Recent site updates / post your wish-list here

rocao

@RJH: the decision to use a hosted version was made early on and it was to offload the management of it so that Huw could remain focused on the main Brickset site. At that time, the traction and success of the forum was not known, so it was a prudent decision.

Now it seems that the forum is doing well and here to stay. However, even though there certainly are some nice features to gain from self hosting -- add-on management, customization to integrate with the main Brickset site, etc. -- it remains the case that there still might not be a compelling case to absorb the setup and management of self-hosting the forum. For starters, it would require setting up a LAMP stack which Brickset itself is not built upon.

Huw

Good response, rocao.

The IT world is rapidly moving towards 'cloud' computing, software-as-a-service and so on. Why would anyone want the hassle of getting a LAMP server up and running, keeping on top of security patches and software updates when you can offload that to someone else, and buy it as a service for a modest fee as a revenue expenditure, so you can concentrate on your core business...

bluemoose

Just to add to what the others have said, one of the aims here, right from the beginning, was to keep the forums as free from 'frippery' & useless ornamentation as possible, so I wouldn't bank on there being lots of fancy add-ons any time soon :-)

bricksan

Fair enough points and fully understand now your reasons behind your decision.

Legoboy

Something else about the "discussions".

When the notification email reaches me, I'm provided with a link to the discussion online. I can click on the link and continue the conversation. The email is sent from 'Huw@..." so of course if I were to 'reply' poor Huw get's it.

Is there a way of replying to the email so that the response finds it way back to the relevant discussion? Similar to the way Ebay's message service works?

Huw

That is annoying isn't it. I don't think it can be changed, at least I haven't found a way to yet.

Redbullgivesuwind

I would have thought @Huw enjoys reading all our points. If not me and @Perrymakes will rebel :-D.

Eric

How about a 'Like' feature similar to Facebook, (or +1 if your a Google Plus kind of person). That way I can agree with what someone says, instead of posting something and clogging up the forum with 'I agree', 'Haha', or 'Very True'.
What do you think?

StuBoy

^ I agree!

Legoboy

^ +1
^^ +1

Eric

@Huw, what do you think?

andhe

^ I think that's more dependant on whether the vanilla forums actually have that function.

One thing that I would suggest about the MAIN site though is that all the news time stamps seem to be in American rather than GMT, which coming from a British based/run website does erk me a bit. Especially when it's UK shopping news for example. Sometimes it's hard to know if I've missed the deal or not.

Eric

^ Yeah, That's right, I remember reading that earlier on.

As for the time zones, can't they be altered depending on the country selected, like the currencies are?

Huw

^ Now you're getting complicated, but yes, I guess in theory they could. If there's a list somewhere that converts country codes to timeoffsets from GMT I can probably use it. However given that the US has, what 4 or 5 timezones, I don't think such a thing is likely to exist.

Eric

See, that's why I'm not a web designer. Yes, as does Australia have multiple timezones. Again, with my restricted knowledge of HTML, how about feeding off IP addresses?

Huw

I think the only workable solution would be to enable users to choose a time offset and save it in their profile, which wouldn't be too difficult.

I'll add it to the to-do list!

andhe

Yay for GMT! (and for Huw).

Huw

Timezone selection code is done and ready, and I'll be uploading tomorrow.

atkinsar

What's with the '3 new plural' thing going on? Must have been an overnight update by Vanilla. I think it's supposed to indicate that there's new posts by multiple different people in the discussion, it's a bit odd though in my opinion.

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

^ Agree - I assumed it must be a joke, came on this thread looking for the larking about which I thought must have led to it :o)

atkinsar

It's a strange choice of word, 'plural'.

Huw

Very strange, I'll ask...

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

Did the forum go down for ages this morning?

Huw

Not that I noticed.

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

(seemed like it was down for a couple of hours around 6am - not to worry)

Seperate request - would it be possible to have a permanent link somewhere to the french, german and spanish amazon lists, in the main navigation?

MrBerre

Can we have a version of http://www.brickset.com/list/?UKnotUS that excludes Duplo?

Huw

^^ I'm working on it...

bluelion3

Hi, now that we can see new Amazon discounts for several countries, it is really filling up the homepage. I'd like to be able to select which one I see on the homepage and hide the others. I must say that the Amazon discounts here are REALLY a great feature!

