Messages

16

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: What if the internets gets shut down forever?

June 11, 2009, 11:47:03 AM

Hmm, I guess I misunderstood, from your last posts I somehow got the impression that you wanted the data so you could launch a website.

I had more than one idea I presented as examples of the use of being able to download the database.

Asking for the ability to download your "Missing" list is a little more reasonable, especially if it's just a simple list, like you say. But I don't understand how this would have helped you with the "Max-B" figure situation. Why didn't you just print out your collection list and bring it along with you? You could have flipped to the Beast Wars section, seen that you already own him, and moved on to the next table.

Because, as I said, it's less efficient. If you have more figures than you're looking for, it's a larger list. While you can use the process of elimination, it may take longer to look through your list to find the right section and the right figure, and you'll have to look through the whole list of figures in the series to make sure it's not there, rather than just locate the one figure you see the dealer has to see if it's one you need.

That said, the collection functionality is all still new, and if I'm missing features it's only because nobody ever asks for them! I do take requests when they're reasonable and well thought-out, but well, it's damn rare that anybody ever provides any feedback.

Sorry about that. I tend to be a non-person most of the time, unable to contribute anything to anyone.

You already know that's all outside my abilities.

It was outside of mine, too, a few years ago. A good way to learn fast is to just dive right in on a project you're passionate about, and brother, you've got plenty of passion.

It's possible I do, although I seem to be easily discouraged. I haven't touched databases in months.

Ehh... aren't there systems where you can just "plug in" a table file(s)? I dunno.

Not sure I understand what you mean. What's a "table file"?

... uh... XML? isn't that a table file? table/spreadsheet? jargon?

That doesn't even cover uses like printing out a list to bring with you to BotCon so you can keep track of what you're looking for.

Hmm, good point. Maybe I should see if I can come up with a way to print the wish list.

Or to be able to print out owned, and wish list, and both together. (and I'd suggest if both are together, to have the items interspersed and sorted the way they normally would be if they weren't sorted by have/want, otherwise there's no advantage to printing them together other than saving paper by starting one as soon as the other finishes. although you could also have all the owned figures within a series/year/sizeclass listed first before the wish list figures were listed. That's plenty of options.

For example, what if you just want a list, instead of pictures (especially if most of the pictures are missing) Maybe you want to fit more than 8 figures per page you print out. Huh. ... the "details" display mode is actually more compact than the "summary" mode. Go figure.

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I'll give it some thought, okay? And yes, "details" mode is more compact than "summary" mode. Maybe I should call one "expanded" and the other "table". I dunno.

I also want to start keeping track of my collection's multiples, and not on separate accounts, for the purpose of my hypothetical dream museum. For that I need to keep track of 1 set for my personal collection, both wanted and owned, and at least one if not two sets for the museum. (ok, by the time I got as far as collecting 1 of everything + 3rd+ modes + my small personal collection, I'd probably be doing serious work on this and be asking for support and probably have plenty of photographs to submit)

Well, of course with the new system you can already add multiples. Why not just add everything to one account, and simply note in the comments which ones are intended for the "museum"?

Ah. Thanks. I realized this after I posted that. Although I would still like to download the list so that I can see just how complete my collections are, since the total for each is different. My museum collection is only working towards getting figures with 3rd modes, while my personal collection is just stuff I absolutely have to have.

I don't even know how... All I know is that I can't keep track of the pictures I have. There's always a fan repaint or mod I'm thinking of and I can't find the damned picture to see exactly what it looks like.
The mold/name/alt-mode relationships between original toys also helps with fan repaints/mods, especially when you're trying to find a TF to use in a repaint/mod.

Well, if you don't mind waiting a bit we will eventually get around to letting users supply their own photos for items in their collection. And once we get that far, it will be fairly trivial to add support for tagging items as "customized". So, we'll get there, just gotta be patient.

