I regularly collect lists of plant species within sample plots. I only visit each plot once, and make one list of plants per plot. The number of species per plot varies - it could be 5 plants it could be over one hundred. For each plant I observe within a plot, I record species name, life form (e.g. tree/shrub), and a percentage cover (e.g. 20% of the plot)
Related tables have proven useful for entering this data (a polygon feature represents my plot and a related table holds my plant observations). A limitation I'm trying to overcome however is that when entering each new given species, I am unable to see previous species I've entered as I do so. For example, if I'm entering plant species number 80, I am unable to quickly scan through what species 1 through 79 were while I am in the species entry form. To do this, I need to exit my data entry form, refresh my memory of the species already collected, then return to the data entry form. Not impossible to do, but it's a bit of a productivity killer when needing to be done many times per plot.
Seeing previous species while entering my current species is preferable from a perspective of avoiding repeat entries (after entering 80 plants, won't necessarily recall whether each plant I'm encountering has been entered or not), but also, should I re-evaluate the % cover of a species after moving about the plot, I may wish to return to that species and adjust by tapping its name in the list of previously recorded species, bringing the form/entry for that species back up so I can edit it on the fly before resuming collecting new species.
Is this possible in Fieldmaps?
(N.b. I'm aware of other methodologies of avoiding repeat entries, and while useful, its not exactly what I'm after here. If something like what is described above is not achievable, I may be better served by... paper *shudder*)
