edit to give them all the same bed location. This would make adding groups of similar plants very quick. (helpful for those hosta, daylily, lily and iris-oholics) Thanks, Patti

Looking back, so many of these wants have been given to us. The addition of the diary fulfilled a lot of requests. I still have issues with the privacy thing in my journal though. I'm not talking about whether or not some parts could be private and some not, although that would still be nice. Maybe some journals switched and some not, as we can make any number of journals besides the default. Not the issue of whether members or subscribers could view. I'm just a little hung up on my journal being open to the whole www. Would rather have a choice to just let members and subscribers view my journal. I know the other side of the argument about there being no privacy on the Internet, but still, this is what I would wish. Other than that, I love the features and ease of use, and say thank you, Dave. I appreciate it.

Hello Again,

I would like the Journal and Diary to have the most recent posts at the top, rather than the bottom.
A small graphic at the top could easily state that is how the threads run. Not sure if it's possible though since all other sections in DG run in reverse, but it's worth a mention.

Thank you again for so many upgrades!

Take Care,
Annie

I think it used to be that way and was changed by popular request to be chronological, so that the diary told the story in the order in which it happened, rather than having to go through backwards. I'd rather keep it how it is.

A compromise... How about a viewer having an option as to how to view it?

I've been creating TODO items set for much later in the season or even next spring in an attempt to create a garden calendar/plan for myself. I'd love it if my TODO items which are upcoming for the week could be emailed to me as a reminder. Or integrated into a calendar feature.

Hi Dave. Would it be possible to have another choice of openess with our journals. Possibly open just to subscribers, open to the world, or closed? Thanking you in advance for your consideration.

echoes

1. I want to be able to clone an entire existing Journal and move it to a new Journal. I want to have the contents placed in one main journal so I can disperse them to different categories and subcategories.
2. I would like to be able to print by sort order of choice (not always by common name) such as by location or genus. The common name default in printing is the least helpful sort order for finding entries on a printed list. Patti

This is a suggestion for the Diary:

I would like the Tab List on the diary page that opens on the "View Others' Diaries" link to be arranged in the same order as the Tab List that shows on the page when you "Manage Your Diary".

I know Dave fixed it so that we can arrange the Tab List on the 'Manage' page to our liking. I think it would be nice if the other page corresponded. (I mentioned this on another thread, and if you already took note of that, I apologize for the redundant request!)

I'm having fun with the Diary, and thanks again for that feature, Terry and Dave!

I have now figured out how to do # 2 on my list, so I have but one request for the wish list now. Patti

Patti, I still think request #2 should stick around--you don't get the same info printed when you do it from the screen rather than from the print function, so I think it would be nice to have the option to sort how you want in the print function too.

ecrane3, You are so correct, but I was so pleased to have the function to print via location or genus plus having the pictures printed, I forgot the bigger picture and the lack of information. But this feature was hugely helpful while planting all my bulbs by beds with the pictures attached to the printout. I laid them out and my DH drilled the holes and I filled behind him. It went so quickly. Hopefully it will bloom as nice as it looked on paper! I bit the bullet and started a parallel journal by bed. It is proving confusing at the moment. But as I started with the new bulbs, I will clone away with the previously entered plants one by one from my main Journal as the winter comes. I couldn't figure out any other way to have all the information I wanted. Patti

I like the feature that allows you to perform the same step on multiple items by checking their boxes and then choosing from the menu items at the bottom of the page: Change Status, Change Catagory. Now if you added a few more menu options to that: Check/Uncheck All, Copy to Catagory. The latter would let you copy a large section of items to the new journal all at once, among other things.

Also, I LOVE those thumbnails, even though I've been too busy this summer to get them all filled in - yet. But I keep clicking on thumbnails expecting them to expand to full size pics as thumbs often do. It would be awfully nice if they did - not for me, of course, but for visitors who might not realize that they can still get to the full size photo by clicking "view". Just trying to be thoughtful of others ; )

I've noticed that when I add a plant from PlantFiles to my journal, there is a wonderful link back to the plantfile page. However, if I clone the entry and move it to another category, everything is copied except for that link.

Hope this make sense. Take a look at my journal and you'll see, each plant is listed under a general category....Trees for instance Then I usually make a subcategory for the individual plant as well, so Coral Bark Japanes Maple is listed under Trees and Trees/Japanese Maple. The second instance of the entry does not have the link back to the page in PlantFiles.

carol

You can't see the PF links when you look at someone else's journal so I can't see your problem, but I can tell you that I have never had this problem in my journal--if the link was there in the first place it stays with it when I clone and when I move things to a new category. The problem I have is occasionally you import something from Plant Files sometimes the link won't show up at all, but once the link is there to begin with I've never had problems. The only difference between the clones that you're having a problem with and the ones that I'm not having problems with is that the category you've been moving things to is a sub-category of the original category, vs when I've done it, I've always moved it to a completely separate category. I can't imagine why doing it your way would cause the link to be lost but there are some occasional weird bugs in the journal! Just for curiosity, can you try cloning an entry that has a link and move it to a completely different category (for example from trees into shrubs) and see if you have the same problem?

I would love the option to link from PlantFiles to our already established journal without creating a new entry. I already have entries in my journal that I would now like to link to PlantFiles, but it seems I can only do it the other way around by adding from PlantFiles to my journal. Maybe when linking from plantfiles to our journals we could have the option of choosing a specific entry to link with, making it a little more specific.