Wouldn't it be best to host the majority of a database like that on another server, or can you really handle such a large amount of data? I mean, the possibilities are enormous. You could add bootlegs, which would probably double or triple the database. Fan customs. What if you added corresponding fiction entries and character pages and continuities? (making it more like TFwiki, I guess) and you already mentioned other toy lines, not even necessarily Transformers related. We could do all the Takara TF-like lines, like the entirety of Brave, Machine Robo Rescue & Mugenbine, and the wee lines of Web Diver & DaiGander(sp?). Go-Bots, like TFU.info has.

Do you want to host everything, or do you think perhaps if it got too huge you would consider linking off-site for different content? I guess it's too early to really make any decision like that.

I think what I really need is some kind of offline image database. That way it would be very fast to react, but I'd still be able to see images instead of just lists.
Unfortunately, I don't think image databases are standardized and as user-friendly as the very OS you use. I think I looked into this before on wikipedia. :S (for my porn collection. I think it might be just a little bit bigger than my TF image collection. :> )

17

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: If THIS doesn't make you happy, I'm switching to Care Bears

June 11, 2009, 11:31:13 AM

As a matter of fact, I agree with you on the "MISB/MIB" stuff. How about if I just change it to "Graded", "Sealed", "Opened", and "Loose", and leave it at that? And we don't currently have the ability to assign conditions to parts, but I did deliberately design the database layout to support this if desired. So it wouldn't be too tough to add under the hood, but I worry that the UI would get a little cluttered with dozens of little drop-downs for each part (combiner giftsets, ugh). But I'll consider this a vote for it--you're the first to bring it up.

And yes, the purchased year defaults to the year of release.

Well that still doesn't specify whether you own the packaging or not if you own it loose. I don't know if you want to list the packaging as an item along with instructions, or make it a unique part of the product where it's only kept track of through the condition pull-down so that you replace "loose" with "loose - with packaging" and "loose - no packaging". I would guess it would make more sense to add another boolean part. ... except then you would have to have it checked and un-toggle-able when you pick anything other than "loose" for condition, so it's a bit redundant in all but ONE case. :> I suppose if you did add a boolean for "packaging" part, it would just be dependent on condition in most cases.

I wasn't really pushing for the condition of parts. I just thought of it is all. For me personally, it's probably easier to just include in the notes. I think the only person this would matter for is 1) resellers with massive inventories (pay up, guys!), or 2) museums with massive inventories. (who'd basically be using it to keep track of accessories that are inferior and need replacing)

Also, the year purchased...
I'm guessing it's referencing another uneditable variable for the year it was released. Could you add an "unknown" or blank default (month and day have blank defaults) for "year purchased", and just grey-out (be un-selectable) the years before the year of release?
I'd argue for this because currently unless you specify a month and/or day, you can't tell which figures you've specified a purchase year for, and which are just on their defaults. Although I think that's not as serious as I make it out to be. I imagine you would specify a month when you do select your own purchase year, and then there's no confusion. So, yeah. Again, it's pretty minor.

18

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: If THIS doesn't make you happy, I'm switching to Care Bears

June 07, 2009, 11:00:50 PM

I noticed you can keep track of instructions, but not box/card. I suppose you could pick "MIB", except that that option implies the condition is mint. If it's been opened and used for display, it's not mint. If it's got any wear on it but includes the packaging, it's FAR from mint, but the packaging still counts.

Also, what do you think about setting condition rating for separate parts? Ah, nevermind. There is nothing beyond "AFA,MISB,MIB,loose" for condition. I guess you would leave that for the comments.

Also, there's no option to pick a blank year for when you purchased it, so it seems to default to I guess the year it was on shelves?

19

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: What if the internets gets shut down forever?

June 07, 2009, 09:09:12 PM

TL;DR: Yeah. I'm probably just being selfish and lazy and letting all failures of progress to discourage me.

