New site features

 

  • New site features

    Posted by Huw, 13 Feb 2010 08:10. Filed under Brickset.

    I've just made some changes to the site today.

    • In the user survey I ran last year, one criticism was that the simple 'out of 5' score for reviews did not allow for reviewers to adequately rate the set. I have therefore added four new attributes so you can now rate the set 'overall', 'building experience', 'parts', 'playability' and 'value for money'. At the moment nothing more is done with the scores, other than showing them when reading the reviews but once there's a few hundred reviews in the new format in the database I'll be able to generate lists of 'sets rated best value for money' etc.
    • While working on reviews, I thought I'd implement a HTML editor to let you use bulleted lists, headings, bold and italic etc. I'm hoping this is a success but if it becomes apparent that people aren't using it properly I'll have to remove it.  (Update: at the moment this only works in IE and FireFox, sorry!)
    • I've also improved the display and filtering of reviews on the main reviews page, on the 'reviews written by xxx' lists and also the reviews for a specific set which are now on their own page like this one. You'll also notice in the search results table that there are links to the set review pages in the rating column.
    • The set details pages now feature a live data feed from eBay showing the lots available on your local eBay site. I hope you find this useful: my goal is to make it easier to find specific sets on eBay at Brickset than on eBay itself.

    I'm sure you won't hold back on letting me know what you think of these changes... :)


    79 comments, latest one posted 39 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
    311 views


 
 

Comments

Posted by I like Lego in Canada, 13 Feb 2010 08:38

Thanks Huw!

Posted by clone captian cazooki in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 08:39

Awesome thanks Huw

Posted by 7op89 in United States, 13 Feb 2010 08:47

Thank you Huw! :)
7op

Posted by kaboomlegoman in United States, 13 Feb 2010 08:53

You rock Huw! This is just amazing! WOOT WOOT :)

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 09:01

WOW! All these features! I have to get used to this new "layout"! BTW, "helpful reviews" are reviews that doesn't have single "not helpful" rating, right? Hmm... I'll do a review using the HTML thingy... BTW, you said there would be more old set images! When will they come? Hey, here's a new feature you could implement: EDIT reviews! Another feature: Can't you display the sets for sale from BRICKLINK? For example, you could display the sets for sale of Rally Truck available at Bricklink!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 09:09

BTW, found a bug: When you press "Enter" in the reviewing page, the page goes at the start, as if I pressed "Space"!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 09:17

"helpful reviews" are those that have something like 75% helpful ratings.

The old set images will come: they take a while to process and bluemoose is better at that than I, so they'll come as and when he has time.

I will implement editing of reviews to enable you to go back and rate sets on the 4 new attributes soon.

Unfortunately BrickLink does not provide a data feed showing availability of sets there and it doesn't pay referral fees like eBay does so it's not in my interest to show them anyway.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 09:21

@Huw: What I meant by "editing" reviews is to go back, change the 4 attributes, and change the text itself! BTW, In my review, Brickset WANTED me to insert a value for the "value for money" attribute, but I'm NO expert! You should make it optional!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 09:22

Darn, too late: chavez has beaten me to the first review with the "HTML editor"... :P

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 09:24

Hang on... eBay PAYS you to show the "liva data feed"? If so, how much, if possible? Woah... my posted review looks EVEN better than in the editor... LOL, bricks as bullet points... love it...

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 09:29

@alemas,

Chavez's review has appeared a single block of text, I don't know if that was intentional or a bug somewhere. I've asked him.

I may allow review text to be changed although they'd need to be moderated again which would be a nuisance.

I'm not sure I understood your bug report, if it's still a problem could you elaborate?

eBay doesn't pay me to show it: only when someone clicks through on a link and then buys something which is the same with the other eBay links and sidebar thingy.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 09:56

@Huw: Hmm... Ok, it works like this: I press the "Enter" button on my keyboard, and it takes me at the TOP of the page. Anyway, the key DOES work, just with that bug.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 09:57

BTW, let's just say that I was the first to post a review with bullet points and heading...

