References feature

This is a major new Plant Base feature, introduced with version 1.5.3.

Operation

It allows the recording of external references about the currently displayed plant.

References may include web sites, document files or paper reference information such as text books or catalogues. Internal database references to other Plant Base records are also possible.

"Electronic" references, web addreses, local document files and other Plant Base records, are all hyper-linked automatically. Clicking the link will take the appropriate action:- either jumping to another database record, opening a web page in your normal browser or opening any local document on your hard-disc, using its associated application (e.g. Word document, Excel spreadsheet, text file, etc.).

For paper documents the reference entry just becomes a note field to record a text book or plant cataloque name, with space for page numbers or other comments.

Reference data is displayed on separate window, in similar manner to the Picture Browser.

Entries may be quickly added, amended or deleted by selecting from the "right mouse-button" menu. For Plant Base records or local disc files, a Browse button is provided to select the reference target. Web addresses may be Pasted or simply typed into the target field, with or without the "http://". The optional Comment field can contain any text, for example indicating the relevance of the reference or giving a page number of a book.

Implementation

Reference data is stored in a new area of the database (dataset). This means that the database format has changed with program version 1.5.3. However, we have spent some effort making the program backward compatible with older copies of the database files. So the new version can be used with both current and old database formats, but the references feature will be disabled when operating on old files.

The update installation process is the same as normal, as described on the Upgrading Plant Base page. We recommend that method 1 or 2 is used, as appropriate, in order to make the new feature available.

The references facility is predominantly intended for the end-user, so most plant records will have no reference data when Plant Base is first installed. The Archive and Import features of the new verision will copy and transfer user-supplied reference information.