BG-Map UserLetter

News for BG-Map Users

No. 17 - June, 2002

Mark Glicksman, Editor

In This Issue:

New BG-Map and BG-BASE Web Discussion Forum
BG-Map 2002 Upgrade Has Been Released
Update – BG-Map and BG-BASE 6.0 (Windows BG-BASE)
New BG-Map Users Manual
BG-Map Highlighted Feature – Preselected Tour Book Maps
----------------------------------------------------------

New BG-Map and BG-BASE Web Discussion Forum

We’ve talked about it for a long time, and it’s finally arrived – the new BG-Map and BG-BASE web discussion forum.  We hope that this will be come the place where you will come to discuss technical issues, and to meet and greet other BG-Map and BG-BASE users.

The forum is divided into 5 sections:

BG-BASE General Discussion
BG-BASE 6.0 and Above (Window BG-BASE)
BG-BASE 3.0-5.0 (DOS BG-BASE)
BG-Map General Discussion
Surveying (Total Station/GPS/Garden Notpad)
Visitors QUICKFinder and Facilities Management
BG-BASE and BG-Map Interface

Forum moderators will include me, as well as the BG-BASE folks – Mike, Philip, and Kerry.

The forum is open to active users of BG-BASE and/or BG-Map.  You can access the forum from the BG-Map Users Support Website – www.bg-map.com/userdata - just click on “Online Discussion”.  There will also be a link to the forum from the BG-BASE website – www.bg-base.com

When you access the forum for the first time, click on “Register” to apply for an account.  You will receive your acceptance notification and account activation key by e-mail.

Posting a message is easy.  Just choose a forum section, and select “Start a New Thread” to begin a new discussion, or select an existing discussion and reply to it.

We hope to see you there!

----------------------------------------------------------

BG-Map 2002 Upgrade Has Been Released

The latest version of BG-Map – BG-Map 2002 has been released.  You should either have already received you upgrade CD or are in process of receiving it.  The new version includes a number of changes and new feature requested by users.  It also includes many bug fixes and performance enhancements.

Among the new features are:

Compatibility with BG-BASE for Windows
A New Type of Book Map – “Preselected Tour” (see “BG-Map Highlighted Feature” below)
Support for 36” Plotters
Improvements to Visitors QUICKFinder
Asymmetric Canopies

For a complete list of new features, see the “BG-Map 2002 Supplement” packaged with the upgrade CD, or see the TechNote of the Users Support Website – “What’s New in BG-Map 2002”.

 
----------------------------------------------------------

Update - BG-Map and BG-BASE 6.0 (Windows BG-BASE)

BG-BASE 6.0 (Windows BG-BASE) is here.  It has been installed in at least one garden – Montgomery Botanical Center.

BG-Map 2002 works with BG-BASE 6.0, as well as with the previous version 5.0.  It has been designed to automatically detect Windows BG-BASE and adjust its operation accordingly.

Running BG-Map and BG-BASE 6.0 Simultaneously

Windows 95/98/ME
If you are using one of these versions of Windows, you will not be able to run both BG-Map and BG-BASE 6.0 simultaneously.  You will have to close each program before opening the other.  The only way to avoid this is to upgrade your version Windows to 2000 or XP.

 

The good news is that there will be much less need to run both simultaneously because quad_up is now be built into BG-Map. If BG-Map detects Windows BG-BASE, Quad_Up will run automatically each time you start BG-Map.  Quad_Up can also be run from a menu command in BG-Map, again only if BG-Map detects Windows BG-BASE.

 

Windows NT/2000/XP

You will be able to run BG-Map and BG-BASE 6.0 simultaneously under Windows NT/2000/XP.  This has been tested, and it works.

 

 
----------------------------------------------------------

New BG-Map Users Manual

Yes, there will be a completely new and updated BG-Map Users Manual.  Expect to see it around September.

 
----------------------------------------------------------

BG-Map Highlighted Feature – Preselected Tour Book Maps

The idea for this new feature came from John Frett at the University of Delaware.  He was interested in using Visitors QUICKFinder to create maps for his classes showing the locations of a number of selected plants that students are required to observe.  The problem was that Visitors QUICKFinder’s “Create a Tour” has a limit of 6 plants per tour.  John needed to include dozens of plants.

So, the Preselected Tour Book Map was born. It is the ideal tool to use for creating “plant walk” tour maps for classes or to highlight plants of seasonal interest for your visitors.

To create a map showing the locations of up to 99 plants, all you have to do is compile a list of their accession numbers, either as a BG-BASE saved list or using a simple text processor, such as Windows Notepad.  You specify the starting point of the tour, and BG-Map does the rest – creating a map showing all the plant locations, numbered in a logical sequence – either walking distance or alphabetically.  The map is accompanied by a plant list, that you can either print out directly or import into a spreadsheet or word processing program.

Preselected Tour Book Maps are included in the BG-Map 2002 upgrade.

 

 
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit the BG-Map USERS SUPPORT AREA at 
www.bg-map.com/userdata
(Don't forget to update your census data)
BG-Map Botanical Garden Mapping System
E-mail: glicks@bg-map.com
Tel: 1.247.5777 ext. 283
Fax: 1.248.4439