Notes From Nature Talk

Ornithological Questions

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    With this now available today, have a few questions as I'm starting to look at this. Watched the video and that helped, Here are some questions that popped up as I started to try the new interface out:

    In the Day/Month/Year section, if the part we are transcribing for the year had 2 digits instead of 4, should we fill in our guess at the year. For example on the first page I saw dates like 4 2 26 and 13 2 26. Should I put 4 2 1926 and 13 2 1926, or record it at 4 2 26 and 13 2 26 as it is written on the page?

    Should we ignore male/female notes, juvenile/Ad. and any other comments in the rows (as there appears to be no place to transcribe this)?

    Can we get a confirmation pop-up on the finish button, since I already accidentally pushed it. I was forgetting that it was not 'Finish this row' but 'Finish this page', causing my first submission to end after 1 row being filled in.

    Related, while typing this out I clicked finish again by accident when starting the next page (14) and it moved on to the next page (35) without ever showing the details page (because this time I confused 'Finished entering all data and rows' with 'Finished entering a page number').

    That said, the interface looks great sofar.

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    Followup post with some additional observations. For the next record that I was working on, I thought to myself 'Let's add all the lines first and update each one to make sure I have all the rows done. This would let me paste in similar values that showed up in multiple rows. I noticed two things in Chrome (Version 28.0.1500.95 m)

    First, I saw no way of deleting a 'new line' once it was added. What would we do if we accidentally add an extra line or two.

    Second, I had issue moving lines around. In Chrome when I added a new line, it was always at the top. As I drag it down, I could only drag down as far as was on my screen. Then I scroll down so I can move the line some more (which required me to let go of the line by letting go of the right mouse button and moving the cursor to the scroll bar). Then when I click on the line again, while I have my right mouse button held down the green line jumps up off-screen back to the top. As I move my cursor down (while holding the button down) it moves down-screen, so I can sometimes get the line to show up again, but can never get it to move further down. When I let go of the button and try to click again, it repeats the process, so at least in Chrome this means I cannot add lines beyond a certain point in the image because I cannot move them around once they show up.

    Posted

  • kadi by kadi

    I have had some of the same issues with line movement using Firefox. It would be nice to be able to position the line with up/down arrow keys after initiating "new line".

    Much of the data is keyboard only. It would be nice to have a key stroke to create a new line rather than having to grab the cursor.

    Is there a way to edit old lines? In the record I worked on it seemed clear that an N was an R until I became familiar with the handwriting...it would be nice to be able to correct that.

    The record I worked on was written in all capital letters. When you say "transcribe exactly as written" do you want all capitals?

    Related to "exactly as written", my record also included several " (ditto) marks...do you want that or what it refers to?

    In the date lines some of the months are numerical others are abbreviations...which is appropriate? If only numbers, then could there be drop downs as in the Herbarium?

    My largest problem is with the re-typing of identical information. The date remained constant on the page I saw. Must we really type in the year for every line?! Also, with the species? As long as one is still on a record page couldn't there be an auto-fill function (or some such) for recently used values on the repetitive values?

    Seems like an interesting catalog but it would take a great deal of frustration on my part to complete a page. Thinking of which, is there a way to save a page in progress? I have worked on the Herbarium pages and use them as a short break from other work. These project pages won't lend themselves to that as they might take as much as a half hour the way this is currently set up.

    Back to Michel G. Lelong (who needs a drop down box as well) for now!

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    Confirming that I saw the same thing in Firefox when I got home, like Kadi had mentioned. Also saw it in explorer.

    I think you can edit old lines by re-selecting a red line (making it the current active green line) and using the links on the bottom left to select which of the 4 section to bring up, at which point you could change that rows data and click ok again.

    I also agree that finding ways to deal with repetitive values on a page will be helpful. It was why I was trying the approach of adding all the lines first. Since all the rows had the same first number, I could type it in once, copy it, then go to each row and paste the same value in. Same when the scientific name showed up several times in a row. Was either going to be that or having notpad open to paste values in and copy any paste as needed.

    Posted

  • nosenabook by nosenabook

    YES, HAVING ISSUES. nOT SURE WHAT I DID, BUT THE LINES ZIPPED TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE AND WOULD NOT MOVE DOWN AGAIN, SO i LOST MY PLACE AND GAVE UP THE PAGE. aND i WAS MAKING SUCH GOOD PROGRESS, TOO! i WANTED TO SEE THAT NUMBER GO UP.
    OH, HECK, SORRY ABOUT THE caps lock, didn't see it.

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    Thanks for some quick updates. I now see you can't click finish from the page number page any more, so that is solved. In addition, it takes you to a 'discuss/back to transcribing/next ledger' choice when you click finish from the main transcription page. That should help alot.

    I managed to finish one page that happened to be at the end of a log, so there were only 20 or so lines, so not being able to move the line was not as much of an issue.

    One more weird information display bug for you. To replicate, open up a page and add two lines. Click on the first line to make it active (green). Instead of typing in the registration number like the first section asks for, click on the scientific name link on the bottom left side to move to the second section. Type in the word 'test' and click ok. Now click on the second line (turning the first line red and the second line green). Click back to the first line (making second line red and first line green). Notice how even though no data is displayed in the area you would type a registration number into, in the bottom left it shows the word 'test' under registration number. This is just one example of this... you can click to 'location' or 'date collected' first and that will be what shows up first in the short-cuts when you return to that row. It's as if what is displaying there remembers the order you enter the data and shows the first thing you enter and click ok under registration number, the second in scientific name, third in location and fourth in date.

