A new program like Brickstore

walstib

Has to start somewhere, posting here too.

I have been sitting on this idea for a while now. Seeing my need, and the desire
in the community for an updated program like brickstore, I’ve decided to do my
best to get the ball rolling.

I lack certain skills needed at the present time to do it all by myself but organizing
a big project is not one of them.

My vision is an open source project for the community. With as much help as
the community is willing to commit to now and into the future. Freeware with
no strings attached.

If I have to take it outside the community or learn how to do it myself I will,
but I have faith people with the right skill sets will have enough trust and
motivation to get on-board.


Just a few first thoughts for function past what brickstore does;


Be able to communicate with websites directly that have that sort of thing set
up, automation capabilities. Like the API here at Brick Owl

Convert files from one form to another.




So to achieve this in any reasonable amount of time I hold no doubts I need help.


Right now I am taking any and all suggestions. Please let me know if you would
like to help.


Joe




Things I could goggle about and ask people I know, and will, but I am here now…

Am I crazy for trying?

Man hours to write something with basic function?

Can a team do it from around the globe or does it need to be one person?

walstib

If you are going to vote negative, please tell me why. Not that this has anything to do with the voting here anyway.

Or if not you why you think someone might.

Other than for capitalistic reasons I can't fathom what would be a problem. If I am going to invest in the time to accomplish this I want to be sensitive to all angles.

Curiously,

Joe

Graham

I posted something about BS and also received a negative vote without a comment - I think there will likely be BL moles attempting to undo BO...

Read some of the caustic forum posts on BL

I gave you a thumbs up - altho I would prefer to have BS functionality server side on BO

see http://brickowl.com/forum#/discussion/376/brickstore-with-brickowl

None the less IF you could create something that worked across platforms - I would be happy to buy a copy.

BS is not supported, doesn't work on Macs running 10.7 and is "bumpy" on 10.6 - which means it only works on 7+ year old Macs!

Luckily I kept my 2001 Powerbook, I'm just about to see if it will update on BO using a BSX file

Graham

theHellmouth

The negative votes come (in my opinion) from the fact that you talk/require a standalone program (read offline) that does the same thing as BrickOwl is trying to do online.

True, a common program to hold your inventory independent of the site where you sell your lego would be perfect ... but this is not the place to discuss this. Make a community based open source project on any public website (github, sourceforge, etc) and come back when you have a semi-working project. Then and only then the discussion on this forum (or any other forum for that matter) would be relevant.

Sir Troys

I don't see why this would not be relevant here or on any LEGO community website. It will be of very specific use to people that use this site and a few others, so they are most likely to see it on these sites. It would seem to be wise to discuss the needs of these users for such a program BEFORE building the program.

I don't believe that BrickOwl will incorporate all of the features that a client side program can. I really don't see BO being able to pull sales history from BL, or vice versa. But A client side tool theoretically could. Assuming neither website decides to block access.

And that will be the biggest hurdle for any such program, convincing the individual sites to allow them API access. It is not in BL's interest to let people access their sales history to price items on BO.

Troy

Graham

@Troy

Good points made, Graham

Graham

I really need some way to manipulate and adjust my inventory - and I need something that can act on a small band of parts eg find all New Dark Tan parts that haven't sold in 'n' days excluding parts added after mo/da/yr.

This is but one example - surely it can't be too difficult to implement? I'm not a computor savy person tho...

Graham

Lawrence

That's an interesting thought, on Brickstore, you can download your store inventory, and search it for stuff like that instantly. If I tried to do that, putting all your inventory on the screen at once, your browser would try for a bit and warn you that you should give up as it is taking too long. I will have a ponder if there is something I can do as that doesn't seem very good, I don't like to feel restricted by the technology.

Graham

Could you increase the number of filters that could be applied at any one time to narrow down results?

(example)

find all :-
New
Dark Tan
modified plates
that haven't sold in 'n' days
excluding parts added after mo/da/yr,
and reduce the price by 'n'% (or any other action)

Graham

I get "error" message when using a BSX file to update prices

theHellmouth

@Admin

Executing the search query and counting the number of search results BEFORE showing them should be no problem. So when too many results would be returned, simply bail and post a message requesting the user to apply more filters. Or switch to a more friendly displaying option (less images, less links, etc).

walstib

@Sir Troys

And that will be the biggest hurdle for any such program, convincing the individual sites to allow them API access. It is not in BL's interest to let people access their sales history to price items on BO.

I was thinking before any major time was spent programming, the OK from the individual sites would be needed to make things work. Satisfying the concerns that may come up to stand neutral I would think can be met. At the same time approaching the sites without a solid game plan seems too soon.

Over time I think the pricing thing will not be so much of an issue. I would think e-bay helped set prices on bricklink over the years. That line on what information is for the good of the community and what sites feel they need to protect will be a balance with compromises made by the middle ground.

