New site features

Posted by Nikola Bathory in Bulgaria, 18 Jan 2012 05:28

Hey Huw, the Collection analysis sends to to an error page. :( I want to try it out, it sounds like a great idea.

Posted by mstrandbo in Norway, 18 Jan 2012 05:43

This is happening:

An error has occured

An error has occured while loading the page. We apologise for any inconvenience.

edit: And there it worked! Sad news for me, 18% as the best theme..

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 05:47

I found a division by zero error which I've sorted, but that would only occur if you didn't have any sets marked as being owned. Is that the case for you two?

Posted by mstrandbo in Norway, 18 Jan 2012 05:49

I have quite a lot of sets marked as owned, so that shouldn't have been the problem for me...

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 05:52

I think it's because the default view only shows themes that you are more than 25% complete in and if there are none, the division by zero error occured. I've just tested it and I think it's fine now. Please try again...

Posted by princedraven in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 05:54

@Huw, I like the changes to My Sets, good job! Thanks.

Posted by OllieL in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 05:55

It worked for me.

I remember seeing someone post this suggestion in the forum so its good to see you take on other peoples ideas. The fact you can see the sets you need to complete your collection is very helpful, I must of had about 15 sets that weren't marked as owned.

Could I suggest a "Don't want" option to go with own and want. This would basically hide the set from the ones you need to compete your collection. I collect Star Wars and since there are so many remakes of sets I already own i'm not always interested in buying them. I know I could just add them as owned but this would mean I have an incorrect amount of figures and pieces owned as well as an incorrect retail price.

Just something to think about

Posted by TheCahleySlash in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 05:58

Great feature Huw, much appreciated :)

Posted by dugmence in Yugoslavia, 18 Jan 2012 05:58

Nice addition to functionality of the site...
But, there is a problem with sets that appeared as two or tree different codes...for example: 5909, 2879, 5948.
They are lowering percentage of owned sets if you don't mark them all, but if you mark them all, they are increasing number of bricks and minifigures owned...

Posted by Nikola Bathory in Bulgaria, 18 Jan 2012 05:58

It's working now. I have owned sets, I just have less than 25% everywhere.
Hey, why don't you take this one step further, because to me it's a bit pointless right now. For instance, I will never have ALL the castle sets, but I think I have all the Wolfpack sets.
Why don't you include % info for the sub-themes?

Posted by mstrandbo in Norway, 18 Jan 2012 05:59

@Huw: It happened when I pressed the link on the My Sets-page (NEW! Analyse your collection and see w...) <- that link sent me straight to the error page.

When it worked a bit later, I got the 25% and 100%-options and all.

Anyways, it does work now, so I'm happy :)

Posted by Nikola Bathory in Bulgaria, 18 Jan 2012 06:04

Ops, stupid me - you already did the thing with the subthemes! Great job then!
btw every single set falls into a certain subtheme, right?

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 18 Jan 2012 06:12

Huw, is it possible to add a column to sets with "related sets" that users can check to show that they already own the related set version and include this in the analysis? For example Sets 1099, 1184 and 3016 are all basically the same set but packaged differently. If I have 1184, I would like to think I also have 1099 and 3016 as well and have that included in the analysis that I "own" all 3 of those sets. I have no idea how difficult that would be.

Posted by CDC in Slovenia, 18 Jan 2012 06:18

Collection analysis is somehow cool but some thing is bothering me. I really think those promo plastic bag sets shouldn't be considered part of the analysis. I mean, i have all Prince Of Persia sets, but no, not really because i still 'need' one set - brickmaster exclusive in this case..which i'll never have and i'm sure i'm not the only one. Most of themes have those little promo sets which aren't even sold in your common toy shops therefore i think they should be left out from the analysis. If they aren't this makes it impossible for some of us to 'complete' our collection of certain theme...

Posted by Snowhive in Germany, 18 Jan 2012 06:58

I love the new collection analysis function.
I think that the funtion can improve, then the user is able to select with, or without promo sets. Lot of the promosets are not availble worldwide - so it isn't easy to collect them. That function isn't easy to impletate, because you need a flag in the database and the information in the new field. So, for newer theme's, it can be work, if you can exclude a range of sets. For example for Pharaoh's Quest have the promotionsets a number above 30000.

I like to have also a analysis tool for the date in the Advanced Collection Manager. There you can sort informations for diferent fields and drill down in the datas of single sets. Also a function there datas are missing

Posted by Retsnom Kcor in United States, 18 Jan 2012 07:16

I'm actually more concerned with the sets with multiple numbers than I am promotional sets. It's kind of annoying having those drag down your percentage because you only have one of them marked... Aside from that, I think it's great to see this!

