What's New

This section records changes and progress of the development of the TAXA Wood Knowledge Base.
It is also useful to return visitors to see listings of the most recent changes and additions.
Over 70 new scans added. November 12, 2015
At least 70 samples acquired at the Penn State University IWCS annual meeting were scanned and are now activated in the TAXA website.
All Species Starting With "A" Now Have Authorities and Taxon Status' Added - February 27, 2013
Just reporting the authorities for each species, now that the coding is complete is a matter of looking up each and copying them all in. This is true of displaying the taxon status of each species name, also. Both are working well. Getting the code right to offer a link for synonyms to change to the species accepted name was more complex and took a few efforts. It is now working for those species that have the needed data added to the database table for all woods starting with "A". This makes it much easier to specify using woods starting only with "A" to demonstrate that this new feature really does work.
Italicizing Species Names - February 21, 2013
Species namea are supposed to always be in italics. This correction into italics was done this day for the alphabetical species menu, the display pages for each species, species listed in the Commercial Woods listing and for the Softwoods listing.
Taxon Status Reporting - January 13, 2013
The data sheets now show the botanical name status! The next planned step is to build a function that will allow the users who have used a synonym name to be able to continue for information on that same name or to have the data search changed over to the accepted name.
Better Display of Image Icons - January 12, 2013
The image icons were reduced in size and code statement trimmed so now the icons show much more compactly and do not drop to the next line. The overall effect is a more compact and pleasing display of listed species.
Revision of the intro.htm page - January 10, 2013
A much needed rewrite of the Intro page was done
Adjusting Link Icons - January 8, 2013
The size of the color, uv and photomicro icons was adjusted down in size. Other changes were made in the code for alphaspecies pages so the icons fit better and did not separate record lines so much. Also, the coding error was found and repaired that had stopped the UV icon from showing properly. The report appearance has improved.
Installed Over 200 Wooden Egg Photos - Nov. 2012
Got permission to use the photos of 560 wooden eggs (each a different species) from Vern in NSW, Australia. Vern emailed them and I was able to add well over 200 new photos to species pages that had none.
Paging Fixed on Search Engine
Re-established my connection with PHP programmer Jonathan Kim. Jonathan quoted $40 to fix the paging in the search engine. It now works.
Notice of Delay for Developing the Woodworking and Numeric Data Sections - March 5, 2012
Since there is a fair bit of programming to do for the major sections and because there is a huge mountain of data to enter into TAXA (2 years of labor?), it was decided to formally announce long delays until the other tasks are reasonably complete. A formal notice was created to explain this to the public.
Fixed Browser issue - March 5, 2012
I compared how the alphaspecies.php page looked on IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. The last three were quite similar in rendition but with the prior code, IE shoved the first data column way past the end of the legend. Finding a solution was difficult at first but I did find a fix that works. There are still color differences in IE compared to the other differences that I will tolerate for now.
Missing Genera Repaired - March 3, 2012
The addition of data from the Tervuren Xylarium was so successfull that it brought in 670 genera in the species table that were not in the genera table. With unfair restrictions on the MySQL account at GoDaddy, I decided that all the missing genera would have to be done manually. After a number of days of work, this was accomplished. The next step was to add in all the links needed to activate all these new genera. That took a number of days, too, but it is now complete, including creating new genera as needed, correcting spelling errors and erasing occasional genera that were judged bogus. This all means a large step forward for data fullness and integrity.
Fixed Genera table indexes - completed Feb. 21, 2012
Somehow along the way, there was a huge gap in index number happen. It took a day to manually reindex over 350 records but now the last one as of tonight is 9477 instead of 99274. This was done partially in preparation to adding in the large number of genera reported in the species table but missing in the genera table.
Re-established common names in Commercial Woods - January 11, 2012
Before, I had the woods in Commercial Woods including common names and ordered by them. I have no idea why the code changed back to exclude them but as of today, that has been repaired.
Scanned new species - January 2,3, 2012
Originally started scanning new species from Drouin via my laptop. Later found that the laptop did a terribly inaccurate job with color and have to adjust or rescan many of them again.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2012 HAS ARRIVED
Created a Statistics Page - December 30, 2011.
Created a single stats summary page that automatically counts the number of recorded orders, families, genera, species, commercial woods, softwoods and many other parameters.
Tell a friend button - December 21, 2011
After some time searching the Internet, I found a suitable Javascript button that allows readers to share the website with friends via email. The install was easy and it now works.
