Floridata's Web List Service FAQ

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Intro
Floridata Web List Service is an online "tool" that our Members use to create and maintain lists of plants. The goal of the Service is to provide 1) a convenient online mechanism to document the plants in gardens, landscapes and ecosystems and 2) an infrastructure for distributing, aggregating and sharing Web Plant Lists and associated data.

Members can share their Plant Lists by publishing them in the Floridata Web List Directory page, emailing them or by downloading them for use on other web sites or in spreadsheets and other applications.

Viewing Floridata Member Web Lists
While not all Members will choose to author Web Lists, most Floridata visitors have access to the published Plant Lists of other Members and will find them to be useful and entertaining gardening and environmental resources. Published Lists are accessed from Floridata's Web List Directory page, from the Member Profile of the author of the List or from the InfoWindow links on the Member on Map page (click here to see Jack's Map as an example).

Creating and Managing Floridata Member Web Lists
To create and maintain a Web Plant List, Members will use four main pages: the Create Web List page for defining the type of list to be created; the Web Info Editor page where the purpose of the List is indicated; The List Item Editor is where plant items are added and deleted from the list and the Item Attachment page which is where Members can attach additional information and images to plants in their Lists - effectively creating datasheets or Profiles for each plant in the list if desired.

Create Web List Page
When a new Web List is created the first step is to indicate the "List Type" by selecting the radio button for one of three List Types. One kind of list is for documenting cultivated plants in the garden and landscapes. The other two List Types I call Spotter Lists that collect the name plants that are "spotted" in the environment. Their purpose is to collect and catalog data for an online community project to map worldwide plant species distributions.

On the Create Web List page select one of the three radio buttons to indicate what type of list you want to make:

Grow Lists
These are lists of cultivated plants that you grow (or are known to grow) in a specific geographical locations. Use this kind of list to document the plants in your garden, for planning and design, recommended plant lists, etc. (Some examples: "Recommended Hedge Plants for South Florida", "My 2007 Cut Flower Garden", "Trees for Urban Landscapes", etc. )

Native Plant Spotter Lists
Members able to identify native plant species in specific geographical areas will create lists that can be used to create species surveys, track the health of specific groves or specimens and many other uses. Ultimately the data from these lists will be (anonymously) aggregated into data warehouse from which Members may extract reports and raw data.

Invasive Plant Spotter Lists
Similar to the the Native Plant Spotter but intended for recording Invasive Plant Species occurrences in specific geographical regions. Governmental agencies, Invasive Plant Councils and non-profit organizations and others are invited to create and publish Invasive Plant Spotter Lists. This data too will be aggregated and made available to Members.

Once the List Type is selected, click the Create List button to proceed to the List Info Page.

List Info Page
On this page you can provide information that describes the purpose, type, location and attributes of a Web List. The following table describes the purpose and use of the info on this page:

Click the "Update Web list Info" button to save the information you have entered or "Cancel" if you don't want to update the information. In either case the List Item Editor page is displayed from where you can add and delete Plant Items from your lists.

List Item Editor Page
Once the Web List is set up you can begin adding Plant Items to the List. Plant Items can be added in two ways:

1) The Quick Add form near the bottom of the page has a field into which up to 10 Floridata Plant ID ("FDID") numbers, separated by commas can be be entered. (Note that a particular FDID can be added to a Web List only once)

2) Plant Items can be "harvested from the Plant Browser page - just select the checkboxes next to the Plant Items that you want; select the desired "Copy to" target list from the drop down menu and then click "Add"

In either case the Item Attachment Page is displayed from where Plant Items can be added and deleted from the List.

Item Attachment Page
A useful feature of the Web List Service is that Members can create "Item Attachments". By creating an (optional) Attachment, Members can annotate each Plant Item with text, data and images. .

Plant Browser Page
Use the controls on this page to display lists of plants whose items can be copied to member Web Lists by setting the checkbox next to each plant to be moved and clicking the "Copy" button. A status page will appear to confirm the additions.

The Floridata Web List Service Menu

The Web List Service Menu appears at the upper left corner of all three of the List Service pages. Click these links to perform the following actions on the "active (currently displayed) Web List