Today, we are introducing DaffSeek 2.0 which has new features and expanded language support.
Thanks to the efforts of five international volunteers, DaffSeek is now available in Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, and French along with U.K. and U.S. English. Our DaffSeek Translators deserve much appreciation for their long hours of tedious work. We would like to thank and acknowledge the DaffSeek translation team of Henry Shejbal of Italy, Theo Sanders of Germany, Juan Andrés Varas Braun of Chile, Theirry Dronet of France and Hans Kapiteyn of the Netherlands.
A special thank you to Henry Shejbal who served as our Translation Mentor. Because of our translators efforts, DaffSeek will now reach a larger audience of international daffodil growers and enthusiasts. Additional language translations are underway, and these will be added in the near future.
DaffSeek has a new ‘look’! Now when you go to DaffSeek, you will see a ‘Quick’ menu along with a menu bar and seven selections. It was important to add this menu bar to make way for upcoming features, such as the eventual addition of species. The Quick Menu has only the most popular query fields. The original query menu is now the ‘Advanced’ Menu and it has a few new options. Many thanks to Loyce McKenzie, our Journal Editor, because she insured there would be room in the upcoming December issue, to describe all of these new features.
Also new is a Descendants List feature as part of the of hybridizing or research tools in DaffSeek. Lachlan Keown of New Zealand, who partnered with us on the Pedigree Charts, developed the descendants feature. The Descendants List will display children and grandchildren, and in fact, as many generations as exist in DaffSeek. We would like to thank Brian Duncan for consulting on the pedigree charts and descendants lists. His advice made both of these more valuable research tools.
We had to do custom programming just to support Internet Explorer 6, and despite that, you will see much better screens if you use Firefox, Internet Explorer 7, or Safari. To say this another way, IE6 will do a poor job of displaying DaffSeek.
If you use IE6 or earlier, please upgrade to IE7 or one of the other browsers. The number of people that use IE6 is declining month by month. If you are unsure what version of a browser you are using, you can find out by locating the “Help” menu on the top of the browser panel. Then you will see a sub-menu with the choice “About”, which will give you the version of your browser.
A special tanks goes to Mary Lou Gripshover, aka “Detective Gripshover”, for her tireless feedback and tracking down of bugs and well as her friendly but resolute reminders to fix things I had forgotten. Please do not hesitate to report bugs or inconsistencies to us. Even if you have a simple question, please ask it.
The new DaffSeek is the result of the combined efforts of many volunteers. Please see the “Acknowledgements” menu to get an idea of the scope of this effort. DaffSeek has only been possible because of the contributors from many countries and is truly an international Daffodil Photo Database.
Congratulations to each and everyone!
Ben
Hello Ben, You have thanked everyone who helped a little – or a little bit more! But Thanks and Congratulations are due to you for making it all happen. The new version is really a great improvement on what was already an excellent service. You describe Daffnet as an international Daffodil Photo Database – it is certainly that but it is much more – you have provided an amazing Research Tool for any student of daffodils and especially for authors of articles on almost any aspect of daffodils. Daffseek can reduce research time dramatically and can help writers to provide more useful, detailed and accurate information so much more easily. For all of this, my personal thanks and appreciation and I’m sure most of the daffodil fraternity will share these sentiments. This note is addressed to you – but I do not forget Nancy who should share all the plaudits for her management control of your creative partnership that has made all this possible. But we cannot allow you to rest – I know you are both actively applying your minds to the addition of Narcissus species to Daffseek. This is a mammoth task and perhaps the most difficult of all to get right. Sincerly, Brian Duncan
Not only do I echo Brian but I also am amazed by the modesty of these two “daffodil giants”. Three cheers 8-) 8-) 8-)
Harold
And so say all of us here in New Zealand! Well done Nancy and Ben
Cheers,
Peter
Hear! Hear! and you know what; we also need to thank Bob Spotts for bringing them into the fold; and helping them catch “Yellow Fever”.
Phyllis