Do you have your collection recorded at Lugnet?

 

  • Do you have your collection recorded at Lugnet?

    Posted by Huw, 07 Jun 2009 11:58. Filed under Brickset.

    Lugnet -- LEGO Users Group NETwork -- was THE place for AFOLs to gather on the Internet back in the 1990's. Unfortunately, during a period of neglect by its owners, the online LEGO community moved elsewhere and now, today, although under new management, it's a shadow of its former self.

    It has a pretty good database of LEGO sets and has better coverage of early sets than Brickset, but I am told that it isn't maintained as well as it used to be.

    One feature it had long before Brickset did is the ability to record your collection on the site, and although the implementation is not as nice as Brickset's, it looks like a few people still use it. So, if you're one of them, to make it easy for you to use Brickset instead I've added a feature to enable Lugnet inventories to be imported. To do this, log in and click on the 'Import' link on the 'My Sets' page.

    I've tested it using three people's inventories and it appears to work pretty well, with a 99% accuracy rate. There may be problems with sets with duplicate numbers but these, and any sets in the inventory file that are not in our database, are listed after the import. Note that importing overwrites your collection; I may make it possible to merge the two in future if there's demand.

    If you give it a go, do let me know how you get on.

    (Thanks to HoMa for suggesting this feature)


    40 comments, latest one posted 47 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
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Comments

Posted by cassidyarch in United States, 07 Jun 2009 12:31

Aww LUGNET, we had some good times. I remember it well. There were some bizarre flame wars over there. I have to say, I like the Brickset/Bro-Brick/Eurobrick combo better.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 07 Jun 2009 12:32

Woah, looks cool, but I don't use Lugnet! The story's sad though... Oh well... another new feature from Brickset! BTW, how about making a Brickset forum for discussions and members?

Posted by julencin2000 in Spain, 07 Jun 2009 14:04

OK, I've tried the feature. In Lugnet I have an inventory of 8 sets I own, and 1 set I want. But the importing process catalogues the one I want as I would had it. So the result is 9 sets I own.

Doesn't matter 'cause it's only one in my case. This issue apart, the entire process is easy and only takes three steps. Nice feature, so say we all ^_^

This is the imported list from Lugnet: http://guide.lugnet.com/set/mlist.cgi?m=3299
And this is the result: http://www.brickset.com/search/?owned=1

Thanks Huw for this improvement to Brickset, once again a MUST in LEGO reference and news.
Julen.

Posted by BionicleBOOM in United States, 07 Jun 2009 14:28

I've never even heard of Lugnet before, but I guess it's good for people who did use it.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 07 Jun 2009 14:38

@julencin2000: The second link doesn't work! If I'm logged in and I click on that link, it takes me to my collection, not yours! The first link works though... Lugnet's a nice site, BTW, even if it's clearly old-fashioned...

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 07 Jun 2009 14:43

@julencin2000, could you send me your version of the Lugnet exported file (huw [at] brickset.com) so I can check why that happened, please? I can't see anything strange in the code but I'll run it through while debugging to try and track it down. Thanks

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 07 Jun 2009 14:47

The correct link to share your collection with someone else is http://www.brickset.com/search/?ownedBy=yourName, so in julencin2000's case it's http://www.brickset.com/search/?ownedBy=julencin2000.

Posted by Smallsam99 in United States, 07 Jun 2009 15:24

useful for lugnet users, but I like brickset better. I do agree with Alemas on adding a disscussion forum to brickset. That would be great.

Posted by julencin2000 in Spain, 07 Jun 2009 15:52

@Alemas: Ouch, sorry about the second link, copy&paste-problem ^_^

Huw, right now I'm sending the txt.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 07 Jun 2009 15:55

@Smallsam99: Yeah, it should be called "Brickset forum" and everyone could talk about LEGO, their history, people's opinions on new sets, and other things! Huw, can you do that? BTW, Lugnet really looks... un-loved... and never refreshed, unlike here... Oh well...

Posted by baronkarza in Canada, 07 Jun 2009 17:34

Seems like it's already done. Was mine one of the test inventories?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 07 Jun 2009 18:00

@baronkarza, no not done anything with yours, or with anyone's except my two guinea pigs (HoMa and WilliamH)

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 07 Jun 2009 18:03

@Alemas, I've thought about adding a forum many times. I could do it relatively easily as I've written them for other websites, but they are not in the traditional phpBB style that most people know (like Eurobricks) because personally I don't like them. They look cluttered and most importantly it's difficult to know what's new, what you've read and what you haven't. Another issue is moderation. It's difficult enough keeping you lot in order in the news comments :)

Maybe I'll have a change of heart one day...

