USER GUIDE
Flower Genie ® - Software for Amateur Gardeners
by Ideas for Gardens.com
Last updated: 7th August 2017


This User Guide is for users of Flower Genie - Software for Amateur Gardeners
    Visit the Flower Genie Web Site

Index to User Guide   Introduction   Session 1  Session 2   Session 3   Session 4   Session 5   Session 6
   Session 7   Session 8   Session 9   Session 10   Session 11   Session 12   Session 13   Session 14   General Information
 

 

 

 

 

           User Guide - Session 5

 

 

Harnessing the Internet - Plant info and internet photos
In this session you will learn how to:

 

 
  • Use the surfboard
  • Use the Google button
  • Link plants to web pages
  • Copy & Paste
  • Link plants to photos on the internet

 

 

 

 

 

Using the Surf Board
The Surf-Board is a referred to in the following exercises.
Heres a brief introduction to this little Flower Genie tool, and how to use it.

 

 
  1. Start program: My Plants and Gardens - FG037
  2. Click once in the list to select a plant
  3. Click the Edit button
  4. The Plant Profile screen appears (FG100S40).
  5. Click the Surf Board button (bottom of screen)
  6. The Surf Board screen opens. Its simply a memo field, linked to a disk file.
    You will use it to copy and paste, then save blocks of text and web adresses as you surf.
  7. Try it out by typing some text, then click the Done button
  8. The information is saved to disk (so it will be available even if you exit the system and browse the Surf Board in another work session).
  9. The data in the Surf Board can be accessed and retrieved in any screen where the Surf Board button appears.
  10. Please delete the surf board contents regularly (after use of course!).
     

 

 

 

 

 


Using the Google button to find plant information on the web
Linking plants to Web Pages
 

 

 
  1. Start program: My Plants and Gardens - FG037
  2. Click once in the list to select a plant
  3. Click Edit
  4. The Plant Profile screen appears (FG100S40).
  5. Click the Google Search button
  6. Screen GA100S33 appears. Its actually a customised Internet Web Browser.
  7. Google returns a list of results, using the Plant Name as the query string. You dont have to type anything!
  8. Select from the Google results, and view a web page with information on the plant
  9. Note that the web address of the web page (the URL) is placed in the URL field at the bottom of the screen.
  10. Click the + button (beside the Surf Board button) at the bottom of the screen
    This adds the URL to the top of the Surf Board, without the need to open the Surf Board screen.
  11. Find more web links if you wish. Use the Back button (bottom screen) to go Back in any web site.
    Use the Start Again button if you are deep in a web Site and wish to return to the Google results page (useful!)
  12. You can click the + button as often as you like, to save multiple links.
  13. Click Done (in GA100S33) to return to the Plant Profile screen (FG100S40)
  14. Click the Surf Board button, and copy the links from the memo field, and paste into the Plant Data field
  15. Click Save Changes
  16. You are now back in the initial screen (FG037S01)

    Re-Visiting the web pages
  17. In FG037S01, make sure the same plant is selected (click on the plant name in the list)
  18. RIGHT CLICK in the Plant Data text field (lower left region of screen)
  19. Screen FG100S09 appears, and displays the Plant data in a full screen edit window.
    Note: You can edit and save changes in this screen. You can also retrieve data from the surfboard.
  20. In Flower Genie 2 and later, URL’s in your document are active (highlighted) when you enter screen FG100S09
    You can simply click a URL to revisit the web page.
    If you have a large document, the following feature may be useful
  21. Click the Web Address button. Flower Genie highlights the URL immediately above the cursor point in the document. If you have multiple URL’s in the document,  repeat click the Web Address button. Note how Flower Genie automatically finds and highlights the URL’s in reverse order, and wraps to end of document to repeat the search.
  22. When the desired URL is highlighted, click the Go to Web Page button
  23. The web page is opened in your default Web Browser.
    Note that you can DEEP LINK with this technique, bypassing the home page and going direct to the page of interest.
     

 

 

Using the Google button to find plant information on the web
Copying and Pasting text from web pages (for personal use only)
Always seek permission from the web site owner If you wish to use the information for anything other than personal use.
When you copy text from a web page, its a very good idea to save the URL (web address) of the page.
By doing so, you can easily revisit the web page in the future. Flower Genie makes this easy.

