I think right now this topic belongs here rather than suggestions for the database, even though I'd like to eventually suggest it.
Years ago I had my collection typed up in HTML tables with elaborate color codes for want-to-[don't want] and have-to-[don't have]. It was really pretty. I'd like one day to be able to display my collection from this website in that manner, but I need to learn some PHP and SQL I guess, since I can't really ask such a big job from whoever's capable of doing so here. (I don't know if it's anyone else besides the main guy)
elaborate color codes: (also featuring a new layout for Armada, which offered the challenge of how to display 3 factions, with 'Bot & 'Con products including members from the 3rd faction)
http://www.chaoticdescent.site90.com/tf ... 20egX.htmlthe poor pathetic remains of my collection tabulation after I failed to backup my files and my HD crashed:
http://www.chaoticdescent.site90.com/tf-collection.htmlI'll probably re-do the color codes. I think ideally, every individual would want to customize their own color codes rather than having to use someone else's, which may not fit their needs. Right now my priorities have shifted to: a smaller personal collection; my existing collection which in some places I'd like to complete; a museum I'd like to open one day, which ideally would feature each figure in each mode, meaning my priority is on collecting a copy of each figure for each mode above 2, and the hopefully finding two collectors with complete collections to provide the majority of the display :> ; and finally, possibly providing the 2nd collection myself, which is still probably too ambitious for myself. (it basically means absolute completism) I'm also debating if there's any place for a MISB/MOSC collection in a museum, or whether that's fairly pointless. I think it would have to make a 3rd collection separate from loose figures.
http://www.chaoticdescent.site90.com/tf ... rview.htmlOne of the things I displayed was the series and sublines over the years. I'm going back to work on it now, but it's hard to get all the info on release dates. TFU.info lists one year, TFwiki lists another. (eg: Beast Machines - Dinobot - Magmatron. 1999 or 2000?. eg2: Transmetals. 1998-2000, or -2001? (BotCon Tigatron was in 2001 and is a Transmetal. everything else ended 2000. mainline Transmetals ended in 2000, but there was still the one officially released Transmetal.))
I'm not sure what featured gimmicks to include as a sub-line, or whether to include them all and just rank them by percentage of released product that year (with the higher ones at the top).
edit: god, this is pathetic! TFU.info and TFwiki neither of which have info on whether the TM2 Cheetor repaint Tripredacus Agent is actually a Beast Wars or Beast Machines figure! NOTHING! Are we living in the stone age of internet TF fandom? Ok, eBay shows it on a BW card. Both TFwiki and TFU.info show it as a 2001 release. A year after Beast Wars was over. WHAH??
and both with the featured gimmicks as well as the series, I'm wondering what kind of a visual logic I should show. Should I use the current layout, (with G1 and G2 filling the full height of the series rows since there were no other lines at the same time, and then in Beast Wars it shrinks to make room for the brief Machine Wars, and then by Universe, we end up with 3 simultaneous lines), or should I limit the height to it's role? (so that mainlines only ever take up the top row, and secondary lines below, and store exclusive lines are always at the bottom in their own row.)
I had been planning to make a separate row not just for the exclusive series names, but for the figures themselves. Should Commemorative Series go in with stuff like BotCon exclusives and store exclusive extentions of mainlines? It's in a strange category all of it's own, although I suppose it's like a BotCon exclusive in that it's not an extention of the mainline.
Also, RID was a filler line, but it was big, with accompanying fiction. Classics was also a filler line, but it did not have it's own fiction. Should I bump it down? It would also allow me to line it up with Universe/Classics 2.0 which is a continuation of it. I like the visual continuity, but it doesn't always make as much sense.
It's really tricky dealing with HTML tables.
There's no way to get non-rectangular cells, is there? The general answer seems to be no. But what about eliminating the borders between cells to simulate an L shape? I think I need to rewrite my table for that, and but the border=1 attribute in a separate table for each box rather than as the table for all series. (which is messy)
Currently the only place I need it is for Universe/Classics "2.0" to contain a bordered subseries of "25th Anniversary", since it's the same line under a new banner, I don't want to chop it off and make it separate. (plus it's possible we may get a few figures under the Universe packaging without 25th Anniversary... or not)
