# Keeping Records



## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

I am developing an AIR application to manage my herp collection and would like to get some insight into how you guys keep tabs on all your animals. 

Currently my application is in beta stage( or more realistically in a gamma stage ) My goal is to create an interface that can manage all my frogs, snakes, and geckos while also keeping tabs on their enclosures and breeding projects. From the application interface I am creating the ability to save out records by animal, by breeding project, or by vivarium as a pdf or excel document. 

All data is cross-referenced meaning that when you register a male O. pumilio it will automatically appear in the drop down list as a potential Sire to a future O. pumilio of the same morph. Similarly, higher level data (i.e. genus, species) is configurable and stored within the application meaning that any number of species can be added as the collection grows and will appear in the appropriate drop downs. 

Thus far I am finishing out the amphibian module. Its current record capabilities are listed below:

GENERAL ANIMAL INFO:
Animal ID
Genus 
Species
Locality
Line
Morph
Hybrid Possibility
Sex
Life Stage (i.e. larva, recently morphed froglet, juvenile, adult)
Date OOW
Date Estimate (+/- days, months, etc.)
Birth Type (CB, WC, FR)
Sire ID(s)
Dam ID(s)
Rearing 
Breeding Project ID 
Acquired Date
Acquired From
Acquisition Notes
Acquisition Price
Sale/Transfer Date
Sale/Transfer To
Sale/Transfer Price
Sale/Transfer Notes
ASN Registered Section (ASN ID, Sire ASN ID, Dam ASN ID, etc.)

PHOTO SECTION:
Ability to upload any number of photos with comments

OBSERVATION BY DATE:
A module that allows me to input general observations (health, breeding behavior, etc.) organized and searchable by date.

NOTES SECTION:
Large scrollable text area for random notes.

VIVARIUM SECTION
Enclosure ID
Enclosure Type (i.e. Zoo Med Naturalistic Terrarium, 20 gallon Vert., etc.)
Specs (Dimensions and Gallons)
Lighting
Heating
Thermostat System 
Misting Cycle
Fogging Cycle
Water Features
Background Type
Features and Hides (i.e. split seed pods, coco-huts, etc.)
Substrate Mix
Drainage Type
Microfauna 
Ventilation 
Air Circulation
Inhabitants by ID
Live Plant list
Temp Range
Humidity Range


Is there anything that I am missing that you would suggest?

Don’t know if any of you are familiar with phidgets (USB sensors and controls), but in the future I will like to extend this interface to act as a display for the phidget sensors in my vivariums in order to provide realtime temp/humidity data direct to the application. I plan on adding the ability to plot this data in graphs by date range, time periods, etc. 

Here is a screenshot of the application in its current form:









Anyway, I’d like to hear about how you guys manage your collections and would love some advice or recommendations of feature that you think would be useful down the line.

Thanks in advance!


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## Alpha Pro Breeders (Oct 13, 2008)

Looks like a great project, I would like to see more info on breeding. 
Number of eggs from a clutch, how many hatched, how many successfully morphe,along with dates.


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

Alpha Pro Breeders said:


> Looks like a great project, I would like to see more info on breeding.
> Number of eggs from a clutch, how many hatched, how many successfully morphe,along with dates.


Thanks, yeah this is a fun project for me. I work on it every now and then when I have some available time at work. Thanks for pointing out the breeding info, I realized that I forgot this in my post. As of right now the module does not have a view (module interface with text fields, dropdowns, and date inputs) , but the data object currently contains: 

BREEDING INFO 
Project ID
Goal
Enclosure ID
Ratio
Breeders ID

Breeding Observation
-	Module organized like other observation sections by date, but with additional fields
-	Eggs Laid
-	Eggs Developed
-	Larva Deposited
-	Larva Morphed
-	Froglets to 3 months
-	Egg Care (i.e. parental or artificial incubation)
-	Eggs Pulled 
-	Temperature

all this data will be used to populate fields like % Development, % Deposition, % Morphed, etc. to get a snapshot of the success rate of a breeding pair (or group)


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## Allyn Loring (Sep 30, 2008)

If something of this nature comes to fruition it will truly be a valuable tool.


