Site enhancements: collection notes and list customisation
Posted by Huw,_202007101614.png)
I've just introduced a few new features to the site, some in response to user feedback.
It's been possible to add notes, visible only to you, to sets for some time, but it's not been as easy as it could have been. So, I've rectified that, and also made it possible to add notes to minifigs and parts.
I've also added a few options to remove unused aspects of set listings, too.
Adding notes
There are two ways to do this now. As before, you can visit any set details page and use the 'My notes' text box in the side menu. If you're planning on writing a lot, this is the best way to do it. The notes box is also present on minifig and parts details pages, too.
You can also add a note directly in set listings now Your notes have always been shown in the right-hand column but were not editable there. Simply click on the text to add/edit it, the press enter.
When you've done so, the note will be shown on a cyan background so you can easily see the sets you've added them to. To remove a note, delete the text and press enter.
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Notes are shown gallery views for sets, parts and minifigs, and can be edited there in the same way.
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You can easily find the sets you've added notes to using an option in the 'My collection' drop-down list.
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In addition, the My Sets page (which has also been given a few other improvements), now provides links to see sets/minifigs/parts with notes, and also delete them all if you wish to.
Notes are included in data exports and also in the sets CSV view.
List customisation
The right-hand column in set listings is getting a bit unwieldy now and chances are you don't use all the feature there, so you can now customise what's shown there from your preferences page by unchecking the parts you don't want to see.
You can also change the background colour of the notes, as you can with own/want etc. You've been able to hide tags, which have become very numerous in some cases, for some time but I'll mention it now to remind you!
Remember to scroll down and press the Submit button to save your changes.
Here's what the set listing looks like with just your collection and notes displayed. Much more compact and tidier!
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I hope you find all this useful. Do let me know if you have any suggestions for further improvement, and I'm sure you'll do so if you encounter any problems.
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45 comments on this article
Any plan on adding more granularity to ratings? Feels a little limitting with only 6 options or so.
I think this may work.... I was just telling my wife that I had wished that you could inventory your collection by marking "I own this set" NEW IN THE BOX versus BUILT. I think this may help with that significance.
Huw, you are an absolute star!
Notes on minifigs and parts, as well as being able to see and edit them In gallery pages is SO useful.
Many, many thanks for all you do.
Brickset is already an amazing resource.
Improving on this must be difficult.
You clearly have your finger on the pulse of us Lego fans.
Thanks for everything that you put into this amazing website.
@mdonahue7 said:
"I think this may work.... I was just telling my wife that I had wished that you could inventory your collection by marking "I own this set" NEW IN THE BOX versus BUILT. I think this may help with that significance. "
You can use the additional collection flags for that, too: https://brickset.com/profile/flagpreferences
We love you, Brickset, we do!! Thank you so much, Huw, for the continuous improvement to a most wonderful site.
@mdonahue7 said:
"... I had wished that you could inventory your collection by marking "I own this set" NEW IN THE BOX versus BUILT. ... "
You could probably do that with the Collection Check-box flags. Of course, you may have already used up all the available flags, so more would come in handy... :-)
I have a problem with set ratings. I am left handed, and when on mobile I frequently browse through themes and years of sets. When I scroll through i often touch the area with stars which means I am giving 2 or 3 star ratings to sets i dont know. Because I do it while scrolling I sometimes don't even catch that. It would be nice if ratings had some accept button so such accidents would not happen. Accpet button would be also good for quantities of sets and parts. Right now you just enter the value and i am never sure if its accepted or not.
Thank you for the changes, I like the notes and this makes them more convenient.
One issue I have with them though: there is a maximum character limit that is not indicated! Sometimes I type a lot (e.g. list of missing pieces) only to find that part was silently truncated after saving... An indication of the characters you have left while typing could be nice.
I also have thor96's issue with assigning rating by accident while scrolling.
@Moriboe, thanks for the pointing that out. The database will hold 1000 chars but the stored procedure was only accepting 200. I've now corrected that. Hopefully 1000 will be enough for everyone!
I'll see what can be done about the ratings but you can now at least hide them from the list view if you find them troublesome.
@thor96 said:
"Right now you just enter the value and i am never sure if its accepted or not."
The quantity will change to bold when accepted. I don't really want to clutter up the interface with loads of buttons if I can help it.