I am trying to think of the difference between writing a program for me that talks to brick owl and writing one for everybody when it comes to permissions.


Thanks for participating.

Lawrence

@Thunor If you let me know what error message you received, I may be able to help.

@the hellmouth I can of course do this, I was just thinking about doing it exactly how Brickstore does, rather than how a website would do it, mainly as a thought.

walstib

The negative votes come (in my opinion) from the fact that you talk/require a standalone program (read offline) that does the same thing as BrickOwl is trying to do online.

Hi,

I can see where someone would think so, though I see no competition towards service. No money made manipulating the info sort of thing, just a tool to interface and organizes.

Taking that thought, including as few as possible tools that sites manage may be a good direction.

True, a common program to hold your inventory independent of the site where you sell your lego would be perfect ... but this is not the place to discuss this. Make a community based open source project on any public website (github, sourceforge, etc) and come back when you have a semi-working project. Then and only then the discussion on this forum (or any other forum for that matter) would be relevant.

Thanks for your honesty. One on the first things on my list was a place to call home, do along the lines of what you suggest. Having people interested enough to advise me on the resources in this direction that are needed one reason I am going for some discussion first.

If there is no real community interest in helping it would be mostly unnecessary as it will become a basically private project with a price tag for end users.

Graham

@ Admin
the error is simply "Error reading file"

@Thunor If you let me know what error message you received, I may be able to help.

Lawrence

@Thunor

Okay, could you e-mail me the file, my e-mail address is in the contact page at the bottom of the screen.

walstib

And that will be the biggest hurdle for any such program, convincing the individual sites to allow them API access. It is not in BL's interest to let people access their sales history to price items on BO.

Just to mention it, I don't use click and go pricing myself. I price by supply and demand as I see it, sometimes from more than one location.

I personally think setting prices by a generated average can do more harm than good to a price guide and smaller seller's margins. If I made it for myself alone I would not include the option to set to any price guide automatically.

I do have my prices I have decided upon, and take them to all locations to feel honest.

rjmorton

Excuse the cross posting, just putting this here in case you haven't seen the other post.
I am right now working on an offline Inventory manager for Brickowl and am soliciting requests for ideas. Over 10 years ago I wrote a similar app for Bricklink called BrikTrak and have decided to make a new version specifically for BrickOwl.

More details are here:
http://brickowl.com/forum#/discussion/678/what-features-would-you-like-in-an-offline-inventory-app-like-brickstore-specifically-for-brickowl

walstib

No I saw it brother, it's wonderful.

I have a big list of thoughts and ideas here but never made it to finding someone to pay to write it, public interest was dismal with my approach and I started this thinking before the TOS changes.

BL answered what they thought of neutral ground existing with their metadata in the mix, and you have said you have the same 10 foot pole as me with even attempting that now, so that got crossed off.

You took the last of the weight off I have been carrying for a couple months with this one way or another.

Thanks again,

Joe

Eccohawk

Totally not trying to knock this. I'm all for anyone that wants to throw their hat into the ring of making new software options available to the community. I guess, though, my question is, are there really any big drawbacks to just updating the Brickstore application itself? It's under a GNU public license, and the source code is freely available for download. I've already started digging into it, and I'm hoping to add BrickOwl functionality over the next week or so. I'll need to modify it to read the XML files that BO generates, and add in some new menu items for import and export. Also I'll need to work on a way to compare parts from different catalogs so that people can upload their offline inventory to either site without problem.

Timothy_Smith

I think updating BrickStore would be awesome. Also would be great to have that sort of functionality here as well. Not so much the pricing, but the ability to handle items like that. It's not really suited for a web interface, but it can be done with some work.

albumman

Ecco/Tim: I looked at that option...brickstore is written in c++ (which means tied to an OS), running qt (a layer that tries to make things platform independent, but ... old school), and using a parsing library that can't even be found anymore. All of these points are arguable, but the sum total makes updating brickstore per se a daunting task.

FWIW i'm going to port it to java swing as an exercise and try to make it talk in BO and BL, but with two guys already talking about doing it as a real product, this is probably just an exercise that won't get beyond my own computers.

That said, cURL and jsoup combined give you an awesome toolbox that beats the h*ll out of working around html5 holes! :-)

Scott

Plastic-Paradise

I am no programmer so I am not much help with building the software but I wanted to let you know whoever comes up with a software/program that will work between BrickLink and Brick Owl will be my hero. I will gladly pay for it and test drive it if need be.

Right now it is a royal pain in the neck keeping things synced up with nothing but errors from this new Owl catalog on top of relearning everything I am used to. I can only imagine how the buyers feel.

Neither site is going anywhere and IMO they are both only going to grow and get better. There needs to be a way NOW for both to coexist. I understand Lawrence's reasoning but we need to find a happy medium.

PP