    Posted

  • El_Lion by El_Lion

    Green line moving problem in Chrome, too! Needs to be solved ASAP! Problem only starts appearing after a few lines and gets gradually worse the more you scroll down the page. Not sure how to get that *** thing now down where I need it...

    Posted

  • darryluk by darryluk

    I've only used Chrome and had no problems with green line at all? Sometimes Chrome updates get stalled, so you could uninstall Chrome and reinstall latest version? Make sure you have a browser left to download with!

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    Still no luck with the green line bug, but found a work-around for now. The first 10 to 20 lines are not an issue, since you can manipulate them to some extent. At some point, this becomes unfeasible, but here is what I found you could do in Chrome.

    Imagine you have added 15 lines and they are lined up. With the 15th line selected, click add line. This brings up a 16th line a little below the 15th, but not lined up like you want. Since you can't move this line without the bug happening, select the line (if it is not already selected) but be careful to not move your mouse or mousepad with the left button down (since that is what causes the line to move -- on cursor move, not on select). Now right click on the line and select 'Inspect Element'. This brings up an interface in the lower window. You should see something on the left large window similar to:

    div class = " record "
    span class = "row selected" style = "top: 900px;"

    where 900 is the pixel row of the current line., On the right side you should see:

    element . style {
    top: 900 px;
    }

    You can click in that window, change 900 to say 915 (to move it down 15 pixels) or 885 (to move it up 15 pixels). This will move the line for you and you can then close the inspect element window and continue.

    Note: if you want to watch the greenline error at this point, select the current active line with the inspect element window open, then attempt to move the line with your left button held down and you will see the 900 value drop to like 10-200, moving the line way back up the image.

    Posted

  • nosenabook by nosenabook

    I think the green line has been adequately addressed, so I won't add comments to that.

    What about the transcription totals? I just finished a whole ledger page and my total did not change on my profile page. 😦

    However, the total on the Ornithology page went up one. 😃

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    Another unintended feature I want to warn everyone about. Fortunately this did not happen to me (yet), but you will understand how devastating this could be once you read this.

    To replicate, add a line to any ledger page and click finish. This brings up the Discuss/Back to Transcribing/Next Ledger option. Click Discussion and notice how it takes you to the discussion page IN THE SAME WINDOW. 😃

    Now, imagine I had just spent 45 minutes transcribing 30-40 rows of information. I click Finish, I had a few questions, so wanted to both submit my work (next Ledger) and discuss the ledger page. If I were to have click discussion first, I would loose 45 minutes of work as I am taken to the discussion page and back will not return to the work that you did (it is lost). If I were to click the 'Next Ledger' button, my work is saved, but I have lost the ability to start a discussion on the ledger page.

    The 'Discussion' option needs to be configured to open in a new tab or window, or this interface needs to change to two steps: Step 1, Submit/Return to Transcribing and Step 2, Discuss/Next Ledger.

    Posted

  • ghewson by ghewson in response to CTidwell3's comment.

    We had just this bug in Herbarium and/or Calbug when they started. 😦

    Posted

  • El_Lion by El_Lion in response to ghewson's comment.

    I still don't understand how they can go life with something that shows the same bugs as the versions months ago. I mean, two days heavy testing and squashing the bugs ... going life two days later wouldn't have hurt anybody, would it? Meanwhile, we lost two days of transcription due to those bugs. 😦 Oh well, back to herbarium. There I'm sure I won't waste time.

    Posted

  • darryluk by darryluk

    They have shed loads of data to deal with and I think we need to cut them some slack. Google was Beta for years! (Wonder what happened to them?)

    Posted

  • darryluk by darryluk

    I noted on one of the other threads that you can click and drag the green line to where you need it, it takes some practice and occasionally shoots to the top of the page, but its easier than trying to focus your eyes in a straight line without it.

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    Good news is that I think they just solved this issue. Less than an hour ago, I was still experiencing it, but as I was typing this up, I can now move a line around the screen with no issue.

    @darryluk -- Interesting. You did see what we were seeing, but only occasionally having the line pop up to the top. Got me thinking about resolution difference. Would you happen to be running on a monitor/computer setup with a high resolution (i.e. something larger than 1600x900 for example). If you were, that could mean the scrollbar on the right side of the ledger page screen would have less to scroll through, thus changing causing you to have less of this issue that those on a smaller screen resolution.

    For example, when I go to this image:
    http://www.notesfromnature.org/subjects/nhm/5203a55fea30522c540002a0_page.jpg

    and click on the image to zoom into regular size (vs. the default fitting of the whole image to the screen), I can see only the top down to row 174 before needing to scroll down. On the actual tool (since there is a bar at the top), I can see only the top down to row 170. If you could see much more, your computer setup/resolution would have been effected less by the this bug.

    Posted

  • du7Ty-93q by du7Ty-93q

    where there are repeated locations, should I type the whole thing every time or can I use "Ditto" marks , as on the manuscript?

    Posted

  • darryluk by darryluk

    Type the whole thing every time. Imagine each record existing on its own when it comes to someone searching the database. If someone gets a ditto, they wouldn't have the one above to refer it to.

    Posted

  • Angel_48 by Angel_48

    I wanted to start the Ornithological transcribing but I am not getting a page number image, I am getting the bar at the bottom to fill in the page but nothing else. I am using Windows 7 64 bit, which I have used for the other Notes From Nature successfully. Can you tell me please how I can fix this I am itching to start.

    Thanks in advance
    Karin

    Posted