Just a thought Huw, but would it be possible to place all the sets that are the same but with different numbers (such as the Ice Planet sets 1711, 1731, 3014) under the same number, but distinguish them with the "Related Sets" tab? For example, only show 1711 in the list, but have the other listed in the Related Sets tab. This would probably cause consistency issues elsewhere, but again, just a thought.

Posted by Nerd in United States, 18 Jan 2012 07:35

I was expecting this site to be blacked out today (with SOPA and all), but then I remembered: this is a UK site.

Thanks for the new features Huw! Keep it up!

P.S. the barcode scanner on the mobile site doesn't work on iOS, so you may want to fix that.

Posted by icey in Denmark, 18 Jan 2012 07:44

VERY COOL!

Modification is though needed: The "Ultimate collection" sets such as (http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=K7776-1) mess the overview a bit up!

If you got it - you should have them all - if you don't have them - but all the single sets, you still got all the sets? Unless you're a really rigit box collector! :-)

Posted by kartoffelviking in Australia, 18 Jan 2012 08:18

I absolutely love the collection analysis feature. Thank you muchly, Huw!

Posted by kwilder in United States, 18 Jan 2012 08:25

I really like the new features and it is wonderful that you always work so tirelessly to improve the site.

That said, one additional change, now that the additional pictures of sets have their own tab: perhaps the thumbnails could be a bit larger? With them on the main page, it made sense for them to be small because otherwise they would take up a lot of space, but now their tab is a bit sparse. It would be nice to see all (or many of) the pictures clearly at one time, if possible, and with their own tab, you might be able to do that.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 08:55

In addition to correcting the divide by zero problem I have also made the lower threshold 0% by default. I forget that not everyone has massive collections and if you don't you were greeted with an empty list which wasn't really very good.

> Could I suggest a "Don't want" option to go with own and want.

OllieL, that is a great idea and would address a lot of the issues that have been raised with regards what you want to consider to be in your own 'complete' collection (same set - different number, polybags, battle packs or whatever)

@icey117, sets that contain other sets are not included in the numbers, but will be shown in the lists when you click through on a number.

@kwilder, I will most likely implement larger thumbnails at some point in the future.

Posted by Nerd in United States, 18 Jan 2012 09:03

@Energyarrow
I agree, good idea.

Posted by Lambringo in Australia, 18 Jan 2012 09:06

I can't believe how quick you can incorporate an excellent new feature into the site. You may have read my feelings on being able to exclude certain sets from the tool. A good example is Spyrius with sets 1714, 1954 & 3013 & Ice Planet 2002 with sets 1731, 1711 & 3014. All 3 are basically the same for each theme and I'm pretty sure set 3014 & 3013 (Packaged with Kabaya sweets in Japan in 1998) at $25-$75 for a duplicate poly is going to leave my themes incomplete for a long time.

Posted by sarlacc98 in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 09:10

Agree with energyarrow it can get confusing especially when the person has posted mulyiple comments.

Posted by Graysmith in Sweden, 18 Jan 2012 09:23

I'd love for it to be possible to rate a set without having to write a review. I can't speak for anyone else, but there are a lot of sets I own that I simply don't feel like writing a whole review about, yet it'd still be nice to give them a quick opinion in the form of a rating. Sets with many reviews may have a rating that accurately represents them, but those sets with just a few reviews may have a rating that's differs greatly from what most people think.

For example, my review of the 4208 Fire Truck is the only one so far and I wasn't glowing about it, yet those 130+ other Brickset users who've also marked it as owned may be of a very different opinion. If they could give it an overall rating of 1-5 it'd certainly be far better represented than just by my opinion. Of course it's preferable if people write reviews, but most people on here probably have no interest in doing that (but might be willing to rate).

Also, while I'm on the topic.. How are the review averages calculated? I gave the 4208 Fire Truck a 3-4-4-3-3 in my review, yet the average score comes to just 2.8. How can it get a 2.8 when I only gave it 3's and higher?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 12:07

@Energyarrow, you want to have threaded comments?

That's certainly possible but it has disadvantages. At the moment all new comments are at the bottom and you can easily read everything that's new. With a threaded approach that's not so easy, so we'd probably need another means of indicating new comments, perhaps by recording date stamps of visits to the page and showing comments after that date in a different colour. Let me give it some thought...

Posted by Morgan19 in United States, 18 Jan 2012 12:40

^ I don't think s/he's suggesting a threaded view, but rather just the ability to hit a button to "quote" part of a user's message when you reply instead of relying on "^" or "@username" within the text (like I had to do in this reply, for example :)).

