Am I the only one? Plant file rant

Wow, that's nice. Thanks Dave, and Pagancat!

Awesome!!!!

Went ahead and added it to my top links too, that way even if I am at another site looking at a cultivar it's there & I can reference it quickly

Hyb, how do you do that? There are some things up there I never use - I don't know how they got there!

are you using IE or Firefox?

Dave, when you click on the Search Plants link on any page, it automatically takes you to the general search now, rather than the advanced search. Is that the way it's supposed to be?

FF.

Woo Hoo .... Thank You Dave! That sure makes for a few less mouse clicks! I love it!

Thanks Dave! This will do quite nicely in the meantime :-)

Carrielamont, you have Dmail :)

I don't know if this would help anyone else, but what I would like is a Search tab at the top of the page that stays there wherever you are on DG. It could lead to a page with all the searches available on DG, or just be a box for a generalized search, or ???
I have Plant Files on my custom menu, but that's not available everywhere. I have the new PF generalized search that Dave just created on my browser bar, which will help.

BTW, I tried to search for an article the other day and couldn't find a way to do that - am I missing something?

Dave, thanks so much for listening to all of us. We know there are limits to what you can or should do, and it is great that you at least let us ask the questions.

Kathleen

Kathleen,
When I miss an article, I just go into Articles and skim back. I can imagine one day this will get unwieldy!
xx, Carrie

Dave is working on an article sorting program...don't know when he'll have it up, but he's going to let us sort by several criteria.

Yes, the articles section is getting big in a really fast way...that's a good thing.

Where is the Article's section?

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/

It's under the Guides and Information tab

Thanks, Melody. What I've been doing is opening one of the article messages, then saving it to my Favorites if there's something I want to get back to.

I am glad to hear that DG uses the google search engine. That is a very good one. Everything I wrote was about searching Plant Files. I have never succeeded in a search of the Forums. I was disquieted to learn that the Forum search engine has been moved to Plant Files. I haven't tried it yet.

Melody,
I understand your problems with the journal. I only recently figured out how to use it. And if I quit using it for a while, I have to rethink where to find the function I was looking for. But I am actually starting to really like it. The only way to get it to work is through dogged determination!

The forum search is exactly where it's always been - it hasn't moved ;o)

Dave just replaced the Google search within PlantFiles with an internal search engine.

I've only been here in the Garden about a year and have never been able to figure out the Journal or Diary so just gave up. Something must be Super Easy for me to have the patience to use it.

Does anyone have this problem? Or a solution? I write a post and want to include a link to a Plant File. If I go to Plant File, I risk losing my post. So I post first, then go search in Plant Files, copy the address, and go back to the thread and edit the post, adding the link.

I have tried minimizing the page with the post, but Plant Files replaces it. Surely I am missing something...

You can hit Ctrl+N (or Ctrl+T if you use Firefox) to open a new browser window and run your PF search in a separate window without losing your post. That's my workaround anyway.

This message was edited Oct 16, 2007 10:13 PM

Thanks, wrightie. I'll give that a try. Like right now.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/26/
Yes! It worked! Thanks bunches!!

I just saw this thread..............I am lousy with the plant files..............so I just do a google search first....................then find it on DG....................Dave just pointed out the Botanary ??spelling.....now I can at least find the botanical names if i know them.............

I have always had such a hard time using plant files...........

This is a long thread and I notice people are learning.......so i will go back and read each and every post here...........i need to learn to get more out of plant files............I want it but just don't have the skills to use them.........

Thanks Dave! I only mentioned that I ended up using Google because...that's just what I did. It never entered my totally computer illiterate mind so I wasn't comparing anything. I've always just tried to search under a common name and would come up empty and Google would find me a link here. Sometimes there was no difference and I could never figure it out but sometimes there might have been a space added or missing. Whatever...just glad that you've got the smarts to take my 2 cents and make something of it! :)

Thanks, dave! Great to follow all the progress and improvements!

And, I'm kind of reassured after reading this thread--for a long time I thought I was the only one who had a hard time with searching PF. (I love to Google around, so I used that as my default 99% of the time.) I look forward to trying the PF search now.

And it was interesting to read the remarks to raydio's comments about the accuracy of some of the entries on Plant Files. So often I have run across PF entries that are clearly not correctly posted or the comments are obviously about another plant or cultivar (with perhaps the same common name) and I didn't know how to deal with it....

I still don't quite know what to do about it, but at least I know somebody else is on to this issue, too. ;-)

Dave, what I would like to see is the little favorites folder at the top of the page you linked to above. I'll link it here too so you know what I am referring to. It would be nice timesaving shortcut.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/advanced.php

Tabasco-if you run across an error in a Plant Files entry, the best thing to do is click on the button that says "report an error" and let the admins know what's wrong (it's helpful to give them some links or references to back up why you think you're right unless it's something that's really obvious).

