? about checkboxes

I'm very much a newbie to the PF and have been working on the checkboxes in the daylilies. I'm wondering if there is any way the checkboxes for the color can be re-done? re-written? Am I asking for the moon and if so, please disregard. It's just that there are only so many colors offered to check off and so many more colors offered. Maybe if there could be 3 or 4 blank fields where you could just key the color in instead of checking off? What I'm trying to say is that there are so many colors that daylilies are that are not offered on the checkboxes and I have to "assume" that amber might be gold or orange or that tangerine might be apricot, and if a daylily is just plain yellow or pink and I don't have a picture, I have to decide whether to pick pale pink or pink or pale yellow or bright yellow, etc. I just feel that the color would be more correct (sorry about the grammar) if the user were able to key it in than to have to pick from what is already there. Thanks for listening :-)

If there is a list of standard colors (designated by the Am. Hemerocallis Society),

a) I'm unaware of it; and
b) we could certainly adopt it, and do the mapping between our current color range and it for the entries that have already been marked.

To give you a bit of history on the current range of flower colors. It was something I worked on when we did one of the first PDB revisions many many moons ago: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/207782/

and here's a more recent thread, specifically about hems: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/415731/

Prior to the standardized colors, people could write in the color of the plant's blooms. Lemme tell ya - blank fields are NOT the way to go with a public access database. We had some truly goofy stuff in there, not to mention misspelled words.

Long story short, there isn't any good way to search for a plant by its bloom color if the input field can be whatever the contributor wants it to be. One person's apricot is another person's cantaloupe. One person's medium blue is another's "cyan blue" or "sky blue", or "true blue" - or just "blue" - and a search for one color would leave out a myriad of plants because they were characterized a little differently. So a color might be more precise if it could be describe by the submitter, but we would lose the ability to search by bloom color since we'd have as many adjectives to describe colors as the imagination can dream up ;o)

Thanks Terry...I had a feeling your answer would be pretty much what it was. I appreciate your time. Thanks!

A picture is worth a thousand colors; an entry without a picture is almost useless. LOL

Arguably it is useless....until it is found by someone with an image, especially if they lack the time and/or inclination to create the entry themselves. There are countless members who happily upload images to an already-created entry.

I know that picture-less entries are irksome to some of our members. But let's keep in mind that not everyone is able (or comfortable) with the taxonomy and technology needed to create the entry. Existing entries provide those folks with the structure they need to submit their images or comments.

Point well taken.
(Can't sneak one past you, eh?)
LOL

OK, I'll throw another question out there Terry. When I add a plant, gee, a daylily for example :-) I get this screen: http://www.melissasgarden.us/Image3.jpg

Then, to add Hybridizer and Year of Introduction I have to go to the plant I just entered, scroll to the bottom, edit this entry, then I get this screen....
http://www.melissasgarden.us/Image2.jpg
How difficult would it be to make that second screen that comes up the first screen that comes up? .... that way whenever folks are adding plants that have a known hybridizer they can add it at the beginning, or they can choose to leave it blank? Not sure if this is something you can or want to do... just a thought.

I always (try) to enter the hybridizer as soon as I enter the plant... then when I go back to the plant, I have to scroll down again and hit "live view" in order to get the option to set all options... otherwise I have to set them one at a time... I just thought adding the hybridizer in the first step would alleviate a few extra mouse clicks along the way.....

I added a hem the other day (Shelby Ishee) and I didn't get the 2nd screen that Melissa posted, so I entered a comment. Am I missing a trick to see the Hybridizer fields?

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/100365/index.html

langbr, you have to click on "edit" to get the second screen to pull up.

Melissa, whether or not it can be included on the initial entry page or not is up to Dave. Since many plants don't need or have this information, my one concern would be that it might confuse some users,and we'd end up with more editing work to do....but then again, we have to retroactively edit many of those that need the information to begin with. Six of one, half dozen of the other, probably ;o)

Ahhh!!! And you can add cultivar synonyms there too! I've been reporting those as errors to have the PF Admins enter them. Gosh I feel like a real dork. LOL

Terry, could you ask him, or does he monitor this section as well. If he does, waving>>>>>>>> hi Dave!

I guess only you guys would know if it would confuse folks... a suggestion might be Hybridizer(If Known) Year of Introduction (If known) or a caveat at the top of the page to leave unknown fields blank... I realize that only Daylily, Iris, Hosta and Rose people will probably use this feature... (I think) but there are a lot of those plants in the database. :-)

OK, another question... is there a way to "fix it" so that anyone could add the hybrider and year of introduction to an existing plant, similar to adding it as a comment like I do now? Would that help the editors any at all if all they have to do is click a button to release the information instead of copy/paste or whatever you guys have to do now?

I second that. I've been working on irises, and I got a subscription to AIS, so I know the hybridizer and year of introduction for many of them, but cannot add them since I didn't create the entry.

I second that request JoanJ :)