In This Issue:

Touch the Future - With a Touchscreen
Add BG-Map Workstations Inexpensively - With AutoCAD LT98
Partial Name Search - a New Way to Find Plants
Learn to Survey Like a Pro
BG-Map Highlighted Feature - Pseudo-TCL

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Touch the Future - With a Touchscreen

If you have recently visited a museum, used an ATM or pumped 
gas at a self-service pump, you have most likely come into 
contact with a touchscreen display.  Touchscreens provide an 
easy and natural way to communicate with a computer - just 
touch the screen to select an option.  They are perfect for 
use by the large segment of the population that is still 
uncomfortable with a mouse.  And they permit the design or 
rugged and reliable public access computer stations or kiosks 
- with no mechanical keyboard buttons, mice, or trackballs to 
maintain.

So why should touchscreens be of interest to botanical gardens 
and arboreta? They allow you to design educational, 
entertaining and informative displays for your visitors.  Kids 
love them.  And they can free your staff and volunteers from 
the need to answer routine inquiries, allowing them to provide 
other services to your visitors.

What is a touchscreen?  It is a standard computer monitor that 
has a transparent touch-sensitive overlay applied to the 
screen.  Touchsreens are available both as conventional CRT 
monitors and as flat panel LCD monitors.

A touchscreen serves as both a display and a pointing device, 
eliminating the need for a mouse.  It can work with any 
standard computer and can be used with any computer software.  
But, touchscreens are most effective when used with specially 
designed software that employs bold text and graphics, and 
oversized buttons.  These design concepts are employed in BG-
Map's Visitors QUICKFinder! and Create a Tour.

There are several manufacturers of touchscreens.  A major one 
is MicroTouch (website http://www.microtouch.com telephone 1-
800-MicroTouch).  To see a touchscreen in operation, visit the 
BG-Map exhibit at the 1999 AABGA conference in Vancouver.

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Add BG-Map Workstations Inexpensively - With AutoCAD LT98

BG-Map now supports AutoCAD LT98.  This makes it much less 
costly for you to give additional staff at your garden access 
to BG-Map through a network.  You no longer have to purchase a 
full AutoCAD Release 14 or AutoCAD Map license for each user.  
AutoCAD LT98 retails for about $398 for a single copy. Multi-
user licenses are available.  Unlike regular AutoCAD, AutoCAD 
LT can be purchased through retail channels, including mail 
order and the Internet.

Using BG-Map with LT98 gives you access to all BG-Map features 
except for the following:

	Add a plant
	Relocate a plant
	Create a defined view
	Assign custom symbols
	Assign plant group colors
	Dynamic Zoom
	List Plant
	Automated plotting of large maps (AutoCAD plot
        can used instead.)
	Editing of basemap

All types of book maps and plant lists are supported with LT98 
as are Look Up/Zoom to a plant and Visitors QUICKFinder!  LT98 
is perfect for giving staff read-only access to BG-Map or for 
setting up a Visitors QUICKFinder! kiosk at greatly reduced 
cost.

You can mix and match, with some workstations running regular 
AutoCAD and others running LT98.

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Partial Name Search - a New Way to Find Plants

BG-Map version 5.0 includes a new tool for finding mapped 
plants - Partial Name Search.  This feature can be used with 
Look Up/Zoom to a Plant and with Snapshot Book Maps.  You can 
type in the first few letters of a plant name, followed by a 
bracket sign (example RIBES FASC]) and BG-Map will return a 
list of names - each name having at least one living mapped 
plant beginning with the search string.  Select one of these 
names, and BG-Map will return a list of all mapped living 
plants for that name.

You can also type in an accession number without qualifier, 
and BG-Map will return a list of all mapped living plants for 
that accession.

QUICKFinder! and Visitors QUICKFinder! have also been improved 
- when returning a list of species or cultivars only names 
having at least one mapped living plant are listed.  So, you 
will not encounter the "No mapped living plants for this 
species" message.

Now there are 4 ways to search for mapped plants:

	Enter an accession number with qualifier
	Enter an accession number without qualifier
	Enter a partial name
	Use QUICKFinder! and select a genus, species, or
	Cultivar

Thank you John Morse of Cornell Plantations for suggesting 
these improvements.

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Learn to Survey Like a Pro

Walt Dunlap, Mapping Specialist, at The New York Botanical 
Garden has contributed a series of articles on "Notes and 
Suggestions for Botanical Garden Surveyors".  Walt brings a 
unique perspective to this subject, having worked for 20 years 
as a professional land surveyor.  He focuses on many of the 
details that help you to organize your surveying efforts for 
the most productive and accurate results.   Walt will be 
adding to this ongoing series periodically.  You can find 
these articles in the BG-Map Users Support area at 
www.bg-map.com/userdata.
 
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BG-Map Highlighted Feature - Pseudo-TCL

Most of you should be familiar with TCL from your work with 
BG-BASE.  TCL allows you to directly type in commands and 
queries, giving you a very flexible (though somewhat arcane) 
interface with the database.  In many ways, TCL is similar to 
SQL (Structured Query Language), standardized query syntax 
supported by a number of database products.

When BG-Map was moved from DOS (Advanced Revelation) to 
Windows (OpenInsight), the TCL command line was lost. Pseudo-
TCL allows you to perform some of the functions of the 
original TCL command line in a Windows environment.  You can 
access Pseudo-TCL from the Utilities menu of the BG-Map 
window.

The following TCL commands are supported by Pseudo-TCL:

LIST  - Lists the contents of a data table (file) and specific 
columns (fields) and/or rows (records)

example:
LIST 10 MAP COORDINATES WITH GENUS = "ABIES" BY NAME

This will return a list of all mapped plants of Genus ABIES, 
sorted by name.
Note - the (P) option (printer) is not required.  The results 
of the query are displayed in a window Titled "Preview report" 
that provides a print button. This window is accessible from 
the Windows Task Bar.  You can also export the text to a file.

LISTDICT  - List the dictionary of a data table (file)
 
example:
LISTDICT DEFINED_VIEWS

This will return a listing of the dictionary of the 
DEFINED_VIEWS table.

COUNT - Counts the number of rows (records) in a database 
table (file)

example:
COUNT PLANTS

This will display the number of entries in the PLANTS table.

MAPCOUNT (a new command available in BG-Map 5.0)
This command is unique to BG-Map.  It will display the number 
of living plants that are currently mapped.

The syntax is simply: MAPCOUNT

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Visit the BG-Map USERS SUPPORT AREA at 
www.bg-map.com/userdata
BG-Map Botanical Garden Mapping System
E-mail:  glicks@bg-map.com
Tel:  1.215.887.1100	Fax: 1.215.887.1470