Enhancements to BrickLists

 

  • Enhancements to BrickLists

    Posted by Huw, 20 Oct 2009 13:32. Filed under Brickset.

    I've added a few new features to BrickLists, in response to your requests:

    • You can now mark them as favourites and view a list of your favourites
    • You can also see a list of the most popular BrickLists. Because not many people have marked lists as favourites, this list is not particularly useful yet, but as more and more of you do so it will hopefully become so.

    You'll find the new features in the menu on the BrickList pages.

    I think I'm done fiddling with BrickLists now: unless anyone finds problems or has some more great suggestions, I'll leave them as is and move on to the next big enhancement. Whatever that might be...

    [Note: favourites IS spelt correctly!]


    30 comments, latest one posted 43 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
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Comments

Posted by GameOn99 in United States, 20 Oct 2009 14:05

Cool, i'm sure the second one will come in handy a lot down the road.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 20 Oct 2009 14:10

Yay! Two of my lists are in the "Popular BrickLists" page!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 20 Oct 2009 14:14

Here's a suggestion: There should be a "tick-box" on a user's page saying "Inform me when this user creates a new BrickList"! Then, when you tick it and the user creates a new list, and when you login and go to your profile page, somewhere it should say "(username here) created a new BrickList!"! How's that?

Posted by Danson Delta-40 in United States, 20 Oct 2009 15:10

In the US it is favorites, In the UK its favourites.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 20 Oct 2009 15:51

@Danson Delta-40, spot on: given that I am English I used the proper spelling :-)

Posted by 18000pieces in United States, 20 Oct 2009 16:10

I would appreciate the ability to comment on bricklists. There have been a few that I've seen where the creator has forgotten one, and it made the OCD side of me really frustrated.

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 20 Oct 2009 20:06

LOL, I have a stalker or something. All my lists are on that page at the moment - thank you whoever you are!

I echo 18000pieces sentiment to have commentable bricklists, I've been getting around that by sending an email to the authors where they have allowed for emails to be sent.

Posted by thomsedavi in New Zealand, 21 Oct 2009 02:31

YAAAY!!! I totally pushed for the 'favourite sets' thing in all my feedback.

Edit: no, wait, this isn't quite what I had in mind... I thought they were bricklists of favourite sets, not lists of favourite bricklists.

I guess I'll have to wait another day.

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 21 Oct 2009 03:26

Now to lobby for collaborative lists!!!

Posted by pushin10s in United States, 21 Oct 2009 08:45

I was wondering if there could be an option for private bricklists? I could use a bricklist for upcoming sets I would like to purchase, or sets that I have not yet put together. The list would be helpful personally, but would be of little use when posted for everybody to see. There seems to be many lists that I would like to make and not share. Great site and keep up the good work!

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 21 Oct 2009 10:39

You can sort of make your own private bricklist - just use the "Save for Later" button to keep it private. Granted, someone could still "hack" it to get it, but they'll need to go through all the trouble to hack into it. Of course, if Huw makes a private list feature, it'd be good as well!

Posted by DrDaveWatford in United Kingdom, 21 Oct 2009 11:58

Novelty is right - the only difference between a public and a private Bricklist is the "Publish" button. Are you really in Brunei, Novelty ? Wow !

I love 18000pieces suggestion of being able to comment on lists - this would be excellent.

Dr. D.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 21 Oct 2009 14:25

@Novelty: It was me that marked your every BrickList as favourite! I LOVE them all! Still, how are my lists?

Posted by C-Fish in United States, 21 Oct 2009 14:33

How are my lists? I spent a lot of time on them.

Posted by andy0002 in United States, 21 Oct 2009 15:46

why is my briclkist numbered 10., 20., 30., etc. etc.?! shouldnt it read 1,2,3,4,5...? each item is 10 items according to the bricklist. please fix this bug :O

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 21 Oct 2009 15:54

@andy0002, it's not a bug, the numbers themselves are unimportant: when lists are displayed they are ordered by these values so you can use them to rearrange your list.

Posted by Branko in Australia, 21 Oct 2009 18:29

I have added a few lists as my favourite lists but when selecting 'my favourite bricklists' (http://www.brickset.com/brickLists/favourites/) I see nothing there.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to log out and back in to see this updated?

Posted by Branko in Australia, 21 Oct 2009 18:37

Hmm I restarted the website and tried again. This time when I set the checkbox the area around it turned green and now they do turn up on my favourites page.

Sorry for disturbing you.

Posted by Branko in Australia, 21 Oct 2009 18:55

Once again: I have created two bricklists and 'saved for later' to finish off and publish. I cannot find these lists anywhere? Should they be listed under 'your bricklists' ?

Posted by C-Fish in United States, 21 Oct 2009 19:37

Biggy: Go to "Your profile"

Posted by Branko in Australia, 21 Oct 2009 21:08

ah thanks. I see it now. Confusing! ;)

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 22 Oct 2009 01:19

I have some comments for the lists (including some of Alemas') but can't make them either on the list or via email because those members have disabled contacts via email.

and DrDave, yes, the internet doesn't lie ;)

Posted by b_whytcross in Australia, 22 Oct 2009 07:10

One last feature you may like to consider...How about giving those of us who don't want the lists/don't want to be able to see them to turn them off?

After all, there's only so many times you need to be reminded that the (for example) star wars set you are looking at is in fact a star wars set...(see http://brickset.com/detail/?set=10195-1 for an example of this)

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 22 Oct 2009 07:51

I don't think I'll turn them off but maybe I'll need to restrict the list to the top 5 most popular and provide a more... link or something.

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 22 Oct 2009 12:07

Some of the lists can be pruned as well...

For example http://brickset.com/bricklists/?392 is basically the same as http://brickset.com/browse/themes/?theme=Star%20Wars&subtheme=Episode%20III

While lists like http://brickset.com/bricklists/?356 are better off as a private unpublished list IMO. I have no idea how useful it is to know who has "sealed" sets. The blurb on the side does say: "As a rule, they should be useful to others: if they are not then the Brickset admins reserve the right to delete them."

Posted by Branko in Australia, 22 Oct 2009 18:23

I concur. I really like the lists that show relations between sets that are not already obvious from the database (go Novelty!) but a 'this is my personal collection' or 'my personal favourites' is something much more private.

I Huw's suggestion to use the popularity of the lists is an excellent way to 'prune' the lists without adding much ongoing work to the admins.

The question then becomes, how do you get your new list to become popular if it never is listed? ( i guess if a set is already listed in five other lists the set is not a really important addition to your particular list)

Posted by b_whytcross in Australia, 23 Oct 2009 21:35

My thought was more along the lines of an option in users profiles along the lines of:
Which lists would you like to see: (with following options in drop-down)
1)None
2)My lists
3)My friends lists
4)Most "popular" lists
5)all lists

Then add a bit of code to decide which lists to show when compiling the list section based around users preferences.

Posted by Rock Raider in Finland, 25 Oct 2009 07:36

Great!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 25 Oct 2009 09:30

You should see this BrickList: http://www.brickset.com/bricklists/?425 Certainly the most hilarious of them all! It kept me laughing throughout the reading of the list! I love his description of the Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon as a... window breaker! ROFL!!!

Posted by AndreasL in Denmark, 28 Oct 2009 21:51

I agree with Alemas and others. A lot of bricklists are just waste of screen space. Please remove these space fillers soon. The favourite list feature should give a good indication of which lists are actually valued.

Commenting has ended on this article.