gardengus said:So Greene

I see you have a list but have not signed up for the swap
Just playing around?
seems a bit confusing to those who may not have been following along with all the threads
and a bit of a tease to those of us who are participating

Responding to gardengus:
This is a beta and Dave asked us, all of us who wanted to please make seed lists so he could check if everything was working. He also asked for opinions/suggestions/input. Now that I have created the list I don't see any reason to delete it as I will use it in a future swap. No one is playing any games, I assure you. Once the swap begins you will no longer have to look at my list as Dave has a plan for that. If my participation in this beta has caused you distress...well, what can I say.

Definitely, anyone can setup their list now and use it for future swaps. In fact, the list feature will always be open and I imagine a lot of people will use it. As swaps come and go, it'll be easy to hop in with a list all ready to go.

Dave, any chance of a Beta Swap Tester Micro Badge?

What a great idea, Jay!

...and they begin to see the value in assisting with the test...

I agree!!! We need a microbadge!

RickCorey said:
>> " I wish I could STAY in a certain My Plant List category and add multiple4 seeds, click-click-click."

dave said:
You can do that, but it's a function of your browser.

When in your plant list, hold the ctrl key down and then click on each icon for the import. That'll open each one in a new tab.

Then just go from tab to tab filling in the details.

Thanks! I didn't think of that. I'm going to pronounce that "recycle" icon in my head as "CTRL-TRADE".

I need to update what I've already entered, then I'll go try CTRL-TRADE.

Weedwhacker said:

I was going to say that Dave must have added Greene to the swapper list by mistake, but... I suppose anyone that has made a list, even just to try it out and see how it works, will be showing up on the swap lists that we can view. (if that's the case, I would think anyone not actively participating should use the option that makes the entries private ?) And if that's the case, it seems like it could get quite confusing in the future when there may be several different swaps going on at one time.

Given that Greene brought it to our attention that she has a list but is not participating... I'm wondering if Danita, Jimard8, Emquinn -- and Dave, for that matter -- are participating or just have lists that are set up and visible? (the more the merrier, IMO, but those names aren't on the list of participants and I wouldn't want to be requesting seeds that aren't available in the trade)

I assume that eventually there will be something like two different kinds of lists:
our private inventory of things we HAVE,
vs.
multiple lists, one for each swap we're in at the moment, of seeds we OFFERED to that swap.

For example, I found I have nine small pkts of 'Valmaine' lettuce (Romaine type), but want to offer 5 pkts in this swap. Eventually I hope will have one list (or one view) where I can record
"HAVE 9 total", or maybe "HAVE 2 REMAINING" and
"OFFERED 5 TO BETA SWAP" and
"OFFERED 2 TO DND's SWAP"

Here's a wish of debatable value. No value, really, but slightly easier to click on.

You know the pull-down list where we can pick "private", "available for trade" or "show but not ready"?

Could those be replaced by two side-by-side buttons ?

There could be three radio buttons ( HIDE, SHOW & TRADE )
(SHOW makes it Unavailable.
I think HIDE should also make it unavailable.
TRADE also makes it visible.)

Or just two buttons, each set to TOGGLE the state of either the readiness or visibility.
I would put the current state to the left:
{Is Available} or
{Is Unavailable} or
{Is Private} (and hence also unavailable)

Default State is UNavailable and visible, so the toggle-button labels would be:
{Is Unavailable} - - [ Show READY to Trade ] and [ HIDE ]

Say they click on READY. Now the buttons have these labels:
{Is Available} - - [ Make this Unavailable] and [ HIDE ]

Once they click on HIDE, the button labels become:
{Is Private} - - [ Show READY to Trade ] and [ Make Visible but Unavailable ]

I think the functionality would be identical to what you have, but one fewer click and the buttons and text could be larger than the pull-down controls.

I hope we can make an unlimited number of silly requests ...

How about another control for the Swap List -

Show Unavailable rows only
Show Private rows only
Show Available rows only

Or, just as handy, "Show Unavailable rows first".

I may have missed some posts about clickability, but I added Morning Glory (Ipomoea 'Split Second') to my list by typing the name into "Add a new item to your swap list " , and then clicking on the name that was offered.