Guestbook Added - December 20, 2011
A guestbook was added, the main menu was expanded and some customization for appearance.
Additions & Changes to the Bibliography Page - December 16
Some additions were added including the Index Xylariorum and a list of helpful wood sample suppliers and collectors. A few formatting changes were also added for clarity and good appearances.
Rearranged Contact Us page - December 10, 2011
The Contact US windows were rearranged to be side by side in a more compact manner that does not require paging. The contact text had some changes for clearer reading.
Comment Locations Changed
Comments on picking a letter or reporting what was chosen were moved over to where the alphabet links are.
Legends Added - Dec. 7
The legend for the look ahead icons were added to the Wood Species, Commercial Woods and Softwood pages.
Clean-up Using Conditional Statements - Dec. 7
Quite a few changes in displayspecies.php were made so menu items and top-of-page show only when they are needed.
Repaired Commercial Woods and Softwoods areas - Dec. 7
After a fair amount of searching, found why these two sections would not show General Data and repaired the problem.
TAXA Wood Gallery - Installation completed - Dec. 6
Finished manually editing over 2,100 file names into botanical and common name subtitles. Need help now to test all 2100 wood entries for typos and whether the larger pictures pop up ok.
What's New updated - December 4, 2011
As of today, December 4, this running account is finally updated (for now).
New Programmer Helping - December 4, 2011
A new live in roommate knows PHP and MySQL and has offered to help to some degree with the project (First name Illias). Some useful discussions and planning has already helped.
Made a project to do list - December 4, 2011
So much has been successfully done that it should be possible to have all basic programming done for what was planned for version 1.0 of TAXA by the change into the new year (2012). To keep track of what tasks still need to be done and in what priority, a project to do list was created. It already needed a fair amount of update.
A UV Gallery - December 4, 2011
I searched the web for a decent looking and free gallery script, found one and installed it. How to populate it, though, is not clear. I have to find out from their forum more or install another one.
Created a Wood Colour Gallery - December 4, 2011
I remembered that I had made a wood gallery from my wood collection a few years ago with over 2,100 woods. I copied the gallery over to TAXA, changed titles and put a new menu link in for it. Now I have a large job that will take a while to translate 2,100 file titles into sub-titles of botanical and common names. The work is well under way.
The Multisearch page eye candy - December 4, 2011
The Multisearch page looked rather spartan before. I added a pine background and made changes to make the search form easier to read and use.
The PayPal button reparied on the $Helpus$ page - December 4, 2011
While showing off the website to a friend, I was surprised to find that it did not work right. Advice from PayPal told me that they deliberately made sure it would not work on a web frames environment. I updated that whole function with a lead to an outside web page.
The Contact Us page updated - December 4, 2011
I was so sure that this page was updated months ago when I moved but it wasn't. The data was updated and a birdseye maple background placed behind the report window for better appearance.
Bookmatched wood scans - December 4, 2011
The number of species running in the splash page was increased. All of them were bookmatched then, both vertically and horizontally. The results are spectacular.
Foreground slide show on the splash page - December 4, 2011
I searched for and found an appropriate php foreground slide script on the web and adopted to show slides of what is inside the website. The snapshops were prepared, the slide show worked except with one snag. It stopped the background slide from running. I had to remove it. I will have to contact a Javascript font to find if there is away to make both slides shows work.
Stablizing the home 'splash' page - December 4, 2011
The page structure was done before using CSS and div tags but when a person zoomed in or out, page elements would go badly out of place. I changed the page layout totally to tables and it became FAR more stable!
Installed UV and Photomicro Look-Aheads - December 4, 2011
Made new icon for photomicro lookahead. Got all three lookahead (colour photos, UV photos, microphotos) icons working properly.
New fields added to the 'species' table- December 4, 2011
New fields for the uv photos and three for each view needed for the photomicros in the 'species' table and the data for these was populated into them. A new page was made for the photomicros and adaptations done as needed. Single instances of the colour photos, uv photos where they exist and photomicros now all work.
Catching up on entries into What's New - December 4, 2011
With a new and simplified layout, it paved the way for many rapid advancements and new features, so many and so rapidly that I fell behind entering them in this What's New area and I do not remember the actual date for each. All of these recent listings will therefore all be on December 4. Nex entry will start listing the accomplishments.
