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 Author: calsbricks View Messages Posted By calsbricks
 Posted: May 17, 2017 10:01
 Subject: Re: Add variant field
 Viewed: 27 times
 Topic: Suggestions
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calsbricks (8514)

Location:  United Kingdom, England
Member Since Contact Type Status
Aug 12, 2008 Contact Member Seller
Buying Privileges - OKSelling Privileges - OK
Store: CalsBricks
In Suggestions, Brick.Door writes:
  I don't know if changes to the Bricklink database are even possible, but
I think this would really benefit Bricklink and their vision for the stud.io.

Part variants was one of the problems with sourcing parts for the MOC shop, and
it will be again for stud.io. Users who create a model and want to order the
pieces don't have any efficient way to look for different suitable variants
of a part. It can make a big difference for price and availability.

I suggest that a new "variant" field be added for catalog parts, wanted lists
and store inventory. This would be an attribute similar to the color. It could
be left n/a if the variation hasn't been identified or isn't important.
Or it could be selected a, b, c etc. to specify a particular one.

Unlike the color, variant "a" would have a different meaning for each part. This
would be captured in the part description and pictures.

Hello there and thank you for the suggestion

In many ways this already exists within the system, albeit not in a true formatted
way. The Related items element on the catalogue part no page gives details of
all variants of the part so if you look at
 
Part No: 3794  Name: Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 1 Stud, Jumper (Undetermined Type)
* 
3794 Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 1 Stud, Jumper (Undetermined Type)
Parts: Plate, Modified
for example you will see
 
Part No: 3794b  Name: Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 1 Stud with Groove (Jumper)
* 
3794b Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 1 Stud with Groove (Jumper)
Parts: Plate, Modified
and
 
Part No: 15573  Name: Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 1 Stud with Groove and Bottom Stud Holder (Jumper)
* 
15573 Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 1 Stud with Groove and Bottom Stud Holder (Jumper)
Parts: Plate, Modified
shown. It isn't particularly easy to search and find
that due to the fact that the 15573 has a different part number completely. The
same applies to many other parts/variants on Bricklink. One of the problems with
all of this variant stuff is that Lego themselves do not differentiate like Bricklink.
If you order a 3794 from them today you will get a 15573 which is the most current
version of the part.

There has to be a better way of doing this and knowing whether a part has a variant
or not but I am not sure this approach would cover it.

I think it is one of those 'back to the drawing board rethinks.

One of my technical people suggested using the base mould number as the part
number and then for each variant of that part adding a suffix of v (for variant,
and then a number, so in the case mentioned above instead of 3794 and 3794b and
15573 you would see 3794, 3794v1, and 3794v2 but with that show an alternate
part number of 15573 for 3794v2. That way you could search for 3794* and get
all the related parts, but you would also see the currently used Lego id for
the part.

That would mean quite a change to the database and I don't think the development
team are really looking at that at the moment, with all the other priorities
going on.

You have made a good point and it is definitely something that should be looked
at and considered for the future - in what form - not sure - but definitely needs
looking at.
 Author: calsbricks View Messages Posted By calsbricks
 Posted: May 10, 2017 01:33
 Subject: Re: Improvements to Find Stores
 Viewed: 40 times
 Topic: Suggestions
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calsbricks (8514)

Location:  United Kingdom, England
Member Since Contact Type Status
Aug 12, 2008 Contact Member Seller
Buying Privileges - OKSelling Privileges - OK
Store: CalsBricks
In Suggestions, SylvainLS writes:
  In Suggestions, calsbricks writes:
  […]
Please see images - the first two are what we have now. The 3rd image is what
we would like to see as an improvement/enhancement. […]

What third image?

Morning

Not sure where that went to but here it is again.
 
 Author: calsbricks View Messages Posted By calsbricks
 Posted: May 9, 2017 14:13
 Subject: Improvements to Find Stores
 Viewed: 125 times
 Topic: Suggestions
 Status:Open
 Vote:[Yes|No]
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calsbricks (8514)

Location:  United Kingdom, England
Member Since Contact Type Status
Aug 12, 2008 Contact Member Seller
Buying Privileges - OKSelling Privileges - OK
Store: CalsBricks
We would like to see the following additional sorts added to the find stores
screen.

Please see images - the first two are what we have now. The 3rd image is what
we would like to see as an improvement/enhancement.

This would very much help to gauge where you were as a store in comparison to
others. The current sorts are okay, but adding these will give the stores a real
opportunity to compare themselves with stores of similar size etc.

This is not a massive code change - the query that gest the underlying data for
all existing sorts simply have an "ORDER BY" command associated with them.

Please note we are well aware how frequently that data changes but that really
doesn't matter for the purposes this serves.
 


 Author: calsbricks View Messages Posted By calsbricks
 Posted: May 8, 2017 10:00
 Subject: Re: Another thought
 Viewed: 40 times
 Topic: Suggestions
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calsbricks (8514)

Location:  United Kingdom, England
Member Since Contact Type Status
Aug 12, 2008 Contact Member Seller
Buying Privileges - OKSelling Privileges - OK
Store: CalsBricks
In Suggestions, yorbrick writes:
  Brickset inventories are actually direct imports from lego's replacement
parts database, so they might as well directly import from lego rather than brickset.
But the source is of course the problem. If a part is no longer current, then
lego just replaces it with a close match for their replacement parts section,
so any data extracted from it needs to be treated with care.

I though BL were playing around with direct imports from the lego server a while
ago. I wonder if anything happened with it?

Hello and thanks for joining our thread. It is obvious I haven't made our
suggestion entirely clear. Where the data comes from in the BL catalogue is not
really that important to this. It is what we can do with the data once it is
in there, hence our suggestion.

BL has embedded in it far too many differences between what it holds and how
Lego represent that (There are no Lego variants, for example - minifigs are
not held in sets as minifigs, etc, etc.) what we would like to achieve is getting
the data back to us in a useful way. The summary we asked for would be helpful,
especially when you are evaluating sets for parting out or buying.

Sorry if we confused, hopefully it is now clearer.
 Author: calsbricks View Messages Posted By calsbricks
 Posted: May 8, 2017 09:25
 Subject: Another thought
 Viewed: 172 times
 Topic: Suggestions
 Status:Open
 Vote:[Yes|No]
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calsbricks (8514)

Location:  United Kingdom, England
Member Since Contact Type Status
Aug 12, 2008 Contact Member Seller
Buying Privileges - OKSelling Privileges - OK
Store: CalsBricks
As mentioned in the previous suggestion - we are all waiting on either details
of the sales tools in the next update or the launch of that update, whichever
BL decide to provide. Yesterday I put a suggestion forward for a different type
of view on the price guide which would make our lives much easier. Hopefully
that will garnish enough support to at least get noticed.

Today we want to talk about another very nice addition to the price guide when
trying to use it to determine what you wish to part out.

Currently if you visit Brickset you can find on their full screen inventory view
a summary of the items in each set by category and colour. Unfortunately they
are not the Bricklink categories nor colours, so it takes a little while to convert
that. Please see their summary of set 75030 (image 1).

I have converted that to a Bricklink summary (image 2), which is already in the
system as data and just needs a new view or query set up for us to see it and
use it.

In addition it would be really helpful if when you ask it to part out a set to
determine its value and how many of the items you already have in your inventory
if it not only told you the totals, but to be able to click on that link to see
what individual parts you would be adding or need to complete that set. This
is shown in red in image 3. Make it clickable.

Hope all of this is clear. If not please add your thoughts. Lets get the most
we can out of the catalogue -a fter all we all contribute to it.
 




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