Demo for Jo Bogaerts (Belgium)

[ideasguy]

When things are dull, my friend Andre from Belgium (greenfinger) cheers me up with his witty and very humorous emails. He's done so many things for the "Genie" projects, that he calls himself Frodo, member of the fellowship. I'm reliably informed by my family that its Lord of the Rings "speak". I'm a few years behind in TV and Film viewing- guess why!.
I get to be called Wiz. So now you know if you see any strange references around the forum.

Frodo suggested that Wiz should get in touch with Jo Bogaerts, the owner of one of his favourite Nurseries, in Belgium.
http://www.vasteplantenjobogaerts.be/

You can view the site in Dutch, French or English.
 
I decided to make a sample "Catalog on CD" for Jo, using Flower Genie.
With Jo's permission, I downloaded photos and data to go with his plant range.
I downloaded the English text, and used that in the presentation.

In the process, I did some more development of FG037. e.g. It now has a slide show. You can download it from the suport website.
Everything to make the database easy to navigate, and make it enjoyable to browse.
From within the software, I provided hyperlinks to BUY pages.
Make it easy to Buy plants from the Nursery.

I did some more work on another feature. Photos can be "locked up" in the database.
Thus, if you wish to distribute your database, you dont have to worry about your photos being "misused". You dont need to copy the jpg files from the hard disc to the CD. You run a special program to embed them in the database files.

Thus, in the demo CD for Jo Bogaerts, you wont find any jpg files.

Ive finished the demo, and despatched a copy to Jo and one for Andre on Tuesday 20th June 06.
I now await the reaction.

If its good, I'll ask Jo for permission to distribute the demo to Flower Genie users. Please post amessage in this thread if you's like a copy. It might encourage more Nurseries to go for this exciting method.

Photos are EXCELLENT quality! They are high resolution images.!!

We can dedicate this thread to comments about the usefulness of such a "Catalog on CD".
Perhaps Jo will come along and make his comments.

First, its nail biting time as I wait for a message from Frodo and the fellowship.

[greenfinger]

No need for nail biting, by the way it's a bad habit they say, although a good portion of compost under them can be nourishing. First I was amazed about the speed of the post services. Chapeau for them! Secondly, about George's work itself: I know he worked very hard at it, but this is without doubt the crown on his work: the CD  looks great, has a good cover, is easy to consult and most important of all in my opinion is the fact that all data are interchangeable. It can stimulate a community of plant lovers swapping their writings, observations and pictures. Especially in the case of the photos by Jo Bogaerts the professional pictures contribute a lot to the quality of the project.
It is our intention to contact a few more good nurseries in Flanders to repeat this try-out.

[ideasguy]

Phew! Its end of day here, and what a happy note to turn off the computer on. (Im sure that could be better worded!)

I'm glad you liked it        
For the record, it took a mere 2 days, Ireland to Belgium. A real credit to our postal services.

Making up that catalog was truly a labour of love. It was a pleasure to work with those photos. I was also biting my nails when I asked Jo for approval to download the photos for the sample. I was ao pleased when he very willingly gave me the OK.
Bear in mind that most of the time was spent enhancing the software (FG037). In addition to the slide show feature, etc, I also made a few tweaks to make it real fast to link a plant to the BUY page on a website, and directly to the web image for the plant.

Most users will have noticed the "Who has this" button on Ideas Genie and Flower Genie. The "Who sells this" button is an extension to that screen which had burned in my head for some time. Its great to get it working, and out there.

... is easy to consult and most important of all in my opinion is the fact that all data are interchangeable. It can stimulate a community of plant lovers swapping their writings, observations and pictures.

Yes, thats eactly it... the wonders of SWAP CD's! The number of possibilities, as you have identified, blows my head!

Next? Well, we now await comments from Jo. Biting whats left of those nails again! Theres not enough length to harbour any compost 

[greenfinger]