 

 
  1. Start program: My Plants and Gardens - FG037
  2. Click once in the list to select a plant
  3. Click Edit
  4. The Plant Profile screen appears (FG100S40).
  5. Click the Google Search button
  6. Screen GA100S33 appears.
  7. Google returns a list of results, using the Plant Name as the query string. You dont have to type anything!
  8. Find and view a web page with information on the plant
  9. Note that the web address (the URL) is placed in the URL field at the bottom of the screen.
  10. Click the + button (beside the Surf Board button) at the bottom of the screen
    This adds the URL to the top of the Surf Board, without the need to open the Surf Board screen
  11. Now to copy the text from the web page.
    Use your mouse to select a desired block of text.
    Click Ctrl (keep the key depressed) and then C on your keyboard. (Known as a Ctrl-C)
    This copies the selected text
    Now click the Surf Board button
    Note that the cursor is positioned at the very start of the text region in the Surf Board
    (The first line should be the URL of the web page, from step 10 above)
    Now click Ctrl (keep the key depressed) and then V on your keyboard. (Known as a Ctrl-V)
    This pastes the text from the clipboard into the Surf Board, at the cursor position
    Now press the Return key on your keyboard to separate the new text from text already in the surf board
  12. Find more web links if you wish. Use the Back button (bottom screen) to go Back in any web site.
    Use the Start Again button if you are deep in a web Site and wish to return to the Google results page (useful!)
  13. Click Done (in GA100S33) to return to the Plant Profile screen (FG100S40)
  14. In screen FG100S40, click the Surf Board button, and copy the information from the Surf Board memo field, and paste into the Plant Data field
  15. Click Save Changes

    Re-Viewing the Plant Data
  16. In FG037S01, make sure the same plant is selected (click on the plant name in the list)
  17. The data appears in Plant Data text field (lower right region of screen)
  18. If you have copied and pasted large anmount of data, RIGHT CLICK in the Plant Data text field.
  19. Screen FG100S09 appears, and displays the plant data in a full screen edit window.
    Note: You can edit and save changes in this screen. You can also retrieve data from the surfboard
     

 

 

Linking your plants to Photos on the internet (Personal use only)
Always seek permission from the web site owner If you wish to use images for anything other than personal use.

 

 
  1. Start program: My Plants and Gardens - FG037
  2. Click once in the list to select a plant
  3. Click Edit
  4. The Plant Profile screen appears (FG100S40).
  5. Click the Google Search button
  6. Screen GA100S33 appears.
  7. Google returns a list of results, using the Plant Name as the query string.
    You dont have to type anything!
  8. At this stage (since you are looking for photos) you can click Images in the Google web page
    Google returns thumbnails matching the search criteria
  9. Make a selection from the Google web page and visit the web site
  10. If the web page displays a thumbnail, click the image to visit the page with the larger image.
  11. RIGHT CLICK on the actual image
  12. A dialog box appears. Click Properties
  13. Look for the Address (URL) field
  14. TREBLE CLICK on the actual URL. This selects (highlights) the FULL URL details
    (This technique will highlight the URL even if it wraps onto a second line)
  15. RIGHT CLICK on the highlighted URL
  16. Do a Ctrl-C to copy the URL
  17. Click Cancel
  18. In screen GA100S33, click the Surf Board button at the bottom of the screen
  19. Do a Ctrl-V to paste the URL into the Surf Board (memo field)
  20. Repeat the process for more images if you wish.
    Be sure to add each URL to a NEW LINE in the surfboard screen to keep them separate.
  21. Use the Back button (bottom screen) to go Back in any web site.
  22. Use the Start Again button if you are deep in a web Site and wish to return to the Google results page (useful!)
  23. Click Done (in GA100S33) to return to the Plant Profile screen (FG100S40)
  24. Click the Surf Board button, and copy the links from the memo field, and paste into the Plant Data field
  25. Heres the important step
    Copy the URL to the BEST photo, and paste it into the Web Address button in the lower left region of GA100S40
  26. Click Save Changes
  27. You are now back in the initial screen (FG037S01)

    Re-Visiting the favourite image
  28. In FG037S01, make sure the same plant is selected (click on the plant name in the list)
  29. Click the Web Page button
    Note: This button is only visible if the Web Page field contains a URL
  30. The IMAGE is opened in your default Web Browser.
    Note that you have DEEP LINKED with this technique, bypassing the web page and going direct to the image
    This process is termed “leeching”. Its not a popular thing to do unless you have received permission from the Web Master. Its not all bad, in my opinion, if used by users who understand how to pick out the home page of a web site by looking at a URL for an image (its the first bit - ending with .co.uk or .com etc.)
    The direct link to the image is nice, but you will fnd yourself looking for that home page to review the entire site. For that reason,its a good idea to save the Home address of the web site in the Plant Data text.
    Feel free to deep link to images on my ideasforgardens.com web sites.

 

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