Announcing an early beta test of the new tradelist system

We are way overdue for this... Terry and I have discussed for some time the need to revamp the tradelist system. As part of that, I designed a whole new system that will hopefully greatly simplify the process.

The feature isn't complete yet, but you can at least start playing around with it if you're looking to take a break from the festivities. Note that any entries you enter will be removed later, since this is such an early beta. So, feel free to play around all you like.

http://davesgarden.com/trading/tradelist/

In time, we will have many new features incorporated into this:

1) Direct PlantFiles integration, just like PlantScout. Additionally, you will be able to easily add or remove tradelist items from within PlantFiles.

2) Automatic matching of tradelists. If "Jane" has plant "A" and wants plant "B", and "Jill" has plant "B" and wants plant "A", they will both be notified somehow that there is a match between them.

3) Aging will be more closely controlled. Newer entries will get preferential treatment. Entries over a certain age will fall into "Disabled" status and would need to be re-enabled (a simple click of the mouse) by the member.

4) Tight integration into the Trade Tracker (which will be completely re-written as well), the Address Exchange (if applicable) and the Member Ratings/Feedback system.

Because the feature is now linked directly to PlantFiles, we will have MUCH more opportunies to do Very Cool Stuff like the things mentioned, and more yet to be thought of.

And more... The new system has been architected literally from scratch and will provide us with a lot of flexibility to enhance it over time.

dave

Hi Dave

Great idea............................... but doesnt work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL

This is what it says

Database error: Invalid SQL: insert into trades_master (cultivar, genus, species, types, user, pid, pdbpid, status, list, date) values ('Irish Sunset','crocosmia','x crocosmiiflora',' 0 3 0 ','Mr_Crocosmia','','','1','want',now())
MySQL Error: 1054 (Unknown column 'date' in 'field list')

Session halted.

This message was edited Dec 25, 2006 9:22 PM

Oops. I've been working heartily on it on my local machine here, completely unaware that it was broken on the server. It should be fixed now.

dave

LOL...............................
Will give it another try Dave and will let you know............


Mark

Dave


Now that is much better................ works fine now!!!!!!!

Wow, much quicker than the old system..................... vast improvement!!!! Well done.........

Merry Christmas

Mark

Thank you, you too!

As a side note: I imported all tradelists from 2006 into the new system as a test. I'll be deleting it all soon but it will give some data to see.

External view is now (sort of) done.

dave

You can now add plants to your tradelist via the PlantFiles. Look at the bottom for "Trading Tools".

Example:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2/

dave

Oh excellent................................. life just gets easier......!

Mark

Oooooooooooooooooooooooo I like it a lot. Being able to add from the plant files page will be so much easier !!!

Thanks Dave, and Merry Christmas !!!

~Julie =0)

Yay!!! I am ready to go, but you say everything I do will be wiped out?

Suzy

Hi Dave,

Minor glitch: I added a plant to my have list, and when I clicked (from within Plant Files) to add to my have list, the line changed to This has been added to your want-list.

I think it should have said This item has been added to your have list.

If it makes any difference, the plant was:
Tagetes tenuifolia 'Paprika Gem'

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/71792/index.html

Suzy

Thanks Suzy, this is fixed now!

dave

What happened to the common name. I was looking at my entry for Salvia farinacea and nowhere did I see Victoria Blue either in my trade list or in the plant file it crossed referenced. I would think that an important piece of information seeing as there can be several different varieties.

How come in my *real* tradelist I have 7 items for trade, but there's only three showing up in the beta listing?

Beaker, check & see if this the plant (link below) you put in your list. You maybe picked the generic one. Just an idea until Dave jumps in.

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2871/index.html

Suzy

Great change and I love this.
Kaleem

this is wonderful going to be easy to put on,, and Take off. Good one Dave. Thankyou.

I decided to delete a entry..after doing so, I had a option.too go back to the plant files..I took that, and it went back to a entry I put on a few days ago?
I thought it should be,, the look up page in the plant files.

This message was edited Dec 27, 2006 10:31 PM

Well, I didn't put it there, Dave's program put it there simply going by the latin plant name.

Baker -- use the link I sent and at the bottom of the page,it will say:

Click here to add this plant to your have-list
Click here to add this plant to your want-list

Choose one and add it. Then go to your tradelist/wishlist and see if you have two entries.

For almost every plant, there is the "plain vanilla" variety with no varietal name, and then there might be some named varieites. Hemerocallis has a million choices; Lychnis might have a dozen. If you have a Lychnis variety that's not in the PF, you might choose the "plain vanilla" listing instead of having the wrong one.

You might be doing it a different way than I did it, but I went to plant files first, chose the variety, in this case Victoria Blue, and added it thourhg PF.

Suzy

I would rather be sent to the look up part of plant files than to the last plant I looked up. The way it is now adds two or three "Back buttons" to the process of adding plants to my tradelist and gets pretty old for people who don't have instant screen changes.

Speaking of look up (search) page in Plant files.... it has always been annoying to me, even before I joined DG, that all of the page won't fit on a (reduced size) window and I have to scroll down with the slider bar to find the "sort by" box and the "search" button. I would like there to be 2 columns to get the distance from the top to bottom shorter so it all fits on a smaller size window. This would allow me to not have to use the scroll bar way on the right side and the search button, way on the left side with my mouse. I could use all keyboard commands which is way easier forme when I have to type the name of an unfamiliar (or familiar) plant.

With the smaller window open to Plant files, I can do other things on my computer-- maybe I'm in Plant files because I'm reading a forum post or maybe a catalog, but I never have it full size because I'm using it as research, not just perusing it on its own.

Suzy