Everyone is welcome to contribute records or modify existing information
*snip*
The information stored here IS public--nothing's hidden from view, and everything's free (and there are no ads). But if I put a big button marked "Download the Shmax Database!" somewhere, well, what would be the point in a general sense? This is a website, and it's designed to be viewed a page at a time. If you tried to print it out (SKUs and parts) you'd have around what, 500 pages? The only conceivable purpose anyone could have for the entire raw data set would be to try to import it into their own database, and that's just too small of an audience to justify the feature (there would be technical issues to overcome--file size limits, memory issues, bandwidth, etc).

No, not the entire raw data. I already said the format of your download option strips out plenty of fields, which is fine, but only listing the figures you already have is a huge limitation. You don't need to be able to do fancy database programming to sort a single spreadsheet table file either.
When your collection gets so big that you can't keep track of it, you don't want to know what figures you DO have, you want to know what figures you DON'T have.
I went to BotCon this year and accidentally bought a 2nd boxed Max-B figure. I had to look up which of the Japanese BW flipchanger jets I already owned so that I could tell which one I still needed to get. I STILL don't know if I have Micron Booster wave 1, and I saw it at BotCon but passed because it wasn't listed as something I needed in one of my forum threads. It's possible it was mistakenly omitted. I still can't remember which Micromasters I'm missing because I'm near the end of my collection.

I'll also mention that anyone prepared to import that much data in one fell swoop will have already done a lot of engineering, and presumably have the skill to simply data mine the information automatically. I won't make any special effort to stop you if that's what you want to do. In fact, the code you write to process the data--whether it comes from data mining or an XML or Excel data dump--would be much the same. You could also just cheat and simply add every single toy to your collection, and then download that.

One thing I can tell you if you're serious about all this is that if you haven't started development yet, it's way too early to be worrying about where the data is going to come from--that will be the least of your worries compared to designing your schema, developing a user interface, figuring out how to handle all the variants and different releases from different countries, preparing a robust development pipeline, etc. Or maybe you have something very simple in mind, I don't know. If you really just want a simple list of the name of every known Transformer toy, well sure, I can provide that for ya. Maybe we can barter for it--you know how I am about photos!

You already know that's all outside my abilities. and adding every single toy to my collection would take a long time just to get those results. Maybe not as much time as doing the data entry yourself manually. Maybe not as much time as it would take to learn how to "data mine" from this site.

Ehh... aren't there systems where you can just "plug in" a table file(s)? I dunno.

That doesn't even cover uses like printing out a list to bring with you to BotCon so you can keep track of what you're looking for. For example, what if you just want a list, instead of pictures (especially if most of the pictures are missing) Maybe you want to fit more than 8 figures per page you print out. Huh. ... the "details" display mode is actually more compact than the "summary" mode. Go figure.

I also want to start keeping track of my collection's multiples, and not on separate accounts, for the purpose of my hypothetical dream museum. For that I need to keep track of 1 set for my personal collection, both wanted and owned, and at least one if not two sets for the museum. (ok, by the time I got as far as collecting 1 of everything + 3rd+ modes + my small personal collection, I'd probably be doing serious work on this and be asking for support and probably have plenty of photographs to submit)

So don't be angry, just go ahead and do what you want to do. I actually think that a database of fan-customized toys is a great idea, and in fact it's something we've been talking about doing here. Before talking to Hellscream I never realized how popular the hobby is, but I'm starting to get the picture!

I don't even know how... All I know is that I can't keep track of the pictures I have. There's always a fan repaint or mod I'm thinking of and I can't find the damned picture to see exactly what it looks like.
The mold/name/alt-mode relationships between original toys also helps with fan repaints/mods, especially when you're trying to find a TF to use in a repaint/mod.


I just... I can't do very much. and I wanted to start keeping track of my multiples. but I can't. so it's discouraging.
There's really no point in asking YOU to implement a feature that only I want to use. and... I don't know. Maybe I'm being selfish in wanting something for nothing, but it feels like twice as much work. I gotta do work before I can start work on my own project.
TL;DR: Yeah. I'm probably just being selfish and lazy and letting all failures of progress to discourage me.

