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pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] [synthesis][38][7.12.05]

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  • From: Bear Kaufmann <bear@ursine-design.com>
  • To: pcplantdb <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] [synthesis][38][7.12.05]
  • Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:48:07 -0700

Hi all,

I'm just back in town, reading through things. I'm still in the process of getting settled, so these are all relatively quick responses.

Congrats to Chad as well on the improvements on dev. It looks good. Looks promising. I'm thinking about some design improvements for the look/formatting.
Personally, I think it might be good to downplay the comments format.

-Regarding funding, I am not so interested in advertising for nurseries.
I would rather have PIW not contain any ads – but I guess if they’re
embedded in comments, they’d be less intrusive. What do others think
about this? The Pay Pal idea is a good one – but I believe it costs
quite a bit of money and work to set up a Pay Pal account. I’ve asked
Scott, so I’ll report back. And I will also be submitting more grant
applications.
I believe I was the one that accidentally started this whole thread. I used the example of nursery listings as an example of how RDF/XML could help interface and provide access to information outside the DB. It was a poor example. I was thinking more along the lines that we could check if the plant occurs on USDA Plants and link to it, link to CalPhoto plant photo archive if available, Google image search, etc.

Not very advanced
compared with the http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/D_frames.html
engine. Maybe I'm wrong???

Why don't you expand/improve the pfaf-engine instead of building a
own system?

How do we make it obvious to users that Eden IS an improvement on the
PFAF-engine? Once again, how is this database different from all
others...

OK, interesting question from a design POV. Having a great search syntax, without any obvious signs of it's existence doesn't make the site look impressive. So, as a basic improvement, a quick help page would be good.
I think an advanced search form would also be good, and provide users a greater idea of what's available to search by.
I notice the eden urls using ?family=, etc, is it possible to access other columns that way, without passing a single string search syntax? That would greatly help in extending the advanced search form.

People might be interested latest stats from the PFAF website.
These are from the ibiblio US mirror over the last two years.

Hits shot up from about 100,000/month to about 400,000/month
around the time the old Leeds website went off line.

This is fun info. It reminds me of the Google Zeitgeist. It'd be fun to format this info (maybe just this static batch) into something like the zeitgeist, just for kicks. It's fun to know what's popular. Maybe Chad can implement a search logger/output when other tasks are done. :-)

Results take the form of ``Family name [space] Genus + Species name.''
For example, a search for co rn gives ``Gramineae Zea mays.'' I fear
that users will click on the family name thinking that it w ill take
them to the plant (in this case, Zea mays) and will not realize that
this is what they did . Can we perhaps put the family name on another
line, or separate both with a comma?

This is where I like to take direction from Bear. I get the confusion
though. I prefer the later (one line) and will go with that until I
hear different from Bear.

Please take a look at http://permaculture.info/test/search_improved.php
There are a few different ideas, regarding search results formating, alerts, and collapsable forms for advanced search.

Good work everyone.

Cheers,
Bear





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