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## tclipse (Sep 19, 2009)

One thing that would be awesome would be the ability to create custom templates for printing easily.. that way you can print out an info page for someone buying your frogs, without printing out a 10 page packet (i.e. a ton of extra pictures, notes, and observations may not be of interest to some). 

I also think that preferred foods would be a really good addition.. with all of the tanks it's sometimes hard to remember whether that new gecko you just picked up was refusing lateralis, or devouring dubia, or what have you. 

have you tried the 30 day Vyper demo? maybe that will give you some ideas you haven't come up with. I'd love to get my hands on a copy when you're done with it, whether you plan on selling it or not.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

ive been using an excel spreadsheet to track feeding and supplementation, perhaps that info would be useful in a tool like this.

i have this info

date cx made
type cx made
#of cx made
expiration date of supplements
days misted
supplement used and w/ which feeder.

james


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

gtclipse01 said:


> One thing that would be awesome would be the ability to create custom templates for printing easily.. that way you can print out an info page for someone buying your frogs, without printing out a 10 page packet (i.e. a ton of extra pictures, notes, and observations may not be of interest to some).


Great idea!



gtclipse01 said:


> I also think that preferred foods would be a really good addition.. with all of the tanks it's sometimes hard to remember whether that new gecko you just picked up was refusing lateralis, or devouring dubia, or what have you.


I was thinking that behavior specific things like this could fall under a catch all category like "General Notes". However, I haven't thought through the reptile module quite yet - two things I have considered is that it will need a more structured feeding/defecation/shed category and an entry for weights. 



james67 said:


> ive been using an excel spreadsheet to track feeding and supplementation, perhaps that info would be useful in a tool like this.
> 
> i have this info
> 
> ...


James, do you keep tabs on every feeding for your frogs? Or is it more of a weekly schedule (i.e. Monday = D. melongaster with ICB, Tuesday = D. melongaster with Herpavite, etc.)? 

It is a great idea to include supplements and culture dates. Maybe even program the application to send out desktop alerts for when supplements are about to expire and when its time to make a new ff culture. Since the application is built in AIR it can run native in the operating system and thus be programmed to display such alerts. Man, it would be great to open my laptop at work and get a notification that my supplements are about to expire and its time to order new ones...



gtclipse01 said:


> have you tried the 30 day Vyper demo? maybe that will give you some ideas you haven't come up with. I'd love to get my hands on a copy when you're done with it, whether you plan on selling it or not.


No I haven't tried out Vyper, I haven't even come across it to be honest. I just googled it and will look into it for sure. Thanks for the suggestion. 

As of right now I haven't give much thought to packaging this for sale. It is a side project that developed somewhat organically from my needs for my small but growing collection. I am a data freak and love keeping and organizing information about my animals. The real goal and challenge here is to eventually link it up with the cages themselves and provide a central hub from which I can monitor the environments of the enclosures and animals within. I don't foresee something like this becoming an off the shelf product (with the additional cost of the hardware necessary to gather the vivarium parameters). But, I guess I'll just have to wait and see how this beast unfolds. 

As soon as the record-keeping interface becomes more robust I'll definitely let you know and you can give it a test drive. 

Thanks for the input guys...keep it coming!


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

its a day/monthly sheet. as it is now i check the box correlating to the day/feeder/supplement and a seperate section has info on when cx s were made ,mistings, supplement dates.

so yes its like "Monday = D. melongaster with ICB, Tuesday = D. melongaster with Herpavite" but i just check boxes. it allows me to feed on a weird schedule. i personally like to mix it up (w/ adults) eg feeding on these dates 2,5,6,9,11,13,17,18 etc. just keeping it random.

awesome idea btw!
james


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## Wug (Mar 1, 2009)

Just a suggestion but if you had a problem with parasites/disease tracking dates of syptoms appearing/changing
date taken to vet/fecals done
medications used and dates administered
I guess these are also things that you could put in general notes.
Doug B.


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

Here is a little video showing the progress thus far. Still have tons of things to hash out. Very basic thus far, but progress nonetheless. 

YouTube - RecordDemo.mov


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## edwing206 (Apr 9, 2008)

That looks great! I laughed at some of the comments you put lol! "Nothing smokeable " hahaha
Also good thing you're on a Mac...
For now I just use a word document and update it whenever I get new frogs, super ghetto lol.