Or if it's a picture that's in the wrong place, then the way to handle it is to post a comment on the picture, the owner of the picture will have it pop up in their thread watcher, that way they have a chance to respond about why they think their picture is posted correctly.

konkreteblond,
You are right about the spaces. I searched in vain for a plant once and couldn't find it though I was quite sure it was there. Eventually I asked one of the admins and she pointed out that there was a space in front of the name and that could be the problem. Sure enough, when I eliminated the space, I found my plant.
Come to think of it, it might not have been a space but a period, that I wasn't noticing.
For initial spaces, dave could put in a line of code that removes them before the search. For punctuation at the front of the line, there could be a line of code saying that no plant names begin with a punctuation mark. ( At least I think that is true.)

I think most of the problems people have with DG have to do with being inexperienced with computers. That is to be expected, but dave should do anything possible to help these people.
I have had many people say that they didn't know how to cut and paste. Those of us who seem to have always known how to cut and paste don't even think of that as a problem.
Searching is a very complicated skill and clearly many users just don't have a clue how to do it.
The journals definitely require thought and perseverance to learn, but can be mastered. I had to read the help several times to learn how to use them. Now I love them.
Perhaps we need a place where users can send questions and get answers about usage. DG is a powerful tool, but like all tools, to get the most out of it, we have to learn and practice. And perhaps users just don't realize how much more there is to learn.
DG has become a regular part of my life and I have friends I would never have met if it weren't for DG. Still nothing is ever perfect.

In a perfect DG site, I would love to have a forum just for asking questions about using DG. I am both computer illiterate and find it very difficult to use the plant files.

I want to be able to use them in a reasonable amount of time. When I get frustrated with trying to find plants, I just give up even trying to use them.....................which also means i am bad about adding pictures to the files (although I have learned how to do that if I can find the right botanical name) ....................which just goes back to not having the skills ............

I always knew DG was a perfect world!

I just want to say that there is at least one user who's been pretty happy with PlantFiles. Every once in a while I'm not sure if the name I know a plant by is the common name or its botanical name, so I just try both out in the search. The only thing I ever wish I could do is refine a search, so that once I know I'm in the right vicinity of a plant I'm after, I can proceed to narrow down from there.

Otherwise, I've spent far too much time playing with PlantFiles, and loving all the fun things I find that I would love to be growing!

Thanks for everything, Dave!

Getting PlantFiles searching revamped has long been on our TODO and Terry and I have been discussing it a bit offline. Stay tuned for more info on this!

I feel that I have intermediate skills on the computer. If I have no instructions, I can play around and figure out most things. I have even "fixed" a problem with my computer a few times. And I can search with the best of them. But I had to give up on the journal, and created one of my own using Word.

I agree, gessiegail, it would be nice to just be able to have a forum to just ask questions about how to do something on DG. Is this forum the place for that? I don't know. Edited to add: Oops - I just read Dave's post above....

And (big segue here ;-D) how does one actually add something to your favorites here? I use my IE Favorites for that too.

This message was edited Oct 17, 2007 11:53 AM

I too love Plant Files and really enjoy when I find an interesting plant that I don't have or have never even heard of! Just makes my wish list longer! I love researching and reading about different plants. Of course, I could also blame Bloom.com for my problem of wanting more! I have to look at the Bloom of the day first thing every morning (ok, I've even cheated and looked the night before) ... just can't get enough of this Garden Dave has created here for us all to enjoy! No complaints at all .... just have to admit at being lazy and want to get where I'm going with one click instead of two or three .... but in the grand scheme of things, it's no big deal. I've always said life is too short to be in such a hurry ... I am just so happy to be here and be a part of all the great forums that I visit and even the ones where I "lurk" cause this virtual Garden is the next best thing to being outside in my own yard where it's just too hot and humid right now!

Ok..........my good friend Lin.................you have mastered the plant files. I am just jealous of you. When i need help, I just dmail Lin. You are also so good at helping the rest of us with plant files.

LOL Gail ... PF seems pretty easy to me ... I know the of common names of some plants and have been amazed at how many different plants have the same common name! But, I took the advice of a great person on the Hoya forum to try to use the genus name if I know it, and that really helps! It's just sometimes I don't know the genus so I have to do some more searching to find what I'm looking for!

Any time you need help just holler ... I always figured two, three or even twelve brains tossing ideas back and forth are a good thing!

thanks Lin.................just watered everything outside well and I have more water on me than the plants do..................also have those horrible big ants that gave both feet a good stinging..........I just kept pouring water down in my crocs! (LOL)

ceejaytown, see that little yellow envelope at the top right of the screen? That's your 'favorites' button. Whenever you click that it will save the link. If you want to save a particular post, click on the tiny "Post #......" that's in blue under the date of the message, otherwise you'll get the whole thread.

The little yellow icon doesn't show up on every screen, like on the article page. I found that if I clicked on one of the messages posted below the article, then I could click on the 'favorites' button and that link will take me back to the article in a roundabout way.

Hope that makes sense.