Bonsai Bug (www.bonsaibug.com) - Alpha Version

Jason Crump

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I have been looking for some software that would allow me to easily track my trees. There were a couple out there but none worked everywhere and nothing really spoke to me. So I decided I would make one. I am a software engineer by trade and i thought this would be fun. I've made some decent progress and at this point I am using it to track my trees. I lost momentum about 6 months ago and let this project languish for a bit. Now I am wondering if I am on the right track, would this site be something people would use?

I am hoping some people might be interested in trying the site out, adding some trees and giving some feedback.

Currently you can add trees, photos, events, notes, measurements. You can add events and notes individually or for all trees at once. Track propagation and propagation techniques.

Future ideas: Public feed of trees, browse other peoples trees (that they have made public), add favorites, add comments, shareable profile pages for each tree that can be shared on sites like this.

This is alpha software but you won't lose any data as changes are made, so feel free to add your photos. The site is phone friendly so you can take the site with you to your garden.

Remember this is ALPHA software (that means you will find bugs, mostly minor inconveniences, but bugs none the less). If you do find a bug please let me know.

Thanks for looking!

Here is a couple of screenshots. (Don't judge the trees please :))
Bonsai.png

Bonsai.png
IMG_0731.jpg
 
D

Deleted member 21616

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a welcome replacement for my current software system (pic below)!

i can say that i already appreciate the effort that has gone into this, thank you!

let me know how i can start using it - would be happy to find bugs and provide feedback

would this wok on a laptop? (i hate doing these kinds of things on my phone)
 

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Jason Crump

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a welcome replacement for my current software system (pic below)!

i can say that i already appreciate the effort that has gone into this, thank you!

let me know how i can start using it - would be happy to find bugs and provide feedback

would this wok on a laptop? (i hate doing these kinds of things on my phone)
It's just a website so it works on laptops/computers/phones/tablets, whatever you have.

Go here to sign up: http://www.bonsaibug.com/users/sign_up

Thanks!
 

CodeMonkey

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I'm also a software engineer by trade and have been recently thinking the lack of decent software to help keep on top of my growing collection of trees is frustrating.

I'll have to check out your site!
If you need any help with anything I'd be happy to chip in.

I was about to start making a site with an accessible API for mobile apps purely because the current android ones out there aren't great and I find it useful to have both on offer. (No reason a web based app can't work just as well on mobile though! That's my current area of work.)
 

defra

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I signed up but it seem to fail uploading my treee, i have a similair thing going on on my site but way simpler thats just forum based
Looking good tough love to see it in an app for android tough :)

But bnut provides a gallery you can use too tough
 

cockroach

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I have signed up and giving it a go.
Added a tree quickly. Seems pretty easy and smooth sailing so far.

Thanks!
 

Jason Crump

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Pretty big release today.

Added lightbox for photos making it easy to view all pictures of a tree without all the clicks.
Added the ability to create notes or events for sets of trees (indoors, bougies, junipers, etc).
Added ability to add additional species of trees on the fly if the one you want isn't there (scroll to bottom of list and add your own).
Fixed issue where site wasn't loading with https.
Fixed issue where facebook login giving a warning about missing https.
Various bugs fixes.

More testers welcome. Go here to sign up: http://www.bonsaibug.com/users/sign_up
 

chansen

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Feature request (no, I won't write the user story...).

Reminders. It's super nice that I can log an event (e.g. placed granulated organic ferts). But if it can remind me when I need to do something (e.g. replace the organic ferts), that would be a win. I don't always fertilize every tree at the same time, so I forget when I need to replace them so I end up going through them more quickly than I need. So yea, the ability to set a reminder would be awesome.

Thanks for putting it together.
 

R3x

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For some time I have Bonsai Droid on my phone but never really got myself to test it properly. This got me interested so I played with it for a short while. Here are my notes:
  • Plant type field:
    • more appropriate name would probably be "Species". Also some additional field could be provided for "Cultivar" (i.e. for Acer Palmatum: Arakawa / Otome Zakura / Beni Maiko / ...)
    • it is sorted according to English name - I would suggest and welcome sorting according to Latin name (or at least an option to choose between the 2)
    • move the management of species to its own window
    • for some species you now only have first part (Genus) of the binomial nomencalture (i.e. Hornbeam (Carpinus) or Holly (Illex)) while for others you provide complete nomenclature (i.e. Flowering Apricot (Prunus Mume)).
  • cloud hosting - this has some pros and cons. I'll just list the cons that pop into mind:
    • need Internet connection to work with it
    • the users don't have much guarantees regarding its availability, etc... - what if one day you decide stop providing this? All my data will be lost (to me at least).
  • requirements - you provide fields for light and temp(erature) requirements, I guess substrate acidity (alcalic / neutral / acidic) would be benefitial
  • field for substrate type/composition could be fine (akadama / common soil / ...)
So much for now. If anything else pops to mind, I'll let you know.
 