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## NMiamiguy40 (Feb 23, 2010)

coming across very nice. Keep it coming.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

how about making the pant list like the frog section. i would want plant pics that were linked to a picture, this way i never loose an id on a plant even if it gets divided into several tanks and the labels are removed.

james

i'd love to get a prototype if possible. just shoot me a PM


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

I like it Leo!!

Keep it up.

I'd certainly add Vet info/clean fecal dates ect.

Also some sort of reminder feature....like "Listing last updated >30 days ago" , this way a collection can be kept UTD.

S


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## tclipse (Sep 19, 2009)

Took a look at the video, the interface looks beautiful.. function + form = win. Keep us updated!


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## MeiKVR6 (Sep 16, 2008)

I used to use Degei Herp software - I didn't love it. I tried Metzcal, also... Better but still not perfect in my opinion.
I'm back to hand-written excel spreadsheets. 

I'd love to try your beta whenever you've got it ready! 

edit: Suggestion - make it FAST to use. That's my problem with other software! If you have a 'feeding' menu for herps - don't make it more than one click to mark "fed" on the current date. You can give the option for additional info - but make sure it's optional. I couldn't stand having to go thru menu after menu for EVERY SINGLE herp just to mark "fed on this date"! Better yet - if you could have a list of herps in the system with a checkbox next to each and a "FED" button - that would make your software faster to use (and in my opinion better) than anything else in the market. 

So instead of clicking: "R. Variabilis #1" --> Feeding Menu --> "Fed"

You'd be able to click a checkbox on say maybe 20+ herps at once and click "Fed" - which would save a TON of time.


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

james67 said:


> how about making the pant list like the frog section. i would want plant pics that were linked to a picture, this way i never loose an id on a plant even if it gets divided into several tanks and the labels are removed.
> 
> james
> 
> i'd love to get a prototype if possible. just shoot me a PM


This would be a nice addition. It would be something optional, one thing I want to do is make it so that the program can be somewhat customized to peoples needs.



sports_doc said:


> I like it Leo!!
> 
> Keep it up.
> 
> ...


Thanks Shawn! Yes, Vet info/fecals dates and a general "health" tab is definitely in the plans. 

I think having it display a last updated date would be very beneficial. This should not be difficult to implement and would be automated so that anytime changes are made it would update to the current date. 



gtclipse01 said:


> Took a look at the video, the interface looks beautiful.. function + form = win. Keep us updated!


Thank you! Still have a long way to go however.



MeiKVR6 said:


> I used to use Degei Herp software - I didn't love it. I tried Metzcal, also... Better but still not perfect in my opinion.
> I'm back to hand-written excel spreadsheets.
> 
> I'd love to try your beta whenever you've got it ready!
> ...


Hmm. batch processing. I like this idea a lot, particularly with reptiles where feed/accepted/rejected is so important and we generally do a bunch of feedings at once. I'll have to figure out a way to do this with out cluttering the interface, but I agree sometimes when it requires too many clicks to enter information it becomes more of a hindrance than anything. 

Thanks everyone for checking this out. I have not had time lately to update it, but your comments and insights are definitely keeping the wheels turning.


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

As far as 'batch processing' - what if you were able to group animals together - say 'dart frogs', or 'shelf unit 3' - something along those lines - and could just click a 'fed group' button or something similar?


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## Jarhead_2016 (Jan 7, 2010)

import javax.swing.*; 
lol jp but i love the app dude send me a copy i would love to debugg it for ya
-scotty


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## Jarhead_2016 (Jan 7, 2010)

i like zbrinks idea but what if you could make the button as previously stated and then link it to a calander inside the program and instert a variable timer that the user can preset so a reminder pops up on the computer when the frogs should be fed again lol sounds like a great idea but thats alot of recursion and i hate recursion
-scotty


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

zBrinks said:


> As far as 'batch processing' - what if you were able to group animals together - say 'dart frogs', or 'shelf unit 3' - something along those lines - and could just click a 'fed group' button or something similar?