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 10:05

>I press the "Enter" button on my keyboard, and it takes me at the TOP of the page

That's because the submit key has focus and if you press enter without entering a review it will re-load the page and tell you to fill the form in properly. So not a bug, expected behaviour.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 10:08

@Huw: It doesn't reload the page, it takes me at the top of the page, no reloading! You could try it!

Posted by vynsane in United States, 13 Feb 2010 10:31

sounds like a nice set of new features! just a quick question: is the html editor cross-browser compatible? it seems not. i'm using chrome on mac, and not seeing the toolbar that is mentioned in the suggestions above the main text box. can we use straight html in the case that the editor doesn't work? if it's not cross-browser, i'd suggest using CKEditor - it's pretty robust, and works on everything. i love the idea of the categorized ratings system, though. one thing, though, regarding the ratings - shouldn't the 'overall rating' just be a compiled average of the categorized ratings? it seems like you could still rate something a '5' overall, while rating build experience, parts, playability and value all '1' for instance, which wouldn't make sense.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 10:51

@vysane, it is FCKEditor which is what CKEditor was called until a year or so ago.

I've tested in IE8, FF 3.5.7, Chrome and Safari 4.0.4 on PC and it does seem as if it only works on IE8 and FF which is a nuisance.

FCKEditor integrates nicely with asp.net: I'm not so sure about CKEditor, and from what I can tell it now needs to be licenced, and it's not cheap.

You can try entering HTML, although as you don't get a preview before you submit it won't be easy to do so.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 10:57

@Huw: HELP... That... CKEditor predecessor... did they change the name because people thought the name had swearing in it? It sounds too close to... you know...

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 11:00

@Alemas, quite possibly, but FCK are the author's initials...

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 11:06

@Huw: One reason not to name something after your initials: People might think you wanted to swear... Oh well...

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 11:08

Also, another feature: To check if a person's review is in English. I noted one user posted a review in... French. And most people here are English. How can a review be helpful if people don't speak the language?

Posted by vexorian in Bolivia, 13 Feb 2010 11:13

I miss that reviews don't appear any more in the main page of a set. I think at least the top 3 most helpful reviews (or random ones in case there are no helpful reviews) should appear... At least cut down or something.

For this matter, the ebay list gets too long for some sets, perhaps limit it to five entries and add a more... link?

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 11:14

@vexorian: Same for me...

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 11:22

@Alemas, the site's users come from all over the world. The French review will be useful, I am sure you can guess, to French visitors...

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 13 Feb 2010 11:37

@Huw: Oh well... all right... in other words, Brickset's a global site, right? :)

Posted by omgbrick in Canada, 13 Feb 2010 11:44

Thanks for all of these changes Huw, however one thing is bugging me that you seem to have replaced the reviews section with Ebay ads instead, I can still find the reviews but what made you do this change? I liked the old way of having the Ebay ads in the sidebar and the reviews in the center.

Posted by vynsane in United States, 13 Feb 2010 11:55

@Huw - I was using FCKEditor for a long time in CMS implementations, though in PHP, not .NET, so don't know about the compatibilities there. According to the site, CKEditor can be used and distributed for free if you're using it in an open-source project. If it's a closed-source project, and only used on your personal site, then yes - it looks like it's $375. CKFinder (the file browser), on the other hand is not at all distributed with an open source free license.

@Alemas - The issue of the initials was brought up on the discussion boards a while ago, and I believe it was changed both to separate the new version from the old version and clear those cultural language hurdles. I believe Fred C. Knabben is Polish.

I could see adding a spot for the most recent review for each set, or maybe a truncated excerpt with a link to the whole thing, as well as limiting the results for the eBay listings, or containing it in a fixed height div with a scroll bar.

Posted by knuclear200x in United States, 13 Feb 2010 12:12

I love it Huw. This is one of the best updates ever made. I just hope non-owners wont abuse this system either. ;)

BTW, would it be against the rules to rereview sets just to utilize the new attribute rating?