20

Bugs? On www.shmax.com? Ha ha, you kill me... / Re: dynamic sig

June 06, 2009, 12:59:14 AM

not sure where I should put this. but the sigs freeze my browser. (Firefox in OS Ubuntu) I have to use the system monitor to shut down Firefox.

21

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: New sig!

June 06, 2009, 12:54:10 AM

Is there any way to turn these damned things off?!?! they keep freezing my browser!
edit: Whew! it took me a while to find the user control panel. luckily turning off flash stops it. I don't know why, but on my system (Ubuntu OS, Firefox browser) too many of those windows just stops me from being able to do ANYTHING. Can't scroll, can't click, can't close windows. I close the tab that the forum is on, and yet Firefox is still frozen. Closing Firefox doesn't actually close it. It's horrible.

22

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: What if the internets gets shut down forever?

June 06, 2009, 12:47:37 AM

Could we have the ability to download the entire database rather than only the list of figures we personally own? That way we could theoretically update the downloadable version, or use it for other things. I currently had an idea for an online database of TF repaints and mods that would save a lot of time if existing TFs were already listed. It also would allow us to make easy lists of... for example, figures we don't have but want.

I'll have to ponder that one. It's taken years to assemble all this information, and I'm not sure it would really be fair to all the people who did the work to simply start providing users with complete dumps of the data set so they can go off and start their own websites! What did you have in mind, were you going to write a program to parse xml/csv, and try to import all the info? If you're only interested in repaints, how would you extract only the repaints from the data set?

*sigh* Well that's surprising and disappointing that I've found yet another project that considers a list of TFs to be data that's too valuable to be public. EVERY SINGLE DAMNED TF ARCHIVING SITE is like this! Every single damned one of them has to start over from scratch every single time a new one pops up. because it was so much work, no one wants to share it. no, you have to do the same work over again. TFU.info, TF wiki, shmax, and more before that. Not to mention the numerous people who have made collecting guide books. (there has to be at least 3 different series of those)
Your downloaded lists are already stripped of most of the extraneous fields, and yet you're still hording a complete list? Name, series, faction, year (, sizeclass, other variant distinguishing label such as store exclusivity). Making that public would not be fair to the people who did data entry? Do they have a say in the matter?

So, I dunno. Maybe if you explain to me exactly what it is you want to do with the data we can work something out in private, but for now I can't really see the appeal in doing what you suggest.

Oops. I meant FAN repaints and mods.

But it's moot since I have other priorities currently that would prevent me from doing such a project. (a diplomatic way of saying I'm struggling just to take care of myself, which is why I've never submitted any photos here.)

23

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: What if the internets gets shut down forever?

June 05, 2009, 09:42:52 PM

Could we have the ability to download the entire database rather than only the list of figures we personally own? That way we could theoretically update the downloadable version, or use it for other things. I currently had an idea for an online database of TF repaints and mods that would save a lot of time if existing TFs were already listed. It also would allow us to make easy lists of... for example, figures we don't have but want.

24

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: Super Awesome Catalog Idea (And a bonus idea)

December 10, 2008, 12:58:20 AM

I think basically both his ideas are similar. He wants to be able to display the lists of figures differently.
One is pictures of loose figures in all it's modes, together with every other figure from that year, all Autobots on one page, all Decepticons on another.
The other is the same thing except packaged pictures.

I still don't get it. You can already do exactly what you're describing. Here's, say, all autobots from 1985:
http://www.shmax.com/search/196?searchT ... arch&tab=1

Except that it's still laid out 1-dimensionally, unlike your next example...

In his case he differentiated the two ideas by making a person's collection appear differently on the two. On the catalog version, there's a more obvious graphical effect over the image, while on the [cover/package] view, it just shows the ones you have.