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 07 Jun 2009 18:13

@Huw: Ah, I see, but I don't understand the problems of moderation! What's the problem? Is it tiring? I don't understand... And what's phpBB?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 07 Jun 2009 18:15

People talk rubbish, go off topic, use bad language and so on. I have a duty to ensure the site is suitable for use by under-18s as they form a signficant percentage of users.

It's not tiring, just time consuming.

phpBB is a 'off the shelf' discussion forum. Although Eurobricks uses something else it is very similar. It has all sorts of whizzy features like avatars, signatures, emoticons etc. but all they do is make it hard to actually see the content of the messages. That's why these comments are plain text, and they would be in the discussion forum, should I write one.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 07 Jun 2009 18:22

@Huw: Ah, and I thought moderating was a "whizz"! Yeah, I understand for bad language(obvious reasons), but off topic comments... the problem is that they make the article uninteresting, right? Oh well... good job on moderating though! All thanks to a dedicated team of moderators! Another thing: is this new feature of importing collections proving popular?

Posted by gratefulnat in Switzerland, 07 Jun 2009 19:08

@ Huw
- maybe you would need some volunteers for moderating, because personally I think it would be great to have a brickset forum. On the other hand, one of the (many) beautiful things about this site is it's 'clean' presentation - which you achieve by not having forums etc etc. I spent so much time working on my collection spreadsheet, which you have rendered absolutely useless with your work here over the last few months :D...

- and to go completely off topic (ha ha), posting reviews now works like a dream. Big thank you!

Posted by iabstract in United States, 07 Jun 2009 20:05

I'm not a member of Lugnet so I can't verify, but supposedly when browsing sets on peeron.com, you can also use your Lugnet inventory to determine whether you have the parts to build sets you might not own using the parts in the sets you do own.

Posted by The Green Brick Giant in United States, 07 Jun 2009 20:36

I'm sure the 6 fans that use Lugnet really like this! :)

Posted by Topsy Cret in Sweden, 08 Jun 2009 01:51

Ah well... Thanks for the instructions, LUGNET!

Posted by Huey in Australia, 08 Jun 2009 07:18

I've been browsing Brickset for a while now but just couldn't bring myself to rekey in all my sets after maintaining it on LUGNET for years. This feature is just what I have been waiting for, so I joined up this morning and tried it out. I had no problems importing from LUGNET and I have just over 400 sets. Did a quick check to see if anything was missed but it looks fine so far, will let you know if find any problems later. Thanks Huw for implementing this great feature!

Posted by Mr.Dunlop in Australia, 08 Jun 2009 07:25

I love the constant care and expansion that goes into this site Huw, and am just glad I decided to use it to store my sets as opposed to the others, like Lugnet.

Anyway, as for a forum, I totally understand that a site administrator has enough to do already without worrying about moderating a forum, so I'm just wondering your position on implementing volunteer moderators?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 08 Jun 2009 08:13

@Huey, I'm glad the feature worked for you, and welcome to Brickset...

@Mr.Dunlop, thanks for your kind words, it's that sort of feedback that encourages the 'constant care and expansion' I put into the site.

@julencin2000, I've found the cause of the problem you encountered. You imported the public version of your inventory instead of the private version which contains more columns in the exported file. I'm glad you did though, because I can now modify the code to deal with both types automatically.

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 08 Jun 2009 09:05

I'm glad I chose Brickset over Lugnet. I can't believe how much "cleaner" (as in navigation) you guys are! (Not to dis Lugnet or anything.)

P.S. *Off Topic* I just want to throw out there that yes I have been inactive only because I have been glued to a gaming website called http://notdoppler.com/. It's pretty fun! :)

Posted by Martin in United Kingdom, 08 Jun 2009 12:02

I imported my entire LUGNET collection and it worked perfectly. Nice one Huw!

Posted by iabstract in United States, 08 Jun 2009 12:23

Ditto the sentiment regarding all the hard work and effort put into this site. That's why I think it's the best there is.

Posted by dfenz in Ireland, 08 Jun 2009 12:47

I agree that this site's capacity to evolve and meet member's needs is excellent. At the risk of going slightly off-topic (its website related but not about importing Lugnet lists), why are there so many sets listed as discontinued from LS@H on the discontinued sets page when they are still available? For example Cafe Corner, the UCS Millenium Falcon etc. are available. Might be a glitch there somewhere?

