Hello!! So, I wanted to create a project to help track the visitors and inhabitants of my pollinator garden, and I was wondering how I could add observation fields to my project. (I know in the Found Feathers project you can add the feather length and placement, for example.)
Have a wonderful timezone!! Make sure to hydrate and eat something today!! Happy observing!! ^^
I do something similar. You are probably better off setting up a traditional project (assuming you want the observation field(s) to truly be part of the project)… this allows you to prompt yourself to capture an observation field (nectar plant? Name of associated plant?) as you create the observation. You can always convert to a collection project later. Also… You can still capture data in an observation field even without a project.
Maybe start by deciding which of the many observation fields you’d like to use to track the association.
You can associate observation fields with a project by creating a traditional project (not a collection project – you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the text link in the last paragraph) and selecting one or more observation fields in the appropriate section of the project creation form.
You may find it useful to familiarize yourself with existing observation fields here to see if there is one that meets your purposes instead of creating a new one.
I was trying to set up a traditional project with the aim of collecting observations with a specific value of a given obs-field. Do you (or anyone else) know if that’s a normal limitation or if I failed doing it correctly? I figured out how to chose the field but values..?
my understanding is that the values can only be controlled via a drop-down list that is established when the observation field is created. the values are “piped” together by the user creating the observation field. Piped together like “blue|yellow|red” when entered into a text box as the observation field is set up. my understanding is also that you can’t prevent someone else from asking a curator to add an additional value. so a field you set up as allowing values of “blue|yellow|red” might become “blue|yellow|red|green”. i’ve always wondered about this last bit of information tho… but that’s my understanding of it.
That’s not the issue for me, I think. I planned to use “thorax color” as observation field. It allows free‑text input. I was trying to collect all entries with the value “red” and a specific taxon. I can now retrieve all observations that use this field, but I still can’t limit it to just one value. Or maybe I misunderstood what you meant, if so, sorry. ^^
Technically, I wanted this observation overview: taxon_id=461174&field:Thorax%20colour=red as a project. (Or with any other value but not all values) 
I have something that will do that… but it operates from my GitHub repo outside of inat. Otherwise you could do a list of links in the project journal for a traditional project that requires the “thorax colour” observation field…
If there’s no standard way to set project rules so they only allow a specific field value, I might just do it manually and bulk‑add the observations from the classic observations page. As far as I know, Megachile’s tool can do this, but I was hoping for a built‑in automated option on iNat. I still don’t understand why we can set rules for an observation field but not specify the value we want. >.<
if you have a project defined, I don’t mind setting the other thing up for you. it allows you to select the taxon from a list of taxons (taxa?)… and then a color.
I’ll DM you later, maybe! I wanna try a few things ^^
I deleted my first project drafts but I would surely appreciate help ^^
(taxa, yes^^)
Thank y’all for your answers!! ^^