Recent site updates / post your wish-list here

MrBerre

^ Yay! Much clearer now.

princedraven

@Huw,
Thanks for the info. I have to admit I dont really even notice it is there 90% of the time, so it is not a problem for me in any way, I'm just suprised that it could generate any revenue as I can't really imagine anyone clicking any links, unless by pure fluke a set that you want happens to be onscreen, but I would think that is highly unlikely considering the number shown and the number of sets available on ebay.
Either way, if it is working then it can only be good for Brickset so I'm happy.

Eric

Just a query, but does the eBay thing show results for sets that are only on my 'wanted' list? Mine only shows up Alien Conquest, VW Camper and the Medieval Village which are the only sets that are on my list that are still available in stores. If so, good thinking. ;)

princedraven

^ Mine is currently showing an Ewok, My Princess and 2 random bulks. I am pretty sure I have no princesses on my wanted list.
But if that functionality was possible/set up, that would make a lot of sense and could be quite useful.

Huw

Yes, the eBay widget can accept three search terms and if you're logged in it reads your wanted list and picks three at random from it. However, a slighly annoying feature is that if there are no matches then it displays any old random crap in the LEGO category including the My Princess set which I also see.

Most of my wanted sets are 2xxxx, 3xxxx polybags and it has certainly displayed some I need so it appears to work well at least some of the time.

If you're not logged in it just shows 'popular searches'.

drdavewatford

^^ and ^^^ The contents of the eBay "toolbar" are indeed driven by your wanted list - it's not coincidence - although it's clearly throwing up some random results as well....

[Edit : Ninja'd by the boss !]

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

Currently the ebay section shows 4 non-lego i.e. copy brands for me.
For me this section is not adding any value really.

The_Brick_Builder

I think we could all benefit from a live chat room!

collect_that

I would like to see a bigger emphasis put back on to collecting and expansion of the database rather than more buying options. Although these have been very useful (£'s saved) Bricksets main pulling power is the database.

My suggestions would be -

- Going further back on the database, at least a indication of how Lego has progressed through listing important sets and items rather than filling in all blanks.
- Retail Prices on older sets filled in where missing
- Inclusion of Promotional Bricks
- Inclusion of Promotional Figures
- Significant packaging variations pictured amongst set photos or at least mentioned in notes.

Another feature I would like to see would be the ability to create a custom listing for a user to list items in My Sets that they would like to see alongside the rest of their collection. Perhaps a promotional item that perhaps doesn't quite justify an official public listing or a MOC that to some are just as an important part of their collection as an official set. Perhaps a set of templates/ listings to select from.

Most of my suggestions rely on information gathering or ownership, but the people are out there to contribute, and we all know of one person???

atkinsar

@Huw, any chance of adding the same filter functionality to the Argos bargain watch page that the Amazon page has?

Oh, and can you force the Amazon links to open up a new browser tab?

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

One thing I was wondering about on the amazon page is whether there could be a link to the brickset page for each item as well as the amazon page?

Huw

@collect_that, I'll reply to you properly later when I've time to think, but for now I'll just say that the buying enhancements will probably cease in the New Year, and I'll be back concentraing on the other aspects of the site then. It makes sense to get the buying stuff sorted this time of year given it's when people spend the most money :-)

@atkinsar, don't the Amazon links open in a new window anyway, or have I missed some?

I can probably add some filtering to Argos

@Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK, if you click on the image you can get to the database entry

atkinsar

The links embedded in the automated news stories don't open in a new tab for me.

Huw

Ok, those ones, I'll get them changed.

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

^^ Yes, just wondered if it could be accessible from the main listing. This link is very useful (amongst other things) to get the 'official' RRP as the RRPs in the Amazon listing arent always reliable.

Huw

The RRPs shown should be 100% accurate because they come from LEGO.com and not Amazon because those at Amazon are definitely not reliable.

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

Ahhh OK, then maybe its a cross-country issue; e.g. the RRPs vary between countries, despite the fact that they all use Euros. Therefore I find it useful to check the RRP in £ in order to work out if each is a good deal or not - sometimes the € price, even with a reduction, can still work out more than the £ RRP, or the € unreduced price from a different country.