Are you talking about a gallery view? I whipped something up just to see if it's what you're talking about. Here, for example, is my collection in "gallery view":

http://www.shmax.com/View_Collection/1/ ... esults=100

Yeah, I suspect so. (it was his idea)

I'm sure once something like these were implemented, you could display them any way you wanted. For keeping track of collections: large graphical overlays, small checkboxes in the corner, or complete omission of the image. all implemented on a list like the current one with both pictures and text, pictures of loose figures, pictures of boxed figures, or pictures of figures loose or boxed depending on whether yours are loose or boxed together on the same page.

I actually already have this working--you guys will see it once I finally make the new collection system available to the public.

Well I didn't realize your system was so flexible that it could do all this so far. Congratulations. I'm impressed.

Would it be possible to let the method that they're displayed be scripted by the users? Perhaps within some kind of limit on bandwidth and seek-time (or whatever database term it is) so that people couldn't load 1,000 full-size images or 1,000 entries.
Or at least let users script it but have them reviewed? I imagine there are a lot of possibilities, and you only have so much time. I think a project like this needs wiki-like support. (of course, whether you have the userbase for that support is another thing... -_-; )

We've already touched on this in another thread. I don't think you'll find too many sites that let their users upload and run their own scripts--the complexity and security risks just aren't worth it. A more reasonable idea might be to allow some kind of templating system, so that users can sort of "skin" their collection page to look the way they want. Or, we can just do the REST interface thing, where you can write your own code on your own host and make requests for data from my site, get XML or JSON in return, and do whatever you want with it (use your own PHP, javascript, AJAX, whatever).

But this is all down the road. As you mention, the site doesn't really have much in the way of users or visitors, and in practical terms I would need more than one or two guys active on the site to justify the time and effort needed to make some of these high-concept ideas happen. My basic advice remains the same: hang in there and see what you think of the new collection system. Once that launches, I'll be eager for feedback and new ideas--and you guys have already given me plenty of food for thought--and the site will rapidly evolve around this major, central new feature.

It's just my understanding of terms that's lacking. I don't see much difference as long as the user gets to customize the way things are displayed.

In the meantime, I'd love it if you guys could do what you can to contribute photos and content for the site. And be sure to plug it whenever you can! Word of mouth is really my only means of advertising at the moment, and strangely, no one ever seems to mention the site or post links to it in other forums (tfu.info gets all the love).

Huh... I think I misunderstood your directions and got styrofoam sheets. I don't know what foam core is, but I see the instructions say "anything that's large, flat, smooth and white". So I wasted all that time for nothing, I guess...

25

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: Super Awesome Catalog Idea (And a bonus idea)

December 08, 2008, 05:18:06 PM

I'm liking the energy, and thrilled beyond belief to finally have someone other than me posting in the forums, but I'm afraid I just don't follow you. What exactly are you suggesting? Granted, we want pics of as many toys as possible. And you can already view them year by year if you like by using the Advanced search form, or even by doing a basic search for the year you have in mind. I'm not sure how catalog scans would fit into the equation...

Well, that's what the checkmarks are for. They're not all that flashy, and they'll be going away soon when the new collection system goes live, but unless I'm misunderstanding something, the functionality you're describing is already there.

You input what books you have, and if you choose 'cover view', it shows them all (maybe 100 per page or some other limit), by their covers. We can do something like that here. Have a 'package view' to the 'your collection' area that's slightly different than what we got now. Basically instead of going down in a line, have rows and columns, and smaller package pics perhaps, so it looks like the toys are sitting on a shelf, y'know? Basically, same thing we got now, just a different look style, and less information.

That's a little more reasonable, and I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while, but once again, I think it will have to wait for the new collection system (so we'll be able to show MISB vs. loose pics).

Keep those ideas coming! And if you really want to help the site, be sure to include the occasional link when you're posting in other forums! Thanks again...

Max

... how do you show people your wanted figures? Is there something besides the Flash sig? That info should be stickied.
Oh, the info seems to be on the sig page. It would be nice if there was a FAQ page that mentioned that, or if info is spread out, for it to maybe be in the title.
I didn't realize the number in the URL was my username. So that means it's not just displaying my collection because I'm the one that's logged on? That URL works for everyone?

