Installing and Using GeoWeed

Basic Requirements for GeoWeed

The main application requires Microsoft Access 2003 and Excel 2003 (typically installed through some package of Office 2003), under a compatible Windows operating system (typically Windows XP). It does not yet work with Office 2007 and has not been tested with Vista.

GeoWeed can be used on the desktop along with paper forms for the field. However one of its key features is companion software that runs on a handheld PDA in the field. The handheld field application requires a Pocket PC 2003 or Windows Mobile 5 PDA with a GPS, which runs ESRI ArcPad 6.03 or 7.01 (It is not ArcPad 7.1 compatible at this time).

GeoWeed is free, but of course the Microsoft and ESRI products are commercial software.

• Download and read the User Guide (below)
• Download the GeoWeed3.3.0_Install.zip file (below)
• Create a folder for GeoWeed; we suggest C:\GeoWeed3 and will use that in examples.
• Unzip the downloaded file in that folder. It will create some subfolders.
• Read any "readme" file in the main GeoWeed folder
• Create a new empty database as described in the User Guide
• Double Click on the GeoWeedRun file to run it

As the User Guide explains, there are a number of steps to starting up a new GeoWeed database. GeoWeed won't do very much until you have initialized it. You will need to fill out some metadata and organizing information: an Organizing Group, at least one Project and at least one Region, and your Contacts. You will need to import a plants list.

Then you can begin entering weed data - Occurrences, Assessments, Treatements, Surveys, Photos. For all of these except Occurrences, you must create a Work Session first. Read the User Guide for information on these concepts as well as procedures.

We unfortunately have very limited resources (ie: funding) for support of non-partner organizations. Please use the iscussion forums on this website to ask questions, report problems, and share tips.

GeoWeed was developed by the Sonoma Ecology Center beginning in 2006, starting from the codebase of TNC - WIMS from The Nature Conservancy (which itself was derived from a codebase created by the BLM). In our investigation, TNC - WIMS was the most useful alternative available at the time, but it did not meet all of our needs. With The Nature Conservancy's blessing and some initial support, we created a the program which became GeoWeed.

GeoWeed is free, under the Gnu General Public Licence (GPL). The source is included in the project. Among other things, this means that any derived program must also be free and licenced under the GPL.

However, as we are continuing to fix bugs and (when possible) add features, please be very cautious about modifying the database structure, the forms, or the Visual Basic for Applications source code, as your changes might make it hard for you to migrate your data or code to the next release. If you have features or fixes which might be useful to others, please share them with us and they may make it into future releases - which will benefit you as well as others.

GeoWeed is a split database, with two parts:

• GeoWeedRun (client in MS Access terms)
• GeoWeedData (server in MS Access terms)

When the change the structure of GeoWeedData, we will increment the second number of the version (eg: from 3.3 to 3.4). This requires an "import from previous database" into a fresh new empty database.

We may release bug fixes and enhancements to the GeoWeedRun file without needing to change GeoWeedData, in which case we will increment the third number of the run file (eg: from 3.3.0 to 3.3.1). In that case, you should be able to simply replace your run file with the newer one and keep using the same data file.

The Download File

If you have registered and logged in, there will be a link below to download the latest version of GeoWeed. If not, please register or log in and the link will appear.