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 13 Feb 2010 12:52

This is awesome, Huw! I can't wait to write a review! :)

Posted by atkinsar in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 12:56

I really like the ebay links at the bottom I've already found them to be very useful. As for the reviews, well I don't write them only read them, but I'd say that it's good you can rate sets on a number of criteria. However, in my opinion the new layout of the reviews themselves doesn't work as well, the ratings take up too much vertical space and I don't like the indented review text, so I guess I like the functionality but not the layout.

Posted by HQuiff in Ireland, 13 Feb 2010 13:34

Hurray! I must get writing some now!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 13:57

I'm sure there's further improvements I can make to the display of reviews etc. As you know nothing here at Brickset is set in stone and I'm always keen to hear your comments and suggestions. Let me consider what you've said and see what I can do...

However in defence of having so many eBay listings at the bottom, they do often show alternative images of the set: the box or minifigs, for example, which is effectively cool content for free :-)

Posted by paulsalley in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 15:13

All good i'm sure, but I still can't update my collection :(

Posted by bic3 in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 15:22

Personally I like the ebay links. As I have a couple of sets for sale I think it's quite cool to see them at the bottom of the page, and if it helps me sell them, all the better!

Posted by legofanatic2414 in United States, 13 Feb 2010 15:34

Thats great! Now reviews will be abit more cooler! (not that they weren't cool back then! :))

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 16:18

@Paul, email me and tell me why...

Posted by StarWarsManiac in United States, 13 Feb 2010 17:00

THIS IS THE BEST SITE EVER (and getting better)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:)

Posted by Minifig Man in Netherlands, 13 Feb 2010 17:43

Can we get a feature to search in bricklists? There are so many now I need to look through all pages finding lists that are interesting.

The new features are super by the way!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 17:52

@darnolds, I am planning on improving bricklists later in the year.

Posted by itsaturkey in United States, 13 Feb 2010 18:33

awesome improvments huw! oh by the way alemas gave me an idea by what he said about the french reveiw, would it be possable to have a bottun for the reveiws where they are translated into another language? cuz its kinda unfair how other lego fans who dont speek english cant read the reveiws. just an idea.
p.s. i'm new here so i dont know if a bottun already exists.

Posted by atkinsar in United Kingdom, 13 Feb 2010 18:36

@Huw - I like the eBay links at the bottom so no need to defend them from me, I use eBay a lot so find it very useful. It's only the new review layout I think could do with some more thought. Keep up the good work, this must take up an extraordinary amount of your time & we all very much appreciate it :-)

Posted by vynsane in United States, 13 Feb 2010 18:39

suggestion on searching bricklists:
type into google '{search criteria} site:brickset.com/bricklists'
(replace {search criteria} with what you're looking for. it won't be perfect, but it's better than nothing.)

suggestion on translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://brickset.com/reviews/%3FSet%3D4511-1

Posted by mars4life in United States, 13 Feb 2010 21:06

Its all good, but I liked being able to scroll down and see all the reviews. Now they are on a separate page. Also, I noticed that someone said that when pressing enter it took them to the top of the page, and you said that was normal. However, when writing a review, you have to press enter to make bullets, and yes, its does bring you to the top of the page every time, which is irritating. So if pressing enter is trying to post the review, that's a problem, cause we can't use paragraphs or bullets without pressing it. Pretty sure that's *not* expected behavior. Thanks.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 14 Feb 2010 02:32

@atkinsar, email me your ideas, or a screenshot: I'm sure you must be seeing something different as the review format seems fine to me!

@mars4life, thanks, that's not how it should work. What browser are you using? I'll have a play and see if I can replicate the problem.

Posted by atkinsar in United Kingdom, 14 Feb 2010 05:56

@huw, aw yes, the old browser ctrl-F5 caching monster rears its ugly head again! Checked this morning and it all looks a lot better, previously I was seeing all of the ratings above the review text with quite a lot of space between each rating, followed by indented review text. The ratings now appear to the left-hand side of the review text and it all looks great.