I think basically both his ideas are similar. He wants to be able to display the lists of figures differently.
One is pictures of loose figures in all it's modes, together with every other figure from that year, all Autobots on one page, all Decepticons on another.
The other is the same thing except packaged pictures.
In his case he differentiated the two ideas by making a person's collection appear differently on the two. On the catalog version, there's a more obvious graphical effect over the image, while on the [cover/package] view, it just shows the ones you have. I'm sure once something like these were implemented, you could display them any way you wanted. For keeping track of collections: large graphical overlays, small checkboxes in the corner, or complete omission of the image. all implemented on a list like the current one with both pictures and text, pictures of loose figures, pictures of boxed figures, or pictures of figures loose or boxed depending on whether yours are loose or boxed together on the same page.

Personally, I think many methods of displaying is good. I've always wanted what I showed you in another thread, although I've also wanted one similar to his catalog idea so that I could see ALL the figures exactly the way they look. That sort of thing would be really useful for going to a convention when you're looking for tons of guys or accessories you're not familiar with. (for me, I have a hard time remembering what Micromasters I do or don't have. a name on a list will not help me.)

Would it be possible to let the method that they're displayed be scripted by the users? Perhaps within some kind of limit on bandwidth and seek-time (or whatever database term it is) so that people couldn't load 1,000 full-size images or 1,000 entries.
Or at least let users script it but have them reviewed? I imagine there are a lot of possibilities, and you only have so much time. I think a project like this needs wiki-like support. (of course, whether you have the userbase for that support is another thing... -_-; )

26

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: will we be able to download the database?

December 03, 2008, 04:59:52 AM

There is indeed!

http://www.shmax.com/View_Collection/1/ ... t_filter=7

We're both in luck--looks like you have roughly a couple thousand parts and figures that we need photos for. If you're serious about helping with photos, you'll need to make yourself a "photo booth" out of white foam core, and get yourself a digital camera and either GIMP or Photoshop to do the white balancing. There's a tutorial for all this on the site's photo guidlines page.

Cool.
I have an expensive point & shoot, and a tripod.

Man... you should save everyone all potential work in the future, and photograph everything from every angle and every variation... There should be no photographs needed to be taken of old stuff any more.
Oh! Oh! I know what we still need: photographs of things taken on a grid surface to get a sense of scale.

Well, I found out free webhosting won't load ChartDirector. (only took me 70 minutes to set it up locally, and another hour wasted trying to figure out how/if it could be set up on that free webhost someone recommended)
Looks like the only way to share it is by generating it locally and uploading graphics, if it outputs that; or by getting it put in here.

27

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: will we be able to download the database?

December 01, 2008, 10:21:33 PM

I'll make you a deal--you promise to contribute at least 100 photos, and I'll write some code to generate a spreadsheet for ya. Whaddya say?

Is there an easy way to see what needs photos and what doesn't? 100 photos... I wonder if I even have 100 things that need photos.

28

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: new visual way to display collection

December 01, 2008, 10:07:40 AM

I wasn't sure. If it requires a lot of work, I'll try to do it myself if it's not beyond my means of learning how. I was just sort of pitching the idea.

Ah. Well, doing it yourself on your own site is certainly an option, though you would need me to either supply you with raw data, or you would need to build up your own database of toys as well (which takes several years). Or, you can wait for the new collection system on this site to go live, and continue to submit suggestions and see how things develop.

I wouldn't need such a complicated database specifically for displaying them like this, but I laugh at the people saying "oh, I just update my own spreadsheet!"
I wasn't really intending to set up a website... although if it worked well enough (speed, bandwidth) I'd certainly spare you from taking the bandwidth hit of every person who looks at my collection. and include a "powered by shmax" link.

I don't know what a lot of that stuff is, but can CSV or XML be laid out just as easily as PHP+MySQL? I mean can PHP take XML the same as MySQL?

