pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

Bear K wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> > I am very keen to have as much marked up as posible, I've attached an 
> > image of a page from where I've got to with the pfaf db. In it I've 
> > been trying to make things as graphical as posible with icons for 
> > edible and medicinal ratings, type of plant (Tree, Shrub, climber 
> > etc), height, width. The last three are included in resisable graphic 
> > which gives a proportional tree height (code and icons available on 
> > request).
> > To do this the data needs to be easily extractable, either
> > as fields or as marked up xml items.
>
>
> I was actually going to suggest something along those lines. A book I 
> have ('Edible Wild Plants') has a set of icons representing the 
> different uses of the plant (flour, candy, milk, cooked greens, ...), I 
> thought it would be cool to have a largely visual output for the plant 
> information, including things like water use, light preference, etc. 
> Given say 16 or 20 pixels each icon (aside from multiples like ranks, 
> water, and light) you could present a lot of information in a small 
> space. This could come in very handy if say there was a functionality to 
> select a list of plants and then get a printable copy with info on the 
> various plants. Of course this would just be one potential view option.
Yep, nice icons. We do need to be careful that the icons are effective 
communication, i.e.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Regarding XML, which I also think could come in quite handy, one issue 
> would seem to be the speed of searching single fields filled with XML 
> for specific properties. Seems like a slow process. Is it there fast 
> method I'm not aware of?
Should not be too slow. You could generally parse the data for one plant 
in a single pass, at only about 10K data per plant, this is not too
slow a task. BTW the web version of the pfaf db it works by parsing text 
files. Things are trickier if we wish to search by these terms.

> I think it would also be great to have a relationship field for 
> beneficial or antagonistic  relationships between plants. In the DM (pg 
> 62, 63) collecting this data is mentioned. Seems like a good place to 
> gather it. Or was this already discussed?
Yep I this has been discussed at length. Guilds are relationships are 
high up the list.

> Lastly, if ibiblio is slow to respond, I'm paying for hosting of 
> OpenPermaculture with a rather good plan, so I can host there for a 
> while if need be. I should be able to get chad an SSH account if needed. 
> MySQL space is there, and available bandwidth.

        Rich
--
Plants for a Future: 7000 useful plants
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