Posted by giraffefreckles in United States, 18 Jan 2012 12:49

The Master Builder Academy series needs a bit of tweaking. it says I have 2 out of 3 sets, when the collection is more than that (owned sets and possible sets.)

Cool feature overall. Being a newbie collector, I definitely see a trend in the types of sets I gravitate towards. Thank you for all your hard work!

Posted by BJMdotLEGO in Belgium, 18 Jan 2012 13:52

Just noticed that the "collection analysis" page went from idea to functional page in less than a week. Now that's what I call agile development!

Posted by Xiaolong in Belgium, 18 Jan 2012 14:14

Hello Huw,
I've another idea that would help me. Can't you put a number before the balloon. I like to read all the comments but when I read until the last, being number 68, for example, it is hard to find the 69th the next day. Usually I start at the bottom and scroll up until I arrive where I stopped before. But that has the disadvantage that you can't follow the story of consecutive comments. Especially when there are 170 comments over a few days.
Keep up the good work.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 14:25

^ To keep it simple I'd just number them sequentially from the top as they are output, so if comments are deleted then numbers would change. That causes problems if people start referring to particular comments by their number.

Posted by Nerd in United States, 18 Jan 2012 14:42

@Huw
Treaded comments is what he is saying - that would be so nice.

Posted by sloopsjohng in United States, 18 Jan 2012 15:11

"You own 217 sets (216 different)"

Is there a quick and easy way to determine where the duplicate is? Because I'm fairly certain I just checked the wrong box somewhere...

Posted by linderboy in United States, 18 Jan 2012 15:20

Huw -

Love the feature, but can you implement a way to not include items that are not pure Lego sets. i.e. Star wars alarm clocks, watches, magnets, video games, etc. They bring my % owned down unnecessarily.

Thx, keep up the good work.

Posted by opii in United States, 18 Jan 2012 15:32

@sloopsjohng

Sounds like you want a way to sort your owned sets by quantity owned; I dont think it's possible. A solution for now is to export your sets (http://brickset.com/export/) in a .csv format (opens with MS Excel or Open Office Calc) you can then sort by the 'QtyOwned' column to find it.

Posted by opii in United States, 18 Jan 2012 15:34

@linderboy

From what i gathered, it sounds like huw is going to look into a 'Don't want' check box to allow people to check sets they do not want, which would allow for calculations on a total % of theme owned and total % of wanted items within a theme owned.

Posted by sloopsjohng in United States, 18 Jan 2012 15:38

@opii

Thanks for that - didn't know we could export. Oddly, when I tried to export via that link I got someone's info that wasn't mine... but when I went to the My Sets page and grabbed a TSV file, all was good (turns out I had forgotten I had gotten 2 of a McDonald's set when I was 7 - go figure!)

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 18 Jan 2012 16:14

The collection analysis thing is great! Although, maybe subthemes would be nice too....

This divide by 0 talk is making me LOL for some reason though. :P

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 16:18

@linderboy: all the 'tat' you mention is only included in the Gear theme, not, for example in Star Wars so it shouldn't skew your figures.

Posted by Thomson & Thompson in Canada, 18 Jan 2012 17:00

Love the updates.

Posted by dsdg88 in United States, 18 Jan 2012 17:41

@giraffefreckles, @Huw:
I noticed the same issue with Master Builder Academy.
I played with it a bit and found that if I also mark 20201 in addition to the composite 4659018 then my collection is complete. 20201 is listed as "Micro-scale" and 4659018 lists "Microbuild". Could that be the source of the error?

I think the feature is great. It also helped me find some 2012 sets that I didn't know about.

Posted by TooMuchLEGO in United States, 18 Jan 2012 17:55

I own 62% of the Spiderman sets. I am awesome. :-)

Posted by Jay Kenobi ZX in United States, 18 Jan 2012 17:56

I noticed the Info tab is missing from sets, was that purposely removed? Sorry if it was mentioned earlier and I missed it...

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 18 Jan 2012 18:06

Yes, info has gone, it wasn't working as intended.

Posted by Duq in Ireland, 18 Jan 2012 18:22

Hi Huw,
I like the Collection analysis, if only because it shows I'm not a collector ;-) I'm 100% on only one theme and that's the Hobby sets from the 70's.
May I suggest a small and easy change? Could you make the theme name clickable? Clicking on the total number of sets isn't as intuitive.

Posted by MorkMan in United States, 18 Jan 2012 18:41

Thanks for putting the Amazon.com link up at the top - now I have that link at my fingertips when I find what I want to buy from them! Anything to get you guys some support!