Well, you're a PHP man, right? The idea is that somewhere in your code, on your site, you decide that you want to dynamically generate one of your tables. But you need the collection data from my site. So, in your code, you would dynamically compose an http request (following whatever api syntax I provide), for example:
http://www.shmax.com/collection_data?id=2&cat=228

You would then hit my server with the request (by using some REST-style class or interface, such as snoopy ). On my end, I process the request, and put the results in the form of some easily consumable format, such as XML, or JSON. There are 3rd-party functions available in PHP for converting either kind of format directly into arrays or objects, and then you're free to format and display the data in any format you like (tables, graphs, etc). If you want to get started right away, here's some information about your collection in XML format:
http://www.shmax.com/img/sigs/96/sigxml.php (click on the link, then view the page source--that's XML).

I'll also mention as an aside that if what you're doing with the tables is meant to be a poor man's bar graph, then you might be better off looking at some actual charting software. I use ChartDirector here on the site. It can do anything in the world, it's free, and the author has provided wrappers for every programming language under the sun.  

I'm not actually "a PHP man". It's just that I've been meaning to "learn web databases" for years and was hoping this would be a good opportunity. I haven't learned PHP. (although I gather the basics are pretty similar to everything else that looks like C)

I'll look at ChartDirector, but I haven't touched a compiler in years. Wait... you use it on the site? What runs it? I see PHP listed. Oh boy. I think I'd like to avoid using a C++ compiler. I'm in Ubuntu Linux.
Thanks.

It served no public purpose. I did sort of want to have my collection be both in visual form for myself, as well as an easy list for people looking to buy/sell with me.

Well, you might want to wait until you see the new collection system. Users will be able to browse your collection the same way they can browse the database, and they'll be able to see which are loose or complete, which parts are missing, and so on. Down the road I'll probably add some buy/sell functionality as well as whatever else seems cool. Hang in there!

Yes, but it still won't display my collection like this, will it? I "sit and wait" all the time. Not that I'm good at getting things done, but I was hoping I'd be able to have something to do that I have some motivation to do that might actually be possible to accomplish. (although it might not... I'm not sure how easy it's going to be for me to learn PHP and MySQL... or if I even need MySQL at this point. although I should learn it... I guess. It might be useful in the future?)

29

Feature Requests/Announcements / Re: new visual way to display collection

November 30, 2008, 12:14:55 PM

Sorry for not replying either--I wasn't sure if your post was directed at me, or meant for general discussion. I guess I still don't really understand the main thrust of your point--are you asking me to implement your tables, or asking for advice on how to do it on your own site?

I wasn't sure. If it requires a lot of work, I'll try to do it myself if it's not beyond my means of learning how. I was just sort of pitching the idea.

Of course I'm always interested in hearing about new ideas, particularly when it comes to the collection system. I should mention that the collection system has been completely redesigned, with new UI, new features, and a whole slew of new data fields you can enter in. The new collection pages have statistics for what percentages of the factions you own, MISB vs. loose, etc. The mods and I have decided not to launch the new system until the parts database is more fleshed-out, but it should be appearing soon.

Yup, I heard. Looking forward to it.

Your idea for the tables are interesting, but I have to confess that I really don't understand them--it's not clear to me what all the rows of numbers mean,

Oh, sorry. In the other thread I explained those numbers. They're just for "debugging". I was working out layout based on width percentage and another arbitrary unit.

nor what you mean by having a scale from "need" to "have" (surely "have" is a boolean value?).

The scale of "need" to "have" is... oh... that really is showing it's age. I guess it really should be "don't have" to "have", but "need" is shorter, so maybe that's why I used that confusing label.
And "don't have" to "have" isn't necessarily boolean either, because sometimes you get incomplete figures, or you get 1 figure when you need 2 or 3. Or you want one boxed and one loose. Or whatever.

I also note that they seem to be centered around toylines (like Armada) that are sort of discrete and can be easily partitioned into a few factions. That might work for something like Armada, but anything I implement needs to be robust enough to work for any scrappy toyline or node in the category tree, with any level of complexity (consider something like "Titanium", with all its factions, or the Animorphs, which have none).

