Updated version of the doc. form, -- please help test it!

[Tom Humphrey]

Hi,

I've just uploaded a new version of the documentation form. Although the visible changes are fairly inconspicuous there have been more substantial internal changes, so it would be a great help if you could try the new version and report any problems before I switch over to it as standard.

The new version (v. 005k) is accessible from herbariaunited.org/atHomeAlpha.

broadly the visible changes are:

• The browser window remembers its position and size between sheets.
  
• Tweaks to improve the behaviour of the drop down lists, both cosmetic changes and better display of collector information.
  
• Images now resize when the browser window size changes.
  
• The shaded block on the sheet navigation panel (the small image at the right) is now drag-able.
  
• From the thumbnail view you can pick how many sheets to allocate in a batch (up to 10 at a time).
  
• 'Bubble' help text stays hidden for unlogged in users once turned off.
  
• The summary text for specimens now includes details for all the fields and is better formatted.
  
• Preliminary (though very limited) support for countries other than Britain and Ireland has been added - accessible from the 'more countries' menu choice.
  
  Edited 20/5
  
• Added links to wiki collector information where available
  
• Correction of collector name mismatch bug reported here.
  
  

Please let me know if anything doesn't work. I don't anticipate any major problems, but on past experience there could be some problems, which would be better rectified before being inflicted on everyone!


regards,

Tom

[email protected]

[Tom Humphrey]

23rd May version 005n

• no longer opens extra blank collector fields automatically (only 2% of records have more than one collector). [suggested here]
  
• additional search links shown next to placename and taxon fields when typing an unrecognized entry. (placename links to Google, Ordnance survey and multi-map and taxon links to IPNI and uBio)
  
• misc minor bug fixes
  

[Tom Humphrey]

1st June (version 005t)

• Minimisation of less used fields: the form can now include additional possible fields as icons at the top-right of the form. This could be useful for infrequently used fields. At present I've added a 'TYPE' field this way (it had only been displayed for a small subset of Manchester records previously). Using the minimized fields should be seen as optional - e.g. there's no need to mark everything that's not a type specimen etc.
  
• User defined tags - this I hope this could be quite an interesting improvement. It lets you assign arbitrary keywords or attributes to a specimen. This is intentionally left open ended so that you are free to use this to note whatever additional info you wish, in a semi structured way. Ultimately tags will be searchable. I'll post more about this once the new version is released.
  
• more miscellaneous bug fixes
  
• cosmetic layout changes