MrBerre

Could the set search be slightly improved? I just searched for "Winter Toy Shop" and nothing was found because the set name is "Winter Village Toy Shop".

Farmer_John

I am curious how the "Discontinued Sets" page algorithms work? It seems some sets that show up there are truly sold out while others are only temporary (e.g., backordered). How do the algorithms currently work? Do they identify anything and everything that is not currently shipping from Lego or do they look at other factors?

I think understanding how these algorithms work could assist in improving the "Discontinued" page to make it much more accurate. Perhaps it's as good as it can get, but you might be able to glean other ideas from members to improve it.

As I mentioned in another blog, I am not one of those buyers that has to have everything the day it comes out. I am happy to wait until a sale occurs to get a set I want (usually the large sets). That said, it is important to accurately know when a set is truly gone to reduce my total outlay, in the secondary market if need be.

Huw

^^ I agree it needs some attention, however in the case you cite the autocomplete should have popped up the correct name after typing 'winter'.

^ That page is entirely automatic and is based on the affiliate data feed from LEGO. If a set was in the feed a few days ago but not now, then it's considered to be discontinued. However sets can come and go, the feed often has omissions in it and it's also 2 days behind the main LEGO site, so I guess it would be true to say you can't really rely on it!

MrBerre

^ I copy-pasted the phrase from a post in the forum.

Huw

OK, It woud actually be pretty hard to accomodate every likely variation of spelling/name for every set, although I guess it might be possible to so something based on words and their occurence in set names rather than just trying to match the entire name.

Problem is, the search stored procedure is incredibly complex as it is so this will make it worse. Nevertheless I do plan to revisit the search functionality after Christmas, and make it more like Google in terms of suggestions/auto-complete etc.

Legogeek

OK, It woud actually be pretty hard to accomodate every likely variation of spelling/name for every set, although I guess it might be possible to so something based on words and their occurence in set names rather than just trying to match the entire name.

I think the search function works quite well most of the time, and I agree with what Huw said. It's always more difficult when searching for a specific name. It's much easier when keeping the search parameter simple. A search for "Winter" revealed 6 possibilities - wasn't too hard to find the toy shop.

Lambringo

Is there a way to remove a particular forum topic from showing up everytime a new post is posted or remove it completely from my forum view?

MrBerre

@ Huw If you ever need assistance, don't hesitate: I'm a .NET developer myself, and know plenty of SQL too. ;-)

kylejohnson11

@Huw currently there is a RSS Feed for the new Shop at Home products, would there be a way to get an RSS Feed for the Shop at Home items that are listed under the Sales & Deals section on the LEGO site?

Huw

^ Probably yes, because discounts do come through in the feed but unfortuantely the feed is 2 days behind the site itself so it wouldn't be very useful.

I'm told this is for technical reasons but I wonder if it's really to prevent competitors getting timely notifications of discounts.

Having said that, I have code that scrapes prices directly from the website now although it doesn't specifically target the sales page. Maybe that'll be another job for the new year ;-)

^^ Good to know MrB, thanks.

kylejohnson11

Would it be possible when somebody hash tags a number such as #7754 it pulls a link to the set in the BrickSet database?

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

Wow, Im liking the new UI changes - very smart. Nice functions in the comment box too - good work!

(edit: The background colour once posted is a little dark though, makes it a bit hard to read)

^ +1 to the above as well, but I understand this is a bit tricky with the vanilla forum.

Huw

I can take no credit for the work, all I did was press 'enable' a couple of times :)

^ +100 to it as well but it's not possible within the confines of the VF framework, althugh I guess a client-side solution should be, similar to those awful scripts that highlight certain words at some sites and pop up ads when you hover over them.

It would just need to parse all text on the page for a regular expression to match #<set number with optional suffix> e.g. #6876 or #6876-1 and replace it with a hyperlink to the search script at Brickset.

Edit: or rather, change the hyperlink that is created already!

Anyone up for a challenge?

MrBerre

I see it's possible to develop a plug-in; I'll go check it out and see whether I can whip something up.

Matthew

^ As we're using the hosted version of the site, we can only use approved plug-ins I'm afraid.