Posted by markwell in United States, 14 Feb 2010 07:38

Huw, regarding the eBay links, I have an additional suggestion. I don't know if this suggestion would dog down the site, but I would find it helpful to see a count of the number of eBay listings from the lists view. That is, in the "Buy" column where it currently says "eBay" and "Amazon," maybe it could instead be "eBay (3)" if there are three lots available. This way, I could scan my wanted list for sets available without having to click on each set to go to its detail page.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 14 Feb 2010 07:42

@Huw: I'm curious about one thing: What programming language do you use for this site? And... how many lines of code are there for this whole site?

Posted by RohanBeckett in Australia, 14 Feb 2010 08:22

Any chance of having an option (user prefs?) that reverts back to the old way, of having Reviews immediately below the main Set article?

Another small option, to improve usability, if you're not going to go back.. is to put a number in brackets, next to the "Reviews" link..

so you can see that there ARE some reviews..

RB

Posted by Jonny 2 Scarves in United Kingdom, 14 Feb 2010 10:05

For some reason my settings have changed from UK to USA. It now says I live in the USA not the UK and so everything is now in dollars and it links to ebay.com not ebay.co.uk, what has gone wrong?

Jon

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 14 Feb 2010 10:12

@atkinsar, glad it sorted!

@markwell, that is a great idea but quite difficult to do. The data is read from the eBay RSS feed when you load the details page. It does cache the data and it could remember the number of matches, but it only gathers that data when someone loads the page. There's nothing in place that periodically goes off and checks eBay for matches of every set. And don't forget there's eBay.com, .co.uk. .com.au, .at, .de, .ch, .ie and so on to check as well!

@Alemas, it's coded in Microsoft ASP.net with a SQL Server database back end. There's also a splattering of javascript using the jQuery library.

@RohanBeckett, The number is actually already shown under the score: 'n reviews'. Ideally the 'read reviews' link wouldn't be there if there aren't any so I'll see if I can remove it.

Posted by washen in United States, 14 Feb 2010 11:57

Alemas had a good point earlier. There are a few reviews in other languages that we English speakers might find very interesting. Perhaps you could integrate an online translator (i.e. Google Translator) into Brickset. This is obviously not a top priority, but it would be a nice addition if you have some spare time. (That is, with all the countless hours you already spend working on the site! :)

Also, I think the new eBay links are a GIANT asset. However, to me, the reviews are much more important and should be displayed underneath the sets as they were. I am not saying that the eBay links are a hinderence by any means, but it would be nice if the focus went back to the reviews. Perhaps a link to eBay results for a set could be posted in another, individual window as the reviews are now.

Thanks for listening to my rant... :)

Posted by vynsane in United States, 14 Feb 2010 12:05

how about a tabbed format, showing the reviews or ebay lots depending on which tab is clicked? best of both worlds ;)

Posted by Greyface in United States, 14 Feb 2010 12:22

Thanks huw! Could we have minifig bricklists?

Posted by itsaturkey in United States, 14 Feb 2010 12:44

washen- yeah i agree too, the ebay links are nice, but the reveiws are more importent.
p.s. to replay to you last sentnce. your welcome LOL.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 14 Feb 2010 13:50

@Huw: Ah, no Linux or C++, eh?

Posted by vynsane in United States, 14 Feb 2010 14:01

@Alemas: .NET is coded in either VB or C# which is then compiled into native .NET code. It can only be hosted on a Windows server platform, so yes, no Linux.

Posted by Republic Commando Sev in United States, 14 Feb 2010 17:21

I'm still deciding whether I like the new rating system for the sets. I think I like it.

I have something for you to consider. I was wondering if you could make it so we could choose a color for our words in our review. I think that would be awesome.
Thanks.
Sev

Posted by itsaturkey in United States, 14 Feb 2010 17:30

mokey-they already have pics of the 2010 advent calender? wow, christmas is in like 11 months.
republic commando sev- that would be cool. good idea!
huw, could you have a list of catagories for bricklists so its easeir to search for bricklists. like if you wanted to read all the,''worst sets of each year,'' bricklists. oh and would it be possable to make it where you can comment on the bricklists?
p.s. yes i like bricklists.