This message was edited Nov 30, 2006 11:30 AM

I would also love to see that feature...most of my plants were added to my journal using the import from Plant Files feature, but ~10% of the time the link back to PF ends up not showing up on the entry for some unknown reason, and this would be a way to fix that problem as well as help out all the people who had hundreds of plants in their journal before the option to import from PF existed.

I would like to see this feature also. For the same reasons

I would like to be able to make my diary permanently private. I keep forgetting to check the box when I add an entry. Patti

I posted this in winter sowing, but I would love to know if this is possible. Thanks, Patti

I think you can do what you want with the journal the way it is--you can make entries for the plants/seeds in your journal, so you could have one entry for the day you sowed the seeds, another entry noting when they germinate, etc and you can put info in the initial comments about where you got the seeds, how many you sowed, method used, etc. You could also use the "milestone" feature in the journal--create a milestone called "sowed" or "germinated", etc and then for each seed that you have in your journal, you can easily add in these milestones on the appropriate dates for each seed. These are the same tools that you would use to keep track of things associated with plants in your garden such as when they bloom, when they were pruned, how you conquered the aphid infestation, etc. Fields like you're suggesting don't exist for regular plants either (such as when it bloomed, when you pruned it, etc) so if we're going to add them for seeds I think we should add ones relevant to plants too. Oh--and you can also make multiple journals, so if you want a separate one for seeds you can already do that.

ecrane3, I have used the milestone feature to do this as you suggested, but it is very cumbersome as you can't do mass edits while in the milestone feature nor can you see the information at a glance. That is why I would love a separate spreed sheet created by DG that could interface with the regular Journal when I was ready to plant out the seedlings. I see that many subscribers are using various other garden spreadsheet programs to track their sowing. I will most likely have to continue with the way I use DG now by tracking my seeds via status (seed, sown, transplanted) . Just a wish. Patti

I think what you're asking for isn't adding features to the journal, it's really a whole new application. Even if Dave put in fields like what you're asking for into the journal, I think it would still probably be something you'd have to do on an entry by entry basis. But it never hurts to wish--seems like Dave's always putting in new stuff, so you never know!

When using my journal in

My journal is very useful to me in that it is automatically organized alphabetically by genus and then species. However, this organizational rule does not hold for those who visit my journal- order appears totally random unless there is a common name attached.. .sadly, 99% of my plants have no common name, so the randomness prevails, making it very time consuming for someone else looking at my journal to find anything. ANy way it could be organized similar for the viewer as well as it is for me?

Palmbob as a viewer I can resort your list by genus or common name etc by clicking on the cell that I want it sorted by, or am I confused as to what you want. It wouldn't be the first time. Patti

I guess I forgot you could do that.

My wish is for the Diary-

I would like to have the ability to to create a "sticky" so that the items in the categories I want to stay near the top will do so. I am currently entering new data on the same date to achieve this goal. It might be that we already have this function and I don't know about it yet.

Rj

My ideal journal would insert the PF picture into an entry linked to a Plant File. I'm just starting out using the journal, and in gardening in general, so my entries so far are plants I've ordered or am thinking of ordering. Having the picture next to the name of the plant helps me remember the plant and is a great help when scanning through my lists.

I've also noticed the link to the PlantFile is at the very bottom of the entry, it would be nice if the entry name were the link or at least the link were at the top of the page.

I'd also like to see a couple customizable fields in the entries. I like scanning my plants in the summary list instead of having to view each entry and I would like to be able to see some details in columns that are currently not options and be able to sort them by those columns. Speaking of sorting, I'd also like a secondary sorting option. ie. first sort by location and then by cultivar, etc.

This message was edited Apr 12, 2007 9:51 PM

I would also really like the option of seeing thumbnails or the full picture in journal entries and message board posts. I know a lot of people use dial up, but for those of us that don't it would be nice to read a page straight through without having to click on pictures and go back all the time. If that's not possible, maybe have a Next link to just keep going to the next picture/post instead of having to go back and figure out where you left off.

:)


This message was edited Apr 18, 2007 1:38 PM

Hi Dave! Long time no see. :-)

Been working on my Journal again and have a suggestion.

You have a Search Journal feature at the top right of the Journal pages. Since I movedto a new home, I have journal entries that are from my old home and other entries that are at my new home. I set up a new Journal for my new home. I moved many plants from old to new home and so it's VERY nice to have the ability to move entries to another journal. As I'm planting new plants at my new home, that I am putting in a lot of favs that I did not bring with me and when I do a search to update a new planting I get all the old entries from the old house (in a separate journal).

Could we change the Search Journal box to be only the current active journal and then add a checkbox right below to "Search ALL your Journals?"? That way I can search only my current journal or choose to search ALL my journals.

Thanks for considering this.

Brenda

I like that idea as I, too, have had the stated problem.

I LOVE my journal. It is one of my favorite DG features, and I don't know how I ever gardened without it; however, now that you have so kindly added the thumbs (which I also LOVE), it sure would be nice if I could choose which of my photos would be displayed as the thumbnail. At present it appears to be the last photo entry for a given item. If I like the current thumb, I can't add any more photos for that item without changing it.

Another suggestion for Journal change. I think this is a minor one...

What I have done in my Journal is utilized sub-categories. So I have "Lilium" and then "Asiatic", "Oriental", etc under that as a sub-category. Unfortunately, when I select the "Lilium" category I don't see any plants as they are all residing in a sub-category. What would be ideal is to see any entries that are in the Lilium category and/or in a sub-category of "Lily". This lets me see the total number of Lilium I have and then I can drill down to Asiatics and see how many of the total Lilies I have are Asiatics.