New Plant Files Search is really bad!

Has anyone else noticed that this past week DG updated the Plant Files search? It's HORRIBLE!

Used to be able to search partial strings, use separate searches for Genus, species, etc.

Unless they just moved it or I couldn't figure out how to get that same search capability, I wish they would bring back the old search!!

I used to use DG plant files quite a bit, but if it stays like it is now, I will rarely use it...or contribute to it at this point.

Anyone have the same issues? Any way to access the previous search?

Tristan: Have you looked at this in the forum DG Site Updates: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1402203/

You can still do the old fashioned kind of search- look to the right on the PlantFiles screen, in fine print are options for searching. Then once you are click on Advanced Search, be careful-they have put cultivar box BEFORE species box, so it is really easy to screw up.

The improvements they have made to PF are not improvements. The images do not display reliably and often require a reload. The browsing is slow and does not always work. The thumbnails are gone. I don't want to scroll through a hundred pictures (slowly and unreliably) when I could just find the flower picture on the first page and click on it.

Palmbob's comments in the update thread are right on. They are not improving the infrastructure, they are gradually taking it down. Maybe it's better on a mobile device but it's decidedly worse on a computer.

The new search - and by that I mean the "Advanced Search" that you have to get to by going to the main search and then clicking on "Advanced Search"...because the Main Search is now so bad it is almost unusable - is really a step down...they made it TOO busy.
Really basic things are missing:
- why isn't the Species field right after the Genus field? It doesn't make sense to have the Variety field in between.

- Real big boo-boo is the loss of a wildcard search. The old search would assume a Wild Card at the end of what you type; so for example, if you are searching for a name like Cleistocactus something that you just knew started with samai, but couldn't remember how to spell the rest, you could just type in "samai" in the species field and it would pull up any entry that had at least those 5 letters...so, in this specific case would pull up Cleistocactus samaipatanus. Now, it would say "Sorry - not found" because it is looking for a species name of exactly "Cleistocactus samai"! I tried an asterisk, which is often used as a wild card, but that doesn't work either. Major loss of functionality there...

I also hate the way the entries are formatted, including how the pictures appear.

I almost never use the Plant Files lately...too much of a pain.

Yes - change is often hard, but Bad Change is even harder.

This message was edited Aug 23, 2015 4:44 PM

Ditto. As much as it pains me to say it, Google is your friend.

They are working on it all still, and hope they eventually bring back some of the old utility and ease of the plant search that used to exist… but some things will probably be lost forever, such as the 'old looks'… like the large sheets of thumbnails that were so useful and easy to use… cause one thing folks who 'fix' things don't ever want to do is go back to how something used to look…. they would consider that a step backwards (even though the current step was a backwards one) and an admission they make an error… which will never happen…,., so we're just gonna have to get used to that. No plant web site of know of now has large thumbnail sheets to pick and choose photos from - that was a truly unique and extremely useful tool (for me, at least)… oh well. should have appreciated it more when we had it.

palmbob: You are certainly right on that. I loved the large thumbnails! I wonder if Dave's Garden currently has any understanding of all the photos and information you have given to this site over the years! I know others have too (like xenomorf).
Sometimes I fear that Dave's Garden won't be here and I need all the info you all have entered!