Actually, I've conversed with Alex a number of times.

On this subject, who says it has to be a tree chart? I find the text
listing in WildCatt to be sufficient for my needs.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Eric Hunt" wrote in message
...
Ray,

Here is Alex Maximiano's response, posted here with his permission:

"Be careful what you ask for. :-) Yes, I could do such a tree but it would
be extremely hard to see. For example, take Phal. H.P. Norton and try
drawing its tree on a large sheet of paper. It will take you several days
to do so, and major rewrites as you work your way back the large number of
generations. You would end-up drawing 240 boxes to enter Phal.
rimestadiana(amabilis) alone!!! Try clicking Genealogy for H. P. Norton.
It will tell you there are 240 rimestadiana nodes in the background.

But that's not all. Once you've completed the chart, your two first
parents will be so far removed vertically you will not be able to see them
at the same time. Sure, I could make such a chart, but who would want to
see it? You'd have to do so much vertical and horizontal scrolling it
would become meaningless.
Wildcatt does not draw a chart going all the way back to the species! That
is a common misperception. I wish people would realize that.

If you have any ideas on how to get a "full chart" to display in a way
that is easy to see, for goodness sake let me know! I mean it. I really
want to do it. I just haven't figured out how. I know how to do the
programming for it; I just don't know how to display it. If you tell me
what you want it to look like, I can program it."

Ray, Alex is keenly interested in getting your feedback - I encourage you
to start a dialogue with him. In the interest of not feeding the spam
harvesters, his email address is on the OrchidWiz homepage.
(www.orchidwiz.com)

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

"Ray" wrote in message
...
I'm aware of that, Kathy. I meant is there a way to get ALL generations
in a single view.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"K Barrett" wrote in message
. ..
You click on teh hybrid you want to know about and that opens up a
second window. You can stack the windows, too.

So for example, if you put in V. Robert's Delight (note you have to use
the apostrophe. If you are ever unsure about whether punctuation is
required in a name you just search on some other version of the name
(like 'delight' and it will return every registered plant with 'delight'
in the name. you scroll down the list and choose the one you want)

For V Robert's Delight Orchidwiz will return 7 or so generations for the
hybrid in the TEXT tree. There will be a couple of hybrids listed at
the end. Click on the hybrid (node) and a second window will come up
with that tree. You can stack up windows and move them around in order
to go through your research. In the picture tree you can only get 3
generations or so, but again, if you click on the hybrid you want to
research it will open a second window and continue farther into the
plant's background.

K
"Ray" wrote in message
...
I haven't seen eAOS, and as awards don't mean that much to me, I
probably won't bother - especially after these such "rave reviews".

Eric, et al - is there a way in OrchidWiz to get a FULL family tree,
instead of just a couple of generations? IMO, that's the only
shortcoming compared to WildCatt.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Eric Hunt" wrote in message
...
Folks,

Coming into this a bit late, but let me say my e-AOS Awards experience
has been uniformly bad.

First off, like someone said above, SAVE EVERYTHING. There is an order
number buried in your order confirmation email that is required to
install the program. This is *NOT* the same order number that appears
on the packing slip that accompanies the physical CD-ROM.

Secondly, I emailed the AOS and was informed that I needed that email.
Well, at the time I thought I'd deleted it and I replied back to Pam
Giust *AND* Lee Cooke. I told them that their current system was very
poorly thought out and could someone please look up that order #,
because I deleted the email, and by the way, why didn't you offer to
look that order # up as part of your original reply?

No word after two days from either of them.

I finally did a search in Outlook and FOUND that darn sales
confirmation email from the AOS and was able to install the program.

I wasn't encouraged to see the installer drop for an extended period
of time to a freakin' DOS window.

Then I ran the program.

If there weren't 11,000 photos, many of rarely seen species, I would
have returned the whole thing and asked for my money back.

It has to be the most amateurish implementation of an embedded
database that I've ever seen. It looks like something from Windows 3.1
from 1992! It has a negative usability rating in my book.

At this point I really do just give up on the AOS. Put simply: They
Don't Get It, and I don't think any amount of work by volunteers at
this point will make them see the light.

Oh, and I think OrchidWiz is much much better - and will continue to
improve rapidly. The owner/developer, Alex Maximiano, is amazingly
responsive to comments and feedback and his photo database is
expanding rapidly. This really is a case of you get what you pay for.

.....My $3 (adjusted for inflation)

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org