Posted by Trandoshan in Canada, 08 Jun 2009 12:54

Although I don't use Lugnet, it's nice to see these new features.

On the subject of a discussion forum, there is tabletown (link is at the bottom of the page).

But, Huw if you did make a Discussion forum Emoticons should be left out.

Posted by Greyface in United States, 08 Jun 2009 16:02

Agreed. A good feature, though I don't use Lugnet. By the way, do we have a "Links" page with links to other good LEGO resources? You know, like Brickends, LEGO.com, Lugnet, Brickipedia, Brickshelf, Tabletown, etc?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 08 Jun 2009 16:47

@dfenz, as a LEGO affiliate, I can download a data feed containing a list of everything that's available from LEGOshop.com in the UK and the USA, so the data about availability and prices shown here is only as good as that in the list. I certainly don't have time to check it all manually!

I usually download it once a day although the data is usually 2-3 days behind that on the site itself. If there are anomalies that may be one reason why.

I notice that the UCS MF is now being shown available again; I know for a time it wasn't.

Posted by jpmanalo in Australia, 09 Jun 2009 08:39

Great work Huw! Thank you for all your work so far!

I haven't imported my list over yet, as I would like to be able to have my LUGNET list and with my Brickset list merged together, such that the import only brings in the discrepancies between the LUGNET and Brickset lists. The reason I ask is because I have been updating my set lists on both sites (Yes, you can call me silly....)

Also, is there any chance of having the set-list here on Brickset set up in a way that it can be exported over to Peeron.com (in the same way that the LUGNET set-list can be exported across to Peeron)?

Thank you again for your work Huw!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 09 Jun 2009 10:32

@jpmanalo, Peeron integration is probably the next step.

As for merging, I suspect it could be done programatically but it would be a tricky job to do it while ensuring it worked under all eventualities.

I'm wondering if there's a way to do it by exporting your Brickset inventory as an .xls, importing your Lugnet inventory, exporting that as an .xls, doing some work offline in Excel to merge the two and iron out any discrepancies, then import the new file to Brickset. There isn't a means of doing the latter import yet but that would be an easy job to implement and something I've been meaning to do for a while.

Do you think that could work?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 09 Jun 2009 14:10

@julencin2000, I know it doesn't matter in your case now but I've modified the import routine to correctly handle public Lugnet inventory files.

Posted by Frasse in Sweden, 10 Jun 2009 13:15

Like Huey, I've been using Brickset for a while but had listed my large Lego collection at Lugnet long ago and not bothered to shift to Brickset.

Until now that is. Thank you!

The only downside is that the Brickset page are slower to load due to all pictures, but that has probably more to do with my computer getting old.

Some faults though, I have three sets that's not in the Brickset database, but are listed on Lugnet. These are:

033, "Farm Animals", released 1979
2622, "Little Plane", 1982
5908, "Abracadabra" With Your Bricks, 1986

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 10 Jun 2009 13:45

@Frasse - I've added those sets to the database; unfortunately there isn't a lot of info available about them. Also there are too different '033' sets - the duplo animals set from 1979 & a 'basic' brick set from 1968 - and I've added both, so you'll want to check you get the right one if you re-import your set list.

Ian

Posted by jpmanalo in Australia, 10 Jun 2009 23:09

@Huw - thanks for your reply; what you've suggested (i.e. manually downloading both lists then comparing in excel then uploading merged sheet) sounds like a great idea to me. If there's an "import from file" option, I'd be happy to have a go at it to see how that works out.

Thanks again for all your fantastic work! It's because of people like you that make the life of an AFOL so much easier!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 11 Jun 2009 05:40

@jpmanalo, I'll see what I can rustle up next week...

Posted by jpmanalo in Australia, 11 Jun 2009 07:25

@Huw - awesome! Don't rush mate - I'm sure you're already working on plenty of other things! :-) Thanks again!

Posted by JCool in United States, 16 Jun 2009 09:18

I actually maintain a sets list on both Lugnet and here on Brickset. It is cumbersome at times, but each place offers just a little bit of difference (see edit). Also, if one site completely goes 'boom' then I guess I have a backup.

(edit: I just looked at all of the new functions here at Brickset -- wow it's been a while since I've been on the site! Some great stuff here that I'm sure has been a long time coming.)

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 16 Jun 2009 15:08

@JCool -- good to have you back :-)

If there's anything you like at Lugnet that you think I should do here then let me know.

Commenting has ended on this article.