Abandoning the use of 3 pop up windows- December 4, 2011
After a slump in programming, I rethought the layout of the site for the sharing of all data for a species and decided to abandon the pop-up windows approach for the UV photos, photomicros photos and perhaps the multiple photos. It is best to have the first two right in the data sheets anyway. This simplified the coding tremendously and paved the way to faster project advances since the whole project so far.
Camera Icons now after species names - October 15, 2011
On the full species listings and those for commercial woods and softwoods, the code was rearranged so that the camera icons will show up after the species names instead of before. This keeps all species column aligned far better and the species names are easier to read.
Reformat Taxon Listings - October 15, 2011
On all full listings of orders, families, genera and species, a css statement was added to remove all underlines on the links. It looks cleaner, easier to read and probably takes up less room. This was also done for commercial wood listings.
Disclaimer Page - March 30, 2011
A section added that discusses accuracy and reliability of the data and Knowledge in TAXA precedes a formal legal disclaimer.
Scans now show on the Commercial Woods pages. March 30, 2011
A coding bug was found and corrected that kept wood scans showing on the commercial listed woods pages.
Common Names added to Common Woods Page - March 30, 2011
The common names column was added first with botanical names after in the Common Names feature. The sorting was also changes to sort ascending by common names (ie. species_commonname). This will help readers find woods easier by the common names they know. Work is still needed to add missing common names in the 'species' table.
Statistics Javascript installed. March 24, 2011.
The javascript supplied for a new stats package was copied into all TAXA relevant files.
Sci-genera.species missing hundreds of names. Maarch 18, 2011.
All the missing genera names in this column were added.
Display.htm update. March 17, 2011.
This "Introduction and Primer" was updated to reflect developments and changes since first written.
Commercial Woods page expanded. March 16, 2011
The page entries were expanded from just over 90 species to 512 species.
Bibliography page filled in. March 15, 2011
The bibliography page was take from being empty of data to having a decent amount of information It no longer looks abaondoned or empty.
A donations Page added. March 13, 2011.
Included is a connection for donation via PayPal. Added to the left main menu.
A "Contact Us" page was added. March 12, 2011.
Included in the left main menu.
Species Display Corrections. February 23, 2011.
Corrections were made so common names and the graphics command for the picture show only when there is a scan to show.
UV photos. February 23, 2011
Finished installing all UV fluorescent photos we have to date starting with the letter A. Strangely, most show but a few do not, even though it is the same code presenting them.
Columns in alphaorders.php - February 22, 2011
In reducing the size of the font in the Orders report, the column formation was lost. It is now repaired and working again.
Splash Page. February 15, 2011
A first draft splash page is now coded and preceeds the prior start page now. It offers a list of features to let viewers have some idea of what they will find inside the site and therefore reasons to visit. A Javascript bookmarking is included and a space reserved for a Google ad once it is approved.
Upward travel. January 31, 2011
Both upward and downward travel in the botanical tree finally works!
UV pop-up display code working. January 28, 2011
Sufficient code is finished so the UV pictures now show. All existed photos have been changed to landscape orientation and changed to 600 x 400 pixel size. However, work still has to be done on the photos to pick the best ones to show and remove others not as appropriate.
All Letter A UV photos added. January 9, 2011.
All paths and file names of UV fluorescence photos (approximately 90) we have so far for species with botanical names starting with letter A are now in the new database.
Data preparations for showing UV fluorescence photos. January 8, 2011
A new database table is created for holding all the UV wood fluorescence photos. Addition of data addition for this table started.
Basic code started on all three pop-up windows. January 8, 2011
Formal titles added to the header and body. Connecting to the database is now working for all three pop-ups.
Chosen species name now shows in all three pop-up windows. January 7, 2011
This was an essential victory in coding. Until the current species name could be transferred into the three pop-up windows, it is impossible to have the UV, photomicro and "more" colour photos to show for the currently chosen species.
More scans installed since September. .... Jan. 5, 2011
More scans were added from the Mudry, Etheridge, McLeland collections and other sources. This allowed the number of installed species scans to rise to 2,158.
The addition of wood scans continues - Sept. 24, 2010
Total installed scans now stands at 1,458. The addition of scans from the Mudry collection and the new species from the Etheridge collection is completed along with new species from A to D of the McLeland scans.
Addition of more wood scans - Aug. 20, 2010
A large number of wood scans are being added from the Mudry wood collection, hopefully as many as over 2,000. Later, many more scans can be added from the McLendon collection and NCSU scans of the American Encyclopedia of Wood.
Whats New started - August 21, 2010
Creation date for this feature.