Introducing Ideas Genie Pro

to Ideas Genie users

This presentation
Theres a lot of explaining to do. This document is incomplete, but the software is already available and being used by a number of customers.

This document will be extended and perhaps restructured as I find time to put it into a presentable format.

Please read through the document, skipping the links. Then go back and click to follow the links.
The first pass will give you an overview. The second pass, taking the links, will explain the important items in more  detail.

Whats new in Ideas Genie Pro?

1. More data fields have been added - More info       More about data fields
    
2. The functionality has been extended - More Info
    
3. The software has been made capable of coping with ALL the complexities of plant names - More Info
    
4. More programs - More info
    

For purposes of this document, I will refer to these changes as “New Features”.

Regrettably, whereas many customers keep in touch, the vast majority dont.
I sometimes fear the worst (that the software is not being used) then out of the blue, I get an email from a customer who bought the software one, two or even three years ago.
Thus, trying to keep every customer informed of developments is a very big problem.

The upgrade method was considered to be the best approach.
The plant names was my own initiative. The master database was taking shape, and I was working on an Acer database and a Camellia database.
As the database grew to the stage where there were hundreds of plants of a particular genus, it became irritating when the list in Ideas Genie did not exactly match the listing in popular reference books, in particular the RHS Plant Finder.
The problem was caused by Hybrid plants.

My daughter helped me to key up the names of as many Acer cultivars as we could find. I became quite concerned when some of these plants did not “fit” nicely into the fields available in Ideas Genie.
The problem in that case was plants with Collector names, plants with Author names,and plants with Trade designation names.

I did my research on Plant Names, and realised that a few wee changes were required. The changes took a lot longer than expected.

Programs Names
Every  program in Ideas Genie which allows you to work with plant names has been upgraded.
However, in all but one case, the program names are unchanged.

By extensive coding in the programs, you will use exactly the same program in Ideas Genie as you will in Ideas Genie Pro.

Ive managed to make the build the New Features into the Ideas Genie programsmake the programs “identical”.
 
See Ideas Genie Programs which are incompatible with Ideas Genie Pro
See Programs which are NEW in Ideas Genie Pro
You need a new License Number to Register Ideas Genie Pro. The licence number is NOT the same as Ideas Genie.

Why the need to upgrade?
The database structure change has to be made in YOUR database before programs will work for you.