Any chance there might be an easy tweak to add a link in the daylily cutivars' View Pages to directly hot-link to its Daylily Database/By Characteristic page, so that children lists could automatically land you there with the benefits of the DL Database pictures, characteristics search, etc.? In other words, rather than just seeing a list of hot-linked children names, you'd go directly into DL Database with the cultivar's name auto-filled in the "Parentage" box? It would facilitate an immediate jump that yields further sub-searches possible - visual scanning of all child photos, further refining child clusters by bloom traits and forms, etc. My thinking is that it would help hybridizers get a feel for what traits may be possible to transmit, visually and easily identify related child plants that may add to a hybridizing line, even eliminate the need to pop back and forth through the regular list of child plants to go one level deeper (using the DL Database as the nexus, each child plant level goes back to View Page with their own child plant hot-link to DL DB, so research can proceed step-by-step down the line). That kind of auto-filling to the parentage box might make navigation along the progeny line very quick and easy.

Perhaps this would also make it possible to create a parent-by-parent search as well? A link to each parent that goes directly to the DL DB with that parent pre-filled in the box so that one can see all sibs and half-siblings of a cultivar? And, since I'm being pie-in-the-sky ... a parental search option that could pull up inside the DL DB all named daylilies in a cultivar's past heritage? It would in essence generate a full "known parent cultivar" pedigree, without the formal tree/structure or pod/pollen divisions, but with all known parent generations available at-a-glance and at-a-click. For hybridizing (and even purchasing) decisions and purposes, that would be almost as powerful as an instant formal tree pedigree.

I fully expect there is no easy tweak to do this, nor much interest or need in the wider community ... but it sure would be fun to play in the database with that kind of forward, backward, and full 'pedigree research' mode available. Currently, it is certainly possible to do so through more click-intensive methods (and thank goodness for that - it is a most cherished function of ATP's DB), but being able to sort and select desired criteria to view, and stepwise explore, for both parentage and child plants - and to see them instantly listed out in the DL DB with pics and further sub-searches easy to perform would, for me, make the DB an even more astoundingly educational, powerful, and time-saving tool. Just thinking about it makes me

I'm always happy to explore ways of improving the navigation of the database. I read your post several times and I'm afraid I don't fully follow the path you're taking here. Can you give me links to pages that you're talking about?

For example, what are you referring to when you mention "its Daylily Database/By Characteristic page"?

I just need more help finding the pages you're talking about. Then I can start to visualize the extra functionality that might be missing.

Thanks, Dave! Here are examples of what I meant for Child Plant and Pedigree lists that might utilize a direct link from a cultivar's View Page to a "Daylily Database/By Characteristics" result:

First, the View Page of "Diabolique" with a green arrow showing an option for accessing child plants within the DL/By Characteristic database result (Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Diabolique'))



Clicking the imaginary link in the photo example above might take you to the Daylily Database/By Characteristic page with "Diabolique" auto-filled in the "Parentage" box (http://garden.org/plants/group...), thus showing pictures of Diabolique's offspring, and allowing further refinement to the list of its children through selections available right in the DL DB/By Characteristics page. This way we could see and refine searches on all the children without having to click through a longer path to a general blank DL DB/By Characteristics page and without needing to fill in the desired cultivar name in the "Parentage" box. One-click to further refinements, for example, might find the user selecting "Semi-Evergreen Foliage Type" to find which offspring have a desired feature.



In this example, I'd know in a couple of clicks that Diabolique has two of eleven child plants that are semi-evergreen, and by clicking through from there to a child plant's View Page I might again find a direct link back to its next-generation child search results in the DL DB, and so on, down through the generations.



Similarly, if I wanted to do a "backward" search in Diabolique to see and compare more detailed plant characteristics behind it, namely for its pod parent "Borrowed Time," there might be a link in Diabolique's View Page to that parent's list of offspring (and/or parents) inside the DL DB:



(http://garden.org/plants/group...)
That way we could see related lines ("aunts" and "uncles") that also came from Diabolique's parent, "Borrowed Time," and via a click to Borrowed Time's View Page, could go back stepwise through additional generations via direct lines to see other past ancestors (all in the highly refine-able "By Characteristic" page in the DL DB).



Lastly, but certainly not "least" in the pie-in-the-sky category ... a full be-all-and-end-all direct descent and ascent pedigree search result so that one might see and compare past/present cultivars in a line. For example, a both-ways pedigree result via the DL DB would show that Diabolique goes all the way back to 1899-discovered species plants H. aurantica major and H. thunbergii, and also has a modern 2007 grand-child "Pushing the Limits". It would, for example, yield by quick clicks that "Rozavel" (a 1965 Diabolique pollen ancestor) is a close match in color and form for "Puppet Lady" (a 1990 child of Diabolique) and might be a good choice for crossing to set that characteristic. Here's my fantasy of what part of a full pedigree search result via the DL DB might look like (to include offspring up to current generation, as well as direct-line ancestors even back to the last known named cultivar/species - abbreviated/truncated in the picture example below as it would take a lot of cutting and pasting to show all the ancestors/picture/links here):



Okay... I'll hush now really, i cringed as i prattled on, making heads explode (even my own! ) ... i feel confident i will soon be reading the words "relational database" in reply and i have vague memories of programmers furrowing their brows at my not understanding that "relational" and "searchable" are two very different thangs. it also did _not_ escape me that my random choice of Diabolique (simply a cultivar that had full lines back to species as well as near-present offspring) certainly had its "freudian" overtones thanks to its pedigree cultivar's names. Said another way, I hope I was not too Diabolical in Pushing the Limits here, causing me now to turn into a Nemesis on Borrowed Time!

I'll need some time to digest this.

thanks *hands you some alka seltzer* .... i actually got physically dizzy while writing it up ... but at least now it will stop rattling around in the back of _my_ head and i can get back to whizzing around in that too-awesome-just-as-it-is database!

Those screenshots were amazingly helpful. Best put together feature request I've ever had in 15+ years of receiving requests.

Whew! Your graciousness is the kindest response ever in 6+ years of having worked with, and tormented, AI programmers dunno why they got "those looks" on their faces back then, but I'm so relieved if it helped to make this a little more intelligible or digestible