Posted by mo123567 in United States, 18 Jan 2012 20:10

I like the "don't want" idea. I would also like the ability to exclude themes when browsing. For example, I may want to view sets to be released in 2012 to see what I'm interested in but I have no interest in viewing duplo or magnets etc...

Posted by CharlieTheFunEngine in Australia, 18 Jan 2012 22:17

Sigh, my biggest percents are 20% of the CARS sets, then 7% of Collectable Minifigures...

UPDATE: Wait, just switched to subthemes view. I own 50% of Bionicle "Rahaga".

UPDATE 2: I would like to be able to select 1% in the first drop-down list so that I don't see themes I have no sets from, and therefore no interest in.

Posted by brickmonkey13 in Canada, 18 Jan 2012 22:36

The collection analysis is an excellent addition to the site.

Posted by Duq in Ireland, 19 Jan 2012 03:05

There are some problems with the subtheme list where themes have sets that were released outside sub themes.
Look for example at Creator. There's a line for Creator with no subtheme that says there's 169 sets. However when you click that number you get 261 results, being the list of all Creator sets, including all subthemes.
This also means that the totals at the bottom of the subtheme list are wrong; all the sets in the Creator subthemes are counted twice.

Even when I select '0% - 100%' complete the list does not show subthemes that I am 0% complete on, except if I have a set from that subtheme marked as 'Want'.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 19 Jan 2012 03:45

^ You can't currently search for sets with a blank subtheme, so clicking on a number in such a row won't show just sets with no subtheme. However the numbers should be correct.

The list doesn't show themes/subthemes unless you own or want at least one set, I kind of assume you're not interested in them :)

Posted by suckerpunch83 in Canada, 19 Jan 2012 07:53

All great updates Huw!
I have been updating the info in the Advance Collection Manager and love it! I estimate the current value of my sets owned by the average selling prices on Bricklink & eBay. Would be nice to incorperate that into the ACM, and have a combined total of your collection to see what it would be worth. Just a thought.
Keep up the great work!!

Posted by atkinsar in United Kingdom, 19 Jan 2012 08:01

Another change I just noticed is that the Argos bargain watch page has been updated so it now has the same functionality as the Amazon bargain watch page (only show sets on my wanted list etc). Good work Huw, some really good updates recently.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 19 Jan 2012 09:02

^^ Ah yes, I forgot to mention that, thanks!

Posted by JamesBenjamin in United States, 19 Jan 2012 11:36

Here's an update/site related question:

Is there any way to tell which sets are retailer-exclusive in the database? If not, that would be a great thing to add, and presumably relatively easy, as there are really only 4 options: Lego stores, TRU, Walmart, and Target. Obviously all the exclusives are available directly from Lego but it'd be helpful info for those of us who live close to one of those stores but not the others. Usually I can find things online for Star Wars exclusives, but when I was trying to hunt down the Target exclusive Bank set year it was a pain to figure out what was what.

Thanks!

Posted by MorkMan in United States, 19 Jan 2012 14:54

^^^^
@JamesBenjamin
Don't forget about the other "exclusive" stores in Europe. I'd like to have this feature, too. Especially so I can "don't want" the ones that are exclusive to stores outside of the USA.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 20 Jan 2012 05:21

That has been suggested before but as MorkMan says, sets can be 'exclusive' in different stores across the world so it would be difficult to gather the information accurately and completely.

Posted by itsaturkey in United States, 20 Jan 2012 20:48

I have 71% of Aqua Raider sets. The two I don't own are the Giant Crab set and Lobster :)

Posted by plantbit in Australia, 21 Jan 2012 07:07

I can't edit my ACM data.
Huw, I also wanted to let you know that Big W has some Lego Stationary in their latest catalogue.

Posted by JamesBenjamin in United States, 21 Jan 2012 11:14

And again on exclusives: WM's always show up at Argos in the UK, Target's always show up at Zeller's in Canada, TRU has the same exclusives regardless of territory... I think adding the field and putting a * on it saying "not applicable in all countries" might still help people track them down.

Posted by Heat4212 in United States, 21 Jan 2012 12:22

I have been a lurker for years and finally decided to join just to tell you I hate the minifig tab! But seriously, thanks for all you do, and providing this site--the most attractive and useful Lego set browsing site out there.

Also, it's very generous of you to allow us to track our own sets yet you have no annoying advertising to detract from our experience.

But, yeah, I really hate having to click on a tab to see my minifigs. Then I forget what set I am looking at and have to click back to remind myself. I could deal if there was at least a thumbnail of the set next to the set number. But you still rock!

Posted by CharlieTheFunEngine in Australia, 22 Jan 2012 00:50

@ plantbit - Ah, yes, "Brick To School"...

Commenting has ended on this article.

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