CodeMonkey

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For some time I have Bonsai Droid on my phone.

I tried Bonsai Droid but really didn't like it. It was what got me thinking of creating my own app.

In regards to the BonsaiBug site:
I have the same concerns regarding data retention as you. It the main reason I chose not to go with a website in the first instance. An app (be it on a phone or other device) that can sync cloud data is more robust.
This could be alleviated slightly by allowing import/export of data from the website.

I think the BonsaiBug site is a great start and has a lot of potential.
I'll continue to develop my android app for a while and see where it goes. It may just stay as a personal project. I would however love to allow it to pull/push data to other sites such as BonsaiBug so you have a choice of where your tree data is stored online.
 

Jason Crump

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You guys bring up some good points about data and exportability. I need to give it some thought. I would like to thank everyone for checking it out and giving feedback!
 

Jason Crump

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For some time I have Bonsai Droid on my phone but never really got myself to test it properly. This got me interested so I played with it for a short while. Here are my notes:
  • Plant type field:
    • more appropriate name would probably be "Species". Also some additional field could be provided for "Cultivar" (i.e. for Acer Palmatum: Arakawa / Otome Zakura / Beni Maiko / ...)
    • it is sorted according to English name - I would suggest and welcome sorting according to Latin name (or at least an option to choose between the 2)
    • move the management of species to its own window
    • for some species you now only have first part (Genus) of the binomial nomencalture (i.e. Hornbeam (Carpinus) or Holly (Illex)) while for others you provide complete nomenclature (i.e. Flowering Apricot (Prunus Mume)).
  • cloud hosting - this has some pros and cons. I'll just list the cons that pop into mind:
    • need Internet connection to work with it
    • the users don't have much guarantees regarding its availability, etc... - what if one day you decide stop providing this? All my data will be lost (to me at least).
  • requirements - you provide fields for light and temp(erature) requirements, I guess substrate acidity (alcalic / neutral / acidic) would be benefitial
  • field for substrate type/composition could be fine (akadama / common soil / ...)
So much for now. If anything else pops to mind, I'll let you know.

Fantastic ideas. The name of plant type field was just laziness on my part never meant to be the long term name. I'll be sure to update it. I think creating an export feature seems like a must-have. I think I will do it right after my current photo system rewrite (multiple uploads, exif data).
 
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I tried Bonsai Droid but really didn't like it. It was what got me thinking of creating my own app.

In regards to the BonsaiBug site:
I have the same concerns regarding data retention as you. It the main reason I chose not to go with a website in the first instance. An app (be it on a phone or other device) that can sync cloud data is more robust.
This could be alleviated slightly by allowing import/export of data from the website.

I think the BonsaiBug site is a great start and has a lot of potential.
I'll continue to develop my android app for a while and see where it goes. It may just stay as a personal project. I would however love to allow it to pull/push data to other sites such as BonsaiBug so you have a choice of where your tree data is stored online.
what did you not like about bonsai droid?
 

R3x

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Fantastic ideas. The name of plant type field was just laziness on my part never meant to be the long term name. I'll be sure to update it. I think creating an export feature seems like a must-have. I think I will do it right after my current photo system rewrite (multiple uploads, exif data).
Regarding export: I suggest some simple but well structured XML so that transformation is easy. Would also allow for easy import from existing sources (if any).
 

substratum

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a welcome replacement for my current software system (pic below)!

i can say that i already appreciate the effort that has gone into this, thank you!

let me know how i can start using it - would be happy to find bugs and provide feedback

would this wok on a laptop? (i hate doing these kinds of things on my phone)
The upside of this sort of system is that it never becomes obsolete due to systems changes or technology upgrades. I have personal hand-written recipes on index cards, and spiral-bound notebooks with reloading notes dating back to the 1970s, which I still refer to. It's also a reminder that my handwriting hasn't changed much over the last 45 years, LOL!
 

CodeMonkey

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what did you not like about bonsai droid?

I just couldn't get on with certain things.

Some parts of the UI were contextual where others were not. This frustrated me.
I didn't like the way you couldn't enter a free hand species/cultivar and I dislike having to search through (usually bad) community choices.

Those things put me off enough to not use it to any extent.
 
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