That was clickable from my Swap List.

(Firefox)

By the way, I kept looking for the recycle / swap icon in the Plant database it self ... did I miss it or is it deliberately not there? Navigating around the database is familiar, "My Plant List" less so.

Well, if I spend more time "in My Plant List", I'll get familiar with it!

There is a button in the plant database that say "Add this plant to your list" (for your plant list). There should be one under it to add a plant to your swap list.

That would be great, then I thought "unless Dave WANTS us to add everything to our Plants List first".

Maybe that will serve for future Wish Lists, with the idea that first we "have" a seed, then when we run out, change that item to "WANT" that seed.

But since no one has ever asked for a seed in my plant list, even those labelled "GOT LOTS - For Postage", adding thing to my plant list has little value for me.

I have to say, this has been a good method, so far, of increasing data in the database.

I clicked on a bunch of seed types that had little to no data in the database, so I updated 6 entries last night that didn't have any data. (I went to various sources to get that information, but a huge 'thank you' to the Missouri Botanical Gardens for providing a large amount of it!)

Rick, Dave fixed that "clickablity" thing where I was having trouble with the morning glory 'split second.'

The "add to swap list" button is just in your plant list, not in the database, although I think it could be handy to have in the DB, too.

I have to admit that I'm starting to feel like it's a little redundant to be making the extra list for the swaps, when our plant lists already have the capability of indicating "available for trade." It might be a lot easier to just utilize that feature and develop a list of swap participants that shows a link to their "available" seeds:

for instance:

List of participants:
1. Weedwhacker http://garden.org/lists/view/W...

NOTE: when I did this example I discovered that we can't "show only" the items available for trade at this point, so that link shows all my "haves" -- but I have to think it would be a lot easier to make that change to the plant list functions than to write a whole new thing for the swap lists. And we could also link to our "wants" from the plant list that way, too. This would not only remove the additional work of maintaining an entirely separate list for swaps, but it would be a way to control the lists for the participants to view in any given swap - not that it wouldn't be possible to go look at someone's list that isn't in the swap, but there wouldn't be a direct link to it from the swap thread.

I haven't had enough caffeine yet, so I hope that makes some kind of sense. Any thoughts about this, @Dave ?

Weedwhacker said:I have to admit that I'm starting to feel like it's a little redundant to be making the extra list for the swaps, when our plant lists already have the capability of indicating "available for trade." It might be a lot easier to just utilize that feature and develop a list of swap participants that shows a link to their "available" seeds:

No Sandy, because this new system is being designed from the ground up for swapping. Next week you'll have the ability to actually select seed offers from other people's swap lists and "add to cart" sort of. So anyone who wants to participate in a group swap will have to setup a swap list inside this feature. But I made it easy to copy items from your Plant List to your swap list.

Weedwhacker said:I'm wondering if Danita, Jimard8, Emquinn -- and Dave, for that matter -- are participating or just have lists that are set up and visible?

I'm participating, but haven't setup my own swap list yet. Other than me, only the 20 mentioned are actually participating. Anyone else who has a swap list is doing it for a future swap.

Horntoad said:There is a button in the plant database that say "Add this plant to your list" (for your plant list). There should be one under it to add a plant to your swap list.

There will be one, but not yet. I'm not going to add it for everyone, but just for people who are participating in a swap. I don't want the button universally visible.

RickCorey, good feedback. I'll be thinking about your ideas. And yes, do suggest any ideas you have. They are all good.

Okay, that makes sense then (about this listing feature being designed from the ground up for swapping).

And this is the list of participants in the beta swap, right: http://garden.org/thread/view_...
(plus Dave !)

In that case, here's one more thing on my "wish list" -- would it be possible to give us a text box at the top of our swap list (similar to the info box on the plant lists), where we could either list our "wants" or link to the "wants" on our plant list?

Yes, I'll add the text box, and yes, those are the participants.

Or would it be possible to have a place to list interests somewhere else? I don't use "Plant Lists".

For anyone participating, I know there isn't a 'want' feature yet for this, but when it comes to veggies, I look for non-GMO and organic varieties, so if any of you have those in your list but haven't listed them as such, please remember to do so for those of us that are more particular about the nature of our edibles.