First off, I appreciate the work you put into this tool and it looks promising.
I have been looking for a good tool to start tracking my collection now and then and now stumbled upon this one. I actually never properly tracked my collection in the 28 years I play MtG and want to change that. So I looked into this tool and tried to find out whether it fulfills my 2 main requirements, which are:
- Allow me to load and save collections to my own file systems in a human and machine readable format (for me the only way to protect the effort I put into creating and maintaining collection information)
- Allow me to value my collection based on cardmarket.eu prices
So I took a closer look (in non-patreon mode) and these are the things that I encountered when trying to start entering my collection, all of which translate to feature or change requests I guess:
- The context menu item "+ Add to collection" does not increase card count, but only changes it from 0 to 1 (not e.g. 1 to 2)
- The context menu item "- Remove from collection" does not decrease card count by 1, but decreases it to 0 regardless of card count
- Missing "Collection mode" in list view with +/- buttons for each card count, allowing for single click addition of a card to the collection
- Missing clear card version indication in grid view collection mode (e.g. by adding the set name, version and language as an overlay to the card image); Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale e.g. is indistinguishable between Italian Legends and Legends; using the list view instead does not work for card counts > 1 (see above)
- Missing differentiation between card languages (e.g. FBB in German, French or Japanese); I have never seen this differentiation in any MtG collection management tool
- Mising option to (de-)select all / ranges in custom checklist, active sets and active blocks editor
- Missing option to add comments and condition to each individual card in collection
- Missing search / filter by set in collection view
- Missing search / filter by set name in checklist view (e.g. search for "Legends" check list)
- Search results don't show what the query was
- Search results don't offer to modify query / go back to query editor
- Missing option to save search / filter queries
- Missing option to add full card and set names to the save file format (it is only storing card and set ids); exporting to .csv is not the same as there does not seem to be a way to import from those files
- Missing guide / tutorial / documentation (or didn't find it)
- Missing GitHub repository to allow for contributions, issue tracking, etc.
- When selecting a specific card in the search box drop-down results, only versions of that specific card should show (currently all cards including the name are shown)
These are more comments than requests:
- The option to change number in single card view is somewhat inconvenient - it takes 3 clicks and lots of mouse movement on a large screen to increase card count by 1
- It is hard to understand that the context menu item "Collection" is about changing the number of cards in collection; using this UI is tedious (right click on row, click "Collection", click "+", click "Ok" for each card to add); using "+ Add to collection" is no alternative for cards beyond the first (see below)
- I don't understand the "Lists" feature at all and would need an explanation
I would consider putting my own time into improving this tool, if there would be the option to contribute to the implementation. I am myself a software engineer with 35+ years of programming experience.
First, thanks a lot for taking the time to answer all this! Your answers have already helped me to discover a lot of functionality. If I don't reply to an answer, I understand / agree. Otherwise see my replies below.
- Missing "Collection mode" in list view with +/- buttons for each card count, allowing for single click addition of a card to the collection: Yeah I understand you. I was blocked by how to imagine the UI here but noted in my list
Suggestion: Add a "Collection Mode" the same way you did in the grid view that adds [+] [-] buttons to each row.
You can use advanced tooltip mode maybe?
I was not aware of this setting.
- Missing differentiation between card languages (e.g. FBB in German, French or Japanese); I have never seen this differentiation in any MtG collection management tool: You have it in each card page but I guess you wanted to see it on the grid view? I wonder how you imagine the UI could be here
Again I was not aware of this feature. Those functions on the card page are pretty hidden if you ask me. Would be nice if you could have most if not all of those editing options "inline" with the information on screen. Maybe by adding another "Collection Mode" to the card view, which can be turned on globally via settings.
I also would like to see those options in the context menu for each card in the list view. That's where I assumed I would find them and they would be way quicker to reach. Currently I have to open the card view for each individual card to access them. The context menu could also have an option to "list versions" for a card, similar to the function on the card view.
- Missing search / filter by set in collection view: What do you mean?
There is no option to filter the collection view by set. I guess you can use the checklist view if you want to focus on a specific set, especially if you add that "search" by set name feature.
- Missing option to save search / filter queries: You can save them /reload them on the advanced search page (in the bottom app bar)
This is like the 10th case where I was not aware of those options in the bottom-right toolbar. I am using a 1440p resolution on a 32" screen. The gray area to the right of my screen is more than 38 cm wide. When I concentrate on the left part of the screen, the menu is completely out of sight and it takes quite a mouse movement to get there. Maybe you could add a setting that moves the toolbar to the top left of the screen for me.
From the collection page you can export a FULL csv with all the info of the DB and then you can reload it from the settings page
I thought you can only load those files that you saved from the settings menu. My bad.