After my first review of the CD came the questions from George if I were you able to visit the Jo Bogaerts web site and find the Buy page for a plant? And if I could activate the slide show.
I couldn't the one, nor the other.
Reaction of George: "Oh dear! That's bad!" (polite translation: "You just reached the summit of stupidity!")
Mea culpa, mea culpa, George, but otherwise you can learn a lot of my stupidities. I think I am the average user of this program with an average attention level and an average computer knowledge. So I'm the ideal trial person.
What happened? First I read the first half of your cover instructions, saw the thing worked and forgot about the second half. So I hadn't read that part of the story. Another reason for the misunderstanding is the fact that I was searching for an order-form at Jo's website itself. As far as I could see there isn't any. If a plantprovider wants to use this possibility there still is a link to make between FG and the order-form if it exists. I don't know if Jo does postmail-orders.
Secondly I hadn't yet upgraded FG(still v.11).
About the slide show: I could activate this thanks to your instructions in one of the emails, otherwise I think I wouldn't have found it. (would it be useful to explain this too at the cover's interior?) The GO-button itself is a bit hidden between other objects (personal feeling). This average user needed some time (and perhaps glasses) to find it. But I have to say there was Joy in Heaven once I saw the Light in a simple little button, Amen

André

[ideasguy]

I'm planning to make the Jo Bogaert catalog downloadable, if I can get the OK from Jo.
Flower Genie members can download it, and will have a better understanding of this topic!!

You folk will probably have noticed already... I'm, not too good at making things brief and to the point.
For once, I think I have made a fairly good attempt, by adding the instructions on the inside cover of the Jo Bogaert catalog CD case.
Heres what it says:

How to use this catalog.

Install Flower Genie
Register Flower Genie using the licence provided

Insert the Jo Bogaerts Calalog CD into the drive.
Click on the Flower Genie icon on your desktop
Click the button "My plants and Gardens ? FG037"
Click on the "Data Source" pop-up in screen FG037S01
Select JoBogaerts from the drop down list.
Explore the plants and photos

To BUY a plant:
Click the "Who sells this" button in screen FG037S01
Screen FG037S02 appears
Click the "Buy this plant" button
Make your on-line purchase


Ive directed the user to the exact program (FG037), and the screen+button combinations to get to the EXACT buy page for each selected plant on the web site.
People who get the catalog on CD will have to install Flower Genie and register, if they dont have it already.
By following the above instructions, they will (as you did on "discovering" part 2 of the instructions   ) find the Buy page

After reading the initial instructions, playing with Flower Genie and the Catalog is the fun part.
The slide show is a feature of Flower Genie, for "general consumption".
However, I did design it so users could plug in the nice new Catalog on CD, grab a cup of coffee, start the slide show and enjoy a nice little break from the garden, and hopefully be inspired to buy a few plants from Jo.
Note that this will be provided as standard with each new copy. You (and other members) have to download the update to get it (FG037 Version 14 is required).

The Jo Bogaert website has a buy page for each plant, hence I was able to place the hyperlinks exactly to those pages.
However, at this stage he doesnt have a shopping cart to allow the user to buy on line. I assume he will provide this, so we can skip that little hiccup!

Heres another thing you can do (applies to ALL SWAP CD's)
When you insert a SWAP CD (the Catalog on CD is technically a SWAP CD) into the drive and change the Data Source to point to it, the clever Genie tells you that the Data on the CD is Read Only. It also tells you that you can copy plants from the database. How?
In this mode, an extra button "Copy this Plant" is made visible in FG037.
Simply select a plant, and click the button.
The Add a Plant screen (FG100S40) appears, and you can  edit if you wish, then click the Add button.
The plant is added to YOUR database on hard disc.
Be sure to try that feature.

If the Nursery doesnt have an On-Line facility, then have a look at the Flower Genie, Bonsai Genie or Ideas Genie Pro Menu tab.
You'll find a tab caled "Catalogs"
Under that you'll find a program GA040. That took me 4 months to write.
Currently, you can do nothing with it, as you need a Catalog on CD.
That will be fully functional with each "Catalog on CD" (but not on the first issues of this demo)
GA040 is identical for ALL Genies (will also be aded to Ideas Genie)
It has a fully fledged shopping cart, offers multi-sales-options to suppliers, plus it has a Mail Order print form.
There, that should do it!

Alternatively, we can already do this with the software:
Start Flower Genie
Start the program Make Gardens - FG042
DONT change the data source. We want to do the following on our database on Hard Disc.
Make a Gardener" by name of "Plants To Buy"
In that, create a "Garden Area" called "My Wish List"
Start the program Link Plants to Gardens - FG038
Select and add plants we wish to buy to "My Wish List". To do that, you must add the plants to your own database first, as described above.
Use the report FG034 to print out the wish list, and take it to the Nursery.

Again, this is a little aside from this discussion on Catalogs, but, "real estate" on the initial screen FG037S01 is very limited!!
Ive found a small space to put the "Go" button for starting the slide show. However, Ive also provided "Tool Tip Text" so when the user hovers over the button, they can read what it does.