Yes. This is specifically for Transformers. Well, I would like it to be dynamically laid out instead of manual. What it really boils down to is "good-guy faction" and "bad-guy faction". I'm pretty sure Animorphs have two factions. (although I think there's only one bad-guy toy, if I recall...) I mean, this system wouldn't have worked for lines like Armada if it had been created before Armada, so of course new things pop up all the time.

But there are infinite types of tables and graphs that can be generated that would foot the bill, and it's something I've been thinking about off and on. One thing I would like to do is have a page that lists rows for every collector, with statistics that can be sorted on any column (ie. #autobots, mold completion, # MIB, #mini-cons, etc). So the idea of a "Top Collectors" list would be enriched a bit, and one could navigate through the database categories, looking for sorts, scenarios and categories where their collection happens to be #1. But something like that will have to wait until after I launch the new system.

You've mentioned you'd like to be able to download your collection--that's fairly reasonable. It would be pretty easy to generate a csv or some other format that could be imported into your favorite spreadsheet program. Whether or not you would then be able to easily import, process, or otherwise use that data in your own schemes is up to you, but I can't see the wisdom in ever allowing users to compose and execute  MySQL queries directly on the database. A more likely scenario would involve me exposing a simple REST-based API to the users, in which you could make requests and I would return XML, which you could use to do whatever you want. But that's going to be way down the line. A lot of this depends on the site actually taking off--so far we only get a few visitors a day, and it's hard to get motivated to engineer these huge features when the audience for them is so small (and yes, I'm the site's sole designer/engineer).

I don't know what a lot of that stuff is, but can CSV or XML be laid out just as easily as PHP+MySQL? I mean can PHP take XML the same as MySQL?

You had some questions about HTML in your other post--I won't go into much detail now, but you shouldn't really be worrying about the limitations of tables at this point. Just decide what you want to do, and know that between html, CSS, and javascript, there's always a way to accomplish what you have in mind.

I think you also mentioned something about being frustrated that you couldn't find any decent information on Tripredacus Agent. Not to ask stupid questions, but did you do a search on this site?

http://www.shmax.com/Package_Details/76 ... acus_Agent

Well, I guess that's all for now. Good luck to you with your site!

Max

I don't have a site. I just put this up right now so I could show it here. I had these pages up online once, long ago. It served no public purpose. I did sort of want to have my collection be both in visual form for myself, as well as an easy list for people looking to buy/sell with me.

30

Feature Requests/Announcements / new visual way to display collection

November 30, 2008, 05:49:57 AM

Sorry. Getting impatient. After a few days with my post in general, I made another one here.

Many years ago, I manually edited HTML tables to keep track of my collection. I'd like one day to be able to display my collection from this website in the same way, 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 shmax)

The purpose of this oh-so-pretty table is to give you an overall look at the current state of your ENTIRE collection all at once, in a visual manner, so you can see just how far you've gone, and just how far you have to go. Not just with numerical results, or a single bar graph for all TFs. Many people have different ways of taking in information, and there is no universal "best way" for everyone. Some think best in words, pictures, or numbers.

I have a lot of work to do, not just on learning how to implement dynamic web content in this manner, but also in how to code what previously was manually laid out, to be automatically laid out. There's lots of potential to make it even fancier, with percentage bar graphs in the gimmick section, and moving sections around. (although that would either require a GUI, or perhaps some scripting. I wonder if it would be possible to allow users to script the public data they're given access to. I've heard there are permissions and restrictions you can set when interacting with (My)SQL, so I would thing that theoretically it is.)

So here's what it looks like:

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.html
I'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.

One of the things I displayed was the series and sublines over the years.
http://www.chaoticdescent.site90.com/tf ... rview.html

the poor pathetic remains of my collection tabulation after I failed to backup my files and my HD crashed (also lacking color codes) : http://www.chaoticdescent.site90.com/tf-collection.html