Huw

^ Yes, indeed, which is why I suggested a javascript (preferably jQuery based) code would be needed.

kylejohnson11

This should be my last one for a little bit. When I am viewing the mobile version of the site, there is no way to send a private message from a person's profile. I am forced to switch to the full version on my phone. Is there a way to add a link to send a private message from the user's profile?

Thanks very much!

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

mark all viewed is still not working

Legogeek

^ It works for me, but it's not instantaneous.

I still can't get the tabs in the text box to work :o(

Si_Dorking_Surrey_UK

^ same for me, actually. not sure how long it takes to work, but maybe 5 mins later theyre all marked as viewed

fifa8817

What happened to the release date and 'available until' on the right side when you looked at individual sets? Why the change to just release year?

Huw

They are now shown under the buy tab on the bottom of the page, but a lot of people miss them from the menu so I might just have to put them back..

Legogeek

An observation regarding the site forum. I realize there probably isn't much that can be done, but something I've observed about the forum layout and just wanted to comment on it.

Regarding the layout on the forum home page, where all the recent posts are displayed. It's great to be able to see all the current discussions at once, but I also think it causes some problems - I think a lot of people, like me, visit the forum directly from this page, and even though each discussion lists what category it is in, I get the feeling a lot of us don't pay attention to that. Thus there is a lot of mistaken cross-over in UK/US specific discussions. This probably takes place in other topics too, without the reader paying much attention as to the discussion category. Because of this I think a lot of discussions get sidetracked because responders don't pay attention to the category. I know it's happened to me on occassion, and if I payed attention to the category I probably wouldn't have replied. As much as I love having a forum on Brickset, I think this type of layout is a bit of a drawback.

Just my 2cents worth as a long time forum user.

atkinsar

You must be a mind reader, we are currently discussing an alternative layout that is more category-centric. We're still having the debate, but it may well end up getting trialled in the near future so watch this space...

Legogeek

@atkinsar - :oD

LostInTranslation

@huw: Whaaat? I navigate away from the forum for five minutes and when I come back it's all different! I'll take a while to decide if I like the new layout or not but there is still the problem that on the mobile site its not possible to see what the discussion categories actually are, just the titles. Is there any way to fix this, bearing in mind you said the survey showed a high number of people primarily use this version?

Edit: hang on, it's back to normal again! Am I going crazy(er)??

kylejohnson11

I use the mobile version a lot too (bus rides to and from work). Would it be possible to put a direct link to private message somebody on their profile page on the mobile version?

Thanks!

Matthew

@LostInTranslation
We've decided to trial a different default display, as Andy said:

You must be a mind reader, we are currently discussing an alternative layout that is more category-centric. We're still having the debate, but it may well end up getting trialled in the near future so watch this space...

If you really don't like it, (like me), you can click on the 'Discussions' button to get the old view. We're interested to hear your opinions.

pcirone

How do I get it to stop breaking up all the new posts by category, I can't easily see all the new posts in one place now..?

..never mind I see now..

I guess that's my opinion :-)

LostInTranslation

Thanks @matthew. Initial feeling is, I don't like it. Is it possible to set preferences for categories you don't want to see? (maybe you could to that before and I just didnt know!)

rocao

As you all have seen, the default landing page is now a category view, where a preview of each category is shown with the most recently updated discussions.

The previous "All discussions" view which shows all discussions ordered by most recently updated, regardless of category, is still accessible from the "discussions" tab along the top, or the "All discussions" link on the right hand navigation.

The impetus behind the change was because we thought the new layout would allow a user to quickly focus on the desired categories, which have been ranked by popularity to show up first in the list.

The drawback is that it's less conducive to stumbling upon discussions you find interesting, but weren't necessarily looking for.

Let us know what you think.

Also, comments in a discussion will refresh automatically now.

rocao

@LostInTranslation: that's really how I wish it would work: the ability to exclude categories from the "All discussions" view. But unfortunately it's not a feature.

Matthew

Also, comments in a discussion will refresh automatically now.

So it will, so hopefully that will stop being Ninja'd! Does the discussions view update automatically too?

@LostInTranslation - you can 'unfollow' top level categories, by clicking categories, then on the drop down box 'unfollow'. You can then opt out of 'Shopping', but not 'Shopping UK' unfortunately?