Huw do you ever sleep?
@Huw said:
"You can use the additional collection flags for that, too: https://brickset.com/profile/flagpreferences"
Wow, I didn't know that. So much functionality available and customizable here!
@Huw You, sir, are a tireless champion of the LEGO Way. Thank you for all that you do.
@Alazon said:
" @Huw said:
"You can use the additional collection flags for that, too: https://brickset.com/profile/flagpreferences "
Wow, I didn't know that. So much functionality available and customizable here! "
That's part of the problem! There's so much functionality here that it's hard to discover it all. Although we have tutorials and FAQs nobody seems to read them so if anyone has any suggestions as to how to make some of the buried functionality more obvious without cluttering up the interface, let me know!
Great
Nice feature
I built the Crocodile Locomotive yesterday, and was looking for the Emerald Night which is stored in a 60l RAKO box.
Each box is numbered and I have a list on a paper pad (I know for an software engineer, I don't have to normal, but that's why I like LEGO).
Until now I only use the notes for the price in my country for sets in my wish list and when I then buy the set, I change the notes with the price I paid.
But as I also buy parts just like the 6288073: Dog, No. 25, I will use this new feature.
@Huw
I'm wondering if you are planing to improve the A.C.M. feature. I asked it in the yearly survey some years ago but there have never been any feedback about it.
I use it extensively to keep all datas about my collection, but I would like to be able to sort the sets listing with the A.C.M. data. It would also be very helpful to have some graphs about the data we entered.
For example, having a timeline with the "acquired date" field, another one with the "price paid" field (quite sensible information for some!), or a cake graph showing where are the sets stored or where was the set bought.
I hope it will give you some ideas about making A.C.M. an even more powerful tool.
Brickset has been an invaluable resource to me for the last three years or so but you keep finding ways to make it better. Thank you for your efforts! Also, don't sell the site to a for-profit firm when you decide to retire!
I always use your referral links when I buy online to help you in a small way. I hope most of the other Brickset users do!
@utlf said:
"Any chance the site will get an overhaul in performance? I find it loads extremely slow regardless of what browser, connection and device I use, which sucks when trying to do a mass inventory update for minifigures/sets"
Any particular aspect? There was a significant overhaul of performance in December which halved average page load times, from around 7 to about 3 seconds now.
@evvdu95 said:
" @Huw
I'm wondering if you are planing to improve the A.C.M. feature. I asked it in the yearly survey some years ago but there have never been any feedback about it."
The ACM does need some work, I agree, but I'm not really sure what to do with it without cluttering up the main interface, because it's only a tiny minority of users that actually use it.
I welcome yours, or anyone else's suggestions.
Date fields were deliberately left free-form allowing you to enter '1989' or 'December 2016' or even 'No idea' so it's not now going to be possible to produce timelines etc.
I love the notes. Now I can get rid of the Excel file serving the one and only purpose - number of box the set is stored in + number of bags :)
Oh neat, thanks! :D
Just wondering, would it be possible to enable additional collection flags for minifigures, too? It's so useful to be able to do that with sets, and it would be really handy to have the four extra checkboxes for minifigures, too ^^
In the meantime, the ability to add notes to them is amazingly useful; thanks, again, for all the work you put into this site!
Another great addition to the flags, could we also see the note when you are on the full page of the set rather than just in list view?
^ It's right at the bottom of the sidebar, for reasons I won't bore you with!
@thor96 said:
"I have a problem with set ratings. I am left handed, and when on mobile I frequently browse through themes and years of sets. When I scroll through i often touch the area with stars which means I am giving 2 or 3 star ratings to sets i dont know. Because I do it while scrolling I sometimes don't even catch that. It would be nice if ratings had some accept button so such accidents would not happen. Accpet button would be also good for quantities of sets and parts. Right now you just enter the value and i am never sure if its accepted or not."
I have the exact same problem with the ratings. I'm also left handed and while scrolling down accidentally end up giving 2-3 star ratings to sets. I got into the habit of constantly checking the ratings as I scroll down to correct this, which is a bit annoying. I'd really appreciate it if there was a way to prevent this that wouldn't require carefully checking first where you touch the screen to scroll down.
As for the latest enhancements, great additions as usual. Thank you for all the effort to continuously improve the site!