Posted by mars4life in United States, 14 Feb 2010 17:50

huw, I am using Firefox.

Posted by Republic Commando Sev in United States, 14 Feb 2010 18:25

@itsaturkey: Thanks! I got the idea from BZPower. I've been a member on their for a couple years, and you can choose the color of what you post in. I thought it would be cool to do it here.
Sev

Posted by itsaturkey in United States, 14 Feb 2010 19:06

republic commando sev-yeah i've heard of BZPower but i dont know what it is, besides that its bionicle.
p.s. my fav commando is sev too :D

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 15 Feb 2010 08:59

I've now sent in two reviews, I think they have been approved...

Posted by vynsane in United States, 15 Feb 2010 13:49

Just FYI, the editor function works in Firefox on Mac. I did get a strange error message the first time I tried to submit my most recent review - it specified that I needed to 'Enter a review', which I had, of course. I submitted a second time and it worked.

Posted by Routemaster in Germany, 16 Feb 2010 03:08

Thanks for all the new features you've added the last months, Huw.
Personally I like it more to see and read the reviews below the item description.
That's the main reason why most people come here to visit this great site.
I don't need the ebay-auctions right below.
Routemaster

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 16 Feb 2010 08:08

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I recognise that you'd prefer to see reviews than the eBay links, I will see whether it's possible to show both, either side-by-side or via a tabbed interface.

Posted by knuclear200x in United States, 16 Feb 2010 13:56

I'm not sure if anyone asked yet, but wouldnt it be better to put the overall rating at the bottom of the list?

Posted by Murdoch17 in United States, 16 Feb 2010 16:16

Cool Upgrades Huw!

Posted by jake9 in United States, 17 Feb 2010 11:00

I miss seeing the reviews after I click on the set. I always read them.

Posted by vynsane in United States, 17 Feb 2010 18:06

@Huw, I know you already said that you're looking into putting reviews back on the main set page in some way - but wanted to add that it does greatly reduce the visibility of the reviews, which is one thing that generates repeat traffic.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 19 Feb 2010 06:38

Hey Huw, you should do something like this: Right now, when you're logged in, you can rate even your own reviews! It shouldn't be this way! Could you do something?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 19 Feb 2010 06:53

@Alemas, that's always been the case. Why shouldn't you have the opportunity to rate your own review: you can give it a head-start to being regarded as 'helpful' :-)

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 19 Feb 2010 07:12

@Huw: Well... I was thinking of LEGO.com's system, so I thought you could "adopt" it... This was just to make the site "fairer"!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 19 Feb 2010 16:30

Noticed a change: You now split the eBay links into lots where you can BUY and lots where you BID!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 21 Feb 2010 11:28

This glitch appeared since a few months: For a few minutes, the eBay links come from the AMERICAN site! It still happens now! Why does that happen?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 21 Feb 2010 14:23

Alemas, can you send me a screenshot? It all appears to be working properly here. What do you mean by 'For a few minutes' ?

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 21 Feb 2010 14:36

@Huw: Um... can't send emails to people... but I'll explain: Sometimes, it looks like Brickset connects to the AMERICAN eBay, not the English one, and displays all the auctions/stuff to buy from the AMERICAN eBay! The giveaway is the price in dollars! It happens for... I don't know, 20 minutes? It's as if Brickset thinks I'm in the US! Also, when this happens, the sets in the "New at LEGOshop.com" bar mysteriously disappear!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 21 Feb 2010 15:52

What does it say in the footer? e.g. "Your IP address is 127.0.0.1 and Brickset thinks you are in United Kingdom"

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 21 Feb 2010 16:23

@Huw: Uuhh... problem is, it happens for a few minutes, and it disappears for several days! And the glitch has disappeared now; everything's normal! So you got to wait a few days to tell... Sorry...

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 25 Feb 2010 17:28

@Huw: THE GLITCH IS HAPPENING NOW!!! Brickset says I'm in... nowhere. There's an empty space where there should be the country name! It's as if Brickset forgets where I am...

Commenting has ended on this article.