Matthew

You can do that via the 'Customize your news' link, to the right of the 'News and site updates' title.

bluelion3

^ Perfect, thanks! Already solved!

Huw

Yes... I'm thinking going slightly further than this and hiding, for example, German ones to everyone not in Germany by deault so they become opt in for everyone else rather than opt out.

If we add Spanish and Italian ones as well it could soon get a bit overwhelming to the casual visitor.

Any thoughts?

atkinsar

Good idea Huw.

Matthew

Why don't you just remove them completely when users aren't signed in?

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

^^^ Yes I agree - or you could put them in a second tab?

Legogeek

Maybe this has been suggested already, but I couldn't find it if it has...

Ability to share my Want List.

Right now you can look and see what people HAVE, but you can't see what people WANT.
Would be handy when working trades or sharing your list with others (like around birthdays or Christmas - LOL).
Make it accessable on the profile page.

Matthew

You can do that, from the 'My Friends' page. It only works if you're 'friends' with the other person.

Legogeek

^ Ah, okay - I thought I had seen it before. ;oP
Then I'd suggest this...
1) adding My Friends to the profile page.
2) adding an option to share my want list with friends/everyone

Huw

There's a link to share your wanted list on the My Sets page.

Legogeek

Thanks Huw.
I guess it gets a little confusing with certain features being spread out over various locales.

Huw

^ Good point. If a feature can't be found it might as well not be there.

Where did you first look for it?

Legogeek

To be honest with you, I did look in My Sets, but simply overlooked it. You know how sometimes you miss something even though it is right in front of your nose. Then I was looking at my profile, expecting it to be there since there is a heading for "Collection - View ###'s collection"

What happened was, I was trying to share my wants with someone not on Brickset, and for the darndest, I just couldn't figure it out when I had to.

Just a thought, but maybe have some (or all) of the My Sets features located in the user profile? Kind of redundant, but handy when viewing other people's profiles.

crzypainter

Hey @Huw, I view Brickset news from my Android phone a lot. For some reason, my news settings that I chose on the desktop site don't seem to carry over to the mobile site. For instance, I chose to only see the US Amazon discounts and it works fine on my computer, but on the mobile site I see all nations' news articles even when I'm signed in. Am I missing something simple or is this an actual glitch?
Thanks!

LostInTranslation

^ On a similar note, I saved my timezone in my profile but when on my (Android) phone it still shows US Eastern time.

Huw

^^^ 'View xxx's collection' is already there on the profile page, so I'll add 'View xxx's wanted list' below it.

^^ & ^ Because you currently can't log in' to the RSS feed it doesn't know who you are and thus can't get your preferences. However someone else has asked about this and what I'll probably do is make it possible to add your username to the RSS feed URL, which won't exactly be secure or authenticated but doesn't really need to be.

atkinsar

^ I think @crzypainter was talking about Brickset Mobile not RSS feeds. I can confirm that the news filter settings for the Amazon feeds don't appear to be working on m.brickset.com.

On another note, having just secured Tower Bridge and City Corner for £185 from Amazon.es, I'm quite keen to keep an eye on a few other Amazon sites. I know I can subscribe to the feeds, which is great but I would also like a quick way to switch the Amazon Discounted Sets page between the different Amazon sites. Perhaps I could register which ones I'm interested in (maybe using the existing news settings or something in my profile settings) and then I can either see each Amazon site as a tab or just a simple way of switching the entire page between the different sites. What I'm trying to achieve is a quick way of seeing which Amazon site is selling My Wanted List sets the cheapest on any given day.

Oh, and if you can figure out a way to factor in postage to the UK from the other Euro Amazon sites then great (moon, meet stick!).

LostInTranslation

@atkinsar: Tower Bridge + City Corner for £185 total?? Does that include shipping?

atkinsar

Yep that includes shipping which was around 10 Euro.

LostInTranslation

Bargainous! Definitely need to keep an eye on Amazon.es then!

atkinsar

They are both still available at the same price that I bought at, City Corner is EUR 35.90 and Tower Bridge is EUR 159.17. Jump on board!

princedraven

^ Dumb question will the box/instructions be in Spanish?