Author Topic: Overview and comparison with other Genie software  (Read 3079 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online ideasguy

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6313
  • Just me
    • Ideas for Gardens
Overview and comparison with other Genie software
« on: January 19, 2006, 10:37:28 AM »
This project has been put on hold for a few months while I developed Flower Genie, the reason being that I wanted each product to integrate as much as possible.

The three tier range (Flower Genie, Ideas Genie and now Ideas Genie Pro) can be summarised in a number of ways.
1) Price structure

2) An upward path in relation to Horticultural knowledge and requirements
    The database structure for handling plant names is one significant difference in the products.
     a) Storing Plant names
     Flower Genie has one field for plant name (and one for Common name). Pure and simple.

     Ideas Genie has four fields for plant names. Genus, species, subspecies and Cultivar

     Ideas Genie Pro has the same 4 fields as IG, plus a number of special fields - Check boxes e.g. for Hybrid Genus and Hybrid Species,
     a Pop-up to allow you select (if applicable) one from subsp, Trade Name, Group, Series, Grex etc,
     plus a field for Collectors name or Authors name.
     Does that cover it all?
     No, but it does for 99.99% of plants.
     What about the other 0.01%? Theres a special field. I THINK it will allow proper entry of ANY plant name.
     ----------------------------
     Displaying Lists of Plant Names (in Screens and reports) - The Index order of plant names
     Is it alphabetical? No... that would be MUCH too easy
     (To be continued, but meanwhile, have a look at your RHS A-Z or your RHS Plant Finder to see the complexities,
      particularly in relation to Hybrids)

and to pass the time, have a look at Sunningdale (you'll see why later)
Sunningdale



3) Number of plants
    Each product can handle the same number of plants (and you will NEVER hit the limit)
    However, if you have hundreds of plants of the same Genus, then you need to consider using Ideas Genie or Ideas Genie Pro

4) Applications

(Please Revisit. I'll update to expand on each point later)
« Last Edit: January 23, 2006, 02:35:08 PM by ideasguy »