If you don't use the ratings feature much, then remove that section from the column. You can still rate sets from the set details pages.
@Huw said:
"^ It's right at the bottom of the sidebar, for reasons I won't bore you with!"
Thanks I should have read the article more closely, it was right there at the start. I much prefer the list view with it being with the flags and it stands out more with the cyan background (or what ever colour you want).
Is there a feature on here that, if I registered all of my pieces on here, would tell me what sets I could build out of my pieces?
@Huw said:
"If you don't use the ratings feature much, then remove that section from the column. You can still rate sets from the set details pages."
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, that will do it for me :)
Excellent work Huw, as always!
Great work, as always, Huw. Thank you for an amazing site and the continual efforts to improve it even further.
@Huw I also noticed you added how long a set was on sale on lego.com for (which is great). Can you add this to the "sort by" drop down so I can easily see which sets were sold for the longest time. Could be a good article too.
Edit: I see you can do it in queries
I love the Bricklists! If that existed before, I wasn't aware of it. This is going to help a lot!
Great updates!
I'd never really paid attention to the notes feature before but I'll have to give it a shot. Would be handy for listing what displays you could add sets too, or marking what's missing parts. I'll have to start using it.
^ Anyone else? My own experience is that it's pretty sprightly nowadays.
There will be a period overnight (UK time), when stuff is imported and the database is tidied up, when it may well be slower and I guess that could be when you are using it, being in Canada.
The worst times are likely to be for 1/2 hour between 1am and 2am (UTC+1) and another 1/2 hour from 5am.
@I_RedArcher_I said:
"Is there a feature on here that, if I registered all of my pieces on here, would tell me what sets I could build out of my pieces?"
Have you heard of Rebrickable? It does just that and you can import your Brickset collection with a few clicks. https://rebrickable.com
@Huw said:
" @mdonahue7 said:
"I think this may work.... I was just telling my wife that I had wished that you could inventory your collection by marking "I own this set" NEW IN THE BOX versus BUILT. I think this may help with that significance. "
You can use the additional collection flags for that, too: https://brickset.com/profile/flagpreferences"
I use Collection Flags for precisely this purpose. What would be very useful though is to have NOT criteria filters. Eg filter to show where the Box flag is *not* checked. (I can achieve this with Queries, but would be helpful to be able to do this on an ad-hoc basis).
@huw
Would it be possible to add a sold flag? This way you could mark off sets you used to have but not have it counted in your inventory.
@huw
Would it be possible to add a LUG field that's also a tag? One's that also searchable?
Say I want to find out who in my LUG has a particular set, I could search for it (provided that their inventory is public AND they have filled in that field?
@Huw said:
"^ Anyone else? My own experience is that it's pretty sprightly nowadays.
There will be a period overnight (UK time), when stuff is imported and the database is tidied up, when it may well be slower and I guess that could be when you are using it, being in Canada.
The worst times are likely to be for 1/2 hour between 1am and 2am (UTC+1) and another 1/2 hour from 5am."
I’m in the UK and there is a slight holdup when I use my iPhone when searching and looking at articles. I’m using the web browser and the line is halfway across when it lets me across to the article. If I don’t wait 5 seconds for it to go all the way whilst on the article, and I like the article or comment or reply to someone, it will immediately take me back to the top of the article. Also, while the blue line is only halfway, there is no ‘back to top’ button, which can be a pain. I’m not going on it late in the evening or super early in the morning, either. Hope that wasn’t too complicated :)
@msiderski said:
" @huw
Would it be possible to add a sold flag? This way you could mark off sets you used to have but not have it counted in your inventory."
You can use one of the four available flags for that.
@Huw said:
"You can use one of the four available flags for that."
Is there any way you could increase the number of available flags...? That would be very useful indeed.
Edit: can I just add that being able to add & edit notes from the list of sets is FANTASTIC improvement; thanks for that!
A small suggestion: it might help to change the config page heading from "Set listings", which is ambiguous, to "Set lists". I thought "listing" was referring to the actual set page (since the word has both meanings) and was confused for a minute or two.
Is it possible to view other members' wanted lists?
Great improvements. The Notes enhancements are huge!
Echo issue with scrolling and clicking the ratings. Drives me crazy. Turning that feature off now...
Adding the flags to minifigs would be great, but the Notes field helps tremendously as a replacement of sorts.