- When selecting a specific card in the search box drop-down results, only versions of that specific card should show (currently all cards including the name are shown): I disagree. This is not what I expect
I understand that you expect to see all cards that contain the text you typed in the search box. But if you typed some text and then explicitly selected one of the suggestions instead of just pressing ENTER or the search icon, I would expect a different behavior, since you selected a specific card. There is actually currently no way to narrow your search down to a specific card, also not by filtering by name in the result view. Just try searching for the card "Urza". I get the desired result (all versions for a specific card name) by clicking on "versions" in card view.
-The option to change number in single card view is somewhat inconvenient - it takes 3 clicks and lots of mouse movement on a large screen to increase card count by 1. Yeah, dunno how to add a better UI. Open to ideas :)
Add the "Collection Mode" for the card view as suggested above.
Yeah I see. Having a collection mode would help for sure. I added it in my todo
Just reading this. Won't modify my comments above though to stress how useful it would be. =]
you can add tags to your cards. Then you can create lists that will display all the cards with the tags attached to the list. It is a flexible way to have custom lists
Maybe you could put this explanation on the lists page.
In the meantime I added more than 7000 cards, focusing on Rares and old Uncommons only. My experience has been great so far. I will definitely continue using the tool. Thanks for all the work you put into it!
One more little personal note: I wrote a Magic software in Java in the 1990s that Wizards didn't allow me to publish - maybe I shouldn't have asked them. It was inspired by Apprentice and supported peer-to-peer connections between any number of players and spectators and had a nice deck editor I used for my own tournament preparation. I also was very much into 3D graphics at the time reading all books I could find about it and writing my own little engines. I therefore see an overlap in interests when I look at your profile page and I can only congratulate you especially to the nice 3D engine you created with Babylon.js - it was pretty much a dream of mine to do something similar. It looks like quite an accomplishment. I might eventually contact you via LinkedIn and will mention that I was the guy with those long UrzaGatherer feature request posts. =]
Woot! that is a long message :) By the way thanks for taking the time to list all the things you wanted.
Let me try to help on some topics:
- The context menu item "+ Add to collection" does not increase card count, but only changes it from 0 to 1 (not e.g. 1 to 2): This is by design :)
- The context menu item "- Remove from collection" does not decrease card count by 1, but decreases it to 0 regardless of card count: Same
- Missing "Collection mode" in list view with +/- buttons for each card count, allowing for single click addition of a card to the collection: Yeah I understand you. I was blocked by how to imagine the UI here but noted in my list
- Missing clear card version indication in grid view collection mode (e.g. by adding the set name, version and language as an overlay to the card image); Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale e.g. is indistinguishable between Italian Legends and Legends; using the list view instead does not work for card counts > 1 (see above): You can use advanced tooltip mode maybe?
- Missing differentiation between card languages (e.g. FBB in German, French or Japanese); I have never seen this differentiation in any MtG collection management tool: You have it in each card page but I guess you wanted to see it on the grid view? I wonder how you imagine the UI could be here
- Mising option to (de-)select all / ranges in custom checklist, active sets and active blocks editor: Noted in my todo!
- Missing option to add comments and condition to each individual card in collection: You can do it in the card page
- Missing search / filter by set in collection view: What do you mean?
- Missing search / filter by set name in checklist view (e.g. search for "Legends" check list): Added to my todo
- Search results don't show what the query was: How ? The UI will be terrible. And you can always hit Back button to return to it
- Search results don't offer to modify query / go back to query editor: Yes you can: hit Back button
- Missing option to save search / filter queries: You can save them /reload them on the advanced search page (in the bottom app bar)
- Missing option to add full card and set names to the save file format (it is only storing card and set ids); exporting to .csv is not the same as there does not seem to be a way to import from those files: Not sure to follow you. From the collection page you can export a FULL csv with all the info of the DB and then you can reload it from the settings page
- Missing guide / tutorial / documentation (or didn't find it): Yeah, not enough time. It is a free app and I'm alone
- Missing GitHub repository to allow for contributions, issue tracking, etc. Oh I tried several times. Never worked. I did not open it publicly though. Mostly because of time constraints. I'm already the owner of Babylon.js and I see how much work it is to support a OSS community.
- When selecting a specific card in the search box drop-down results, only versions of that specific card should show (currently all cards including the name are shown): I disagree. This is not what I expect
-The option to change number in single card view is somewhat inconvenient - it takes 3 clicks and lots of mouse movement on a large screen to increase card count by 1. Yeah, dunno how to add a better UI. Open to ideas :)
- It is hard to understand that the context menu item "Collection" is about changing the number of cards in collection; using this UI is tedious (right click on row, click "Collection", click "+", click "Ok" for each card to add); using "+ Add to collection" is no alternative for cards beyond the first (see below). Yeah I see. Having a collection mode would help for sure. I added it in my todo
- I don't understand the "Lists" feature at all and would need an explanation: you can add tags to your cards. Then you can create lists that will display all the cards with the tags attached to the list. It is a flexible way to have custom lists