This is a great idea. I will add some sort of grouping for the animals - perhaps the option to group them by type (i.e. Dart Frogs, Green Tree Pythons,etc.) or as you point out cage units.



scottydo said:


> import javax.swing.*;
> lol jp but i love the app dude send me a copy i would love to debugg it for ya
> -scotty


lol...nice, gotta love coding humor . I decided to go with Actionscript because I've been wanting to develop a cross-platform AIR app for some time now and figured this would be the perfect opportunity. 



scottydo said:


> i like zbrinks idea but what if you could make the button as previously stated and then link it to a calander inside the program and instert a variable timer that the user can preset so a reminder pops up on the computer when the frogs should be fed again lol sounds like a great idea but thats alot of recursion and i hate recursion
> -scotty


Yeah, calendar functionality is definately in the works. I want to set up reminders for weekly feedings (snakes), micro-fauna seeding of vivs, supplement regiments and supplement dates of expiration. Perhaps it is just my mode of husbandry, but keeping records on individual frog feedings doesn't seem too important to me given the frequency at which I feed them (daily or every other day) and the fact that all their vivs are seeded with microfauna. 

Again, thanks for all the input everyone and I will let you all know when there is a working beta prototype for you guys to test out.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

can this be the setup for ASN?  pleeeaaase. i hate excel!


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

thedude said:


> can this be the setup for ASN?  pleeeaaase. i hate excel!


Yes. I actually spoke to Ron about this during Frogday in Freemont. I am working on a "print out" function that will allow the user to select what to print out onto a pdf document (i.e. limit the amount of data to export). One possibility is to modify the script to actually create the excel document currently used for amphibian accession for ASN. 

There is so much I want to do with this, but unfortunately time is the biggest hurdle.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

poimandres said:


> Yes. I actually spoke to Ron about this during Frogday in Freemont. I am working on a "print out" function that will allow the user to select what to print out onto a pdf document (i.e. limit the amount of data to export). One possibility is to modify the script to actually create the excel document currently used for amphibian accession for ASN.
> 
> There is so much I want to do with this, but unfortunately time is the biggest hurdle.


thats AWESOME. nice job man. im really liking it.

the only thing is why is there a locality and morph category? like morph as in designers (chocolate leucs)?


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

thedude said:


> thats AWESOME. nice job man. im really liking it.
> 
> the only thing is why is there a locality and morph category? like morph as in designers (chocolate leucs)?


I've been thinking about this - the original intention was not for designer morphs though it could be used for that I guess. It is intended as more of a sub-locality (i.e. Cemetery, Salt Creek, Red Frog Beach, etc. all under Bastimentos Island, Panama).


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

poimandres said:


> I've been thinking about this - the original intention was not for designer morphs though it could be used for that I guess. It is intended as more of a sub-locality (i.e. Cemetery, Salt Creek, Red Frog Beach, etc. all under Bastimentos Island, Panama).


gotcha. maybe for that it could be changed to population?

i asked because you said escudo blue under morph, and that isnt really a morph or population. just a color variation from escudo.


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

thedude said:


> gotcha. maybe for that it could be changed to population?
> 
> i asked because you said escudo blue under morph, and that isnt really a morph or population. just a color variation from escudo.


All the copy is FPO at this point. Yeah from my understanding red, blue, and red/blue escudos are all just variation from one population and should be mixed. Though I may stand corrected.


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

yes sir i just drooled a little as i watched that. I would like a program to keep track of things but i havn't found one yet to work on mac. Its Visually awesome as well! Keep up the good work.

Domenic


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

poimandres said:


> All the copy is FPO at this point. Yeah from my understanding red, blue, and red/blue escudos are all just variation from one population and should be mixed. Though I may stand corrected.


you would be correct  people selling them differently doesnt help buyers understand that. but that is a different topic entirely...


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## Jarhead_2016 (Jan 7, 2010)

silly leo the print option is this 
system.out.print
lol jp dude everything seems to be coming together great glad to see how fast it is progressing lol hope my very basic little programming comment doesnt upset you 
-scotty


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## poimandres (Mar 28, 2009)

scottydo said:


> silly leo the print option is this
> system.out.print
> lol jp dude everything seems to be coming together great glad to see how fast it is progressing lol hope my very basic little programming comment doesnt upset you
> -scotty


LoL...no not at all. 


Anyway, just an update, I've been working away at this today (at work). I'm going through the suggestions here and really thank everyone for chiming in.


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