Jim and List, I appreciate the input about using the online directory and hope we can find a way to make it more useful. I have several comments about the things you asked. The General Search page was designed to be the most flexible at getting at information. It allows for a few letters because people often don™t know how to spell the name they are looking for. The fields are connected by and statements which means that all criteria have to be met to show the record. If you want only people whose name starts with "L" and whose city starts with "V" you could do that. The street address finds the criteria anywhere in that field so you could find someone on "Main Street" without knowing their address. You say you wish that the online directory would be a dymanic list from the home office directory. It is exactly that. The home office does not have a web server in KC so we copy the database every Monday to the web server. Any changes to the listings have to be given to Sandy at the home office and changed there then they show up the next Monday. Having the list member editable would be difficult. Not because the code would be hard to write but that would require the online list to be the "official" list so the home office would need to update all their records online. However the online list doesn't have dues paying information and other stuff like that. Also this method assures that only current members are shown. We don™t have to count on members removing themselves if they drop their membership. This system is a big improvement from the old static files for each state that I had to edit manually. The home office records and the online version were virtually never in sync. The search in the state map for Colorado does indeed find Chris Finger. That list is sorted by zip code with the idea that someone might be looking for a technician close to them. I think I need to make it more clear that the list is sorted that way. The General list gives you the choice of sorting by name or zip. I find that using the first 3 digits of the zip code is a good way to search a larger area. I don't see how we could make the search engine find Niwot when you search for Boulder. Just defining what areas should be included would be difficult. Your 300 mile radius put you half way to my house but I don™t like to travel more than 30 miles because I live in the city. I don't know how the Yellow Pages finds things within a radius of so many miles. I certainly uses software that we don't have at present. My guess is that is calculates by GPS coordinates or something. You say you would like to see the general page work as expected but I don't really understand what you want it to do. The forms on that page are two separate forms one with the name and city and one for chapter lookup. If you look up Boulder in the chapter name form you will get all the members of the Boulder chapter. I will just add that chapter numbers are the first 3 digits of the city that is the seat of the chapter. You said " Instead, I think most people expect to enter a wild-card pattern, then immediately be presented a list of ONLY those meeting that criterion." This is exactly what the general search does. I'm trying to guess how you feel it doesn™t. I guess if you put Finger and Boulder in the chapter name field that would give you either Finger or the Boulder chapter depending on which submit button you click. Perhaps I need to make these two more visually separate or even on separate pages. The other thing that might make things more clear would be to rearrange the list that comes from the US map to put the zip code in the first column so it is clear that it is zip sorted. I think people would recognize the towns around them if they look for names with similar zip code. I could put a suggestion to use the first 3 digits of zip code or the phone area code as a way to get a wider search. I'm glad that you have gotten clients from the web site. We have a very powerful tool here for a minium of work an little expense. I welcome your viewpoints and suggestions. --------- Ronald Berry webmaster@ptg.org http://www.ptg.org ---------------------- Ron Berry Piano Service Indianapolis, IN 46220 317-255-8213 ron@berrypiano.com http://www.berrypiano.com
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