Hey guys, I know there are not a lot of folks who read this blog, but I would appreciate a few minutes of your time to check out "The Diamond King - Card Collection Tool" and give me feedback!
Here's the idea: I love the TCDB concept, but it takes me forever to get my cards in there, and it doesn't give me some features I want.
Features I want are the ability to quickly search, sort and report on my collection, and to have scans of my personal copy of the card right there. I also want to be able to customize other things. And so, I started putting my cards in a SQL database. That solution had usability issues too, so I have created The Diamond King Card Collection Tool as a front end for that database to make things easier.
In a nutshell, I made my own card collection cataloger.
Now I am not a programmer, and this thing needs a lot of work. I don't plan on anyone ever using it but me though, so as long as it meets my needs, that's all that really matters.
But I would really, really love your feedback on it! So I did a short(ish) video that shows the program and it's basic features. It's viewable on YouTube at this link:
I doubt this would be very easy to view on a phone, as the program takes a lot of screen real estate. A computer monitor would be lots better. I really tried to keep it short, but the video is about 7 minutes long. If you can spare that time, I would really welcome any and all feedback, questions and especially criticisms!! Features you think it needs are welcome too.
I imagine there is already something out there that I could download or buy that does all that my program will do and better. But I have had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to do this, and make my own.
As (hopefully) motivation for some of you to spend the time and give meaningful feedback, I plan on making a post later this week, or next week, with some freebies for people to claim. But to be eligible for the freebies, you need to comment here with something that you think would be helpful to me on The Diamond King Card Collection Tool. Just saying "That's cool!" or "You really aren't a very good programmer" is great, but to be eligible for the giveaway, you have to try a little harder. No deadline to make that comment though, if you see the giveaway post and have not commented, you can come back to this post and comment then.
Thanks!!!
Cool for sure. What about adding photos of the card back...some cards have serial numbered backs. Any reason you might want to see that? Also, what about adding a column for card condition. Say you have 5 of the same card in various conditions, you want to pull the middle condition card for some reason...how do you correlate the card you want to pull to the database (ie which card in your collection matches the table number for the middle condition card you want to pull. Not sure if I make any sense.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughts. I'm keeping a list of all the potential enhancements that get suggested. I could easily add a way to store and display card backs. My biggest problem there is that I have been scanning card fronts for over a month and am only about 15% done. Scanning all those card backs sounds like a death sentence! Good idea, nonetheless. I do already have a place where I can specify condition, I probably moved too fast through the video. As for your question about how to correlate which card in the DB to which in the real world, I guess I would want to use the photos for that. Meaning if I want to pull out the card in poor condition and remove it, I would use the scan in the database to tell which card to delete. Not sure if that makes sense either. If I didn't answer the question, feel free to elaborate!
DeleteOh, and make sure to check in mid-next week for a few freebies. I'm sure to have some Angels in there.
DeleteI'm not a computer person, at all, so it's hard for me to add anything; especially when I'm just so amazed that you, or anyone else for that matter, could create something like this. I have found that the TCDB is a little too clunky, and way too slow when I'm trying to find a particular thing in a hurry, which is why I stopped adding anything. I'd like to find a quicker way to do things, but as of now, don't know what that might be. I might have to go back to paper checklists.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain Jon! The only real thing that TCDB has over my program (for me at least) is the easy trading that people seem to be doing there. But it seems like a whole lot of work to get that up and running.
DeleteWithout seeing the video, here is what I would look for in a program/site.
ReplyDeleteWith TCDB, I don’t like how in order to submit a card photo you have to scan it. There are tons of cards I could add photos for but I don’t want to have to take the time to scan it and would rather just take a pic with my phone which would be 100 times easier. If you could allow phone photos that would be enough to make me switch right there.
Also what I’ve always wanted to do was make a database for serial numbered cards (and even inserts for that matter) where you can input every one you have and hopefully get enough people to use your tool to where player collectors can find low serial numbered cards of people they collect who are willing to trade/sell and boost there collections. It would work well with team collectors as well. It would also be a good way to keep card companies accountable that they only make the number of cards they say they do and don’t overproduce serial numbered cards. Maybe allow a way to track where each serial numbered cards are brought and sold and which usernames they are bought from and sold to.
I’ll check out the video and see if there’s anything else I can think of.
I can use any pic of a card, scan or photo with this app. As for the serial number db, that's an awesome idea, but this isn't the program for that. This is a standalone program for just me, not anything that is networked and available to the public. That's way beyond my meager skills!
DeleteI think you'll want to talk to Billy Kinglsey about this, he's all about cataloging and scanning his collection. I think he just got back from vacation, but if you see him on the blogs or TCDB give him a shout. Sounds like something that would be right up his alley, and he could certainly give you more useful advice than me :)
ReplyDeleteBill is a king of scanning, for sure!
DeleteA work in progress but I think it looks pretty good. When it hits the market will it be open source so devs like me can play with it? :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, hits the market.....Lol, like anyone would buy it! I certainly wouldn't want anyone who knows what they are doing looking at my code, they'd laugh their heads off.
DeleteNot sure if this is possible or not. One of my biggest problem with TCDB is that I have separate collections for My team (Braves), My Set builds, and as well as separate collection for (one day) all of my 1500+ PC guys. Right now I only have a dozen or so loaded in there. The problem is that (TCDB) It only counts as me having 1 of that card even if it is in say 3 different collections. I want it to count as 3 different cards, after all they are separate collections. TCDB does count them three times for the overall count, but not for the specific counts/search. I don't like that it doesn't quickly answer what I am searching for. I have to manually make it search under each specified collection to see if I have it there when it seems like I should be able to type in a card, and it tell me how many I have and where/what collection they are located in. Hopefully, you understood what I am getting at. Like you, I have been working on getting my stuff in there for a year now, and Ih I don't know maybe a million card more to go. LOL. It will suck the life out of you.
ReplyDeleteI think my solution would do what you are talking about, it would show all three cards. But my solution doesn't yet have the ability to separate things into different collections. But that's a good enhancement for my list!
DeleteThere's a definite plus to being able to create an organizing system that works the best for YOU. I don't have that ability. I wouldn't even know how to begin what you've devised, therefore I go with TCDB (and before that, a spreadsheet). ... I also admire your '75 Aaron mini and '81 Topps Carlton -- both in much better shape than mine!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Just a couple that happened to get selected while making the video, random chance!
DeleteThanks for the input! The system does allow for multiple copies of a card, there are quite a few in there. I may have shown things in a way that made it look like it doesn't, sorry. Each copy of a card would have it's own GUID in the database, and it's own scan. And as for the delete, the error was because I created code for archiving the deleted cards (rather than deleting them outright so I could bring them back if I needed to), but forgot to make the required database table for it. SO the program puked. I fixed it though!
ReplyDeleteCould you filter it by position? As you must know, certain players cards show different positions for the same players than others.
ReplyDeleteIs there another way to filter by a card's condition?
I could certainly add filtering by position, but only if I entered position as a data element for each card. Not sure if I will ever get to that, but it's now on the list! And filtering by condition of the card is already available, I just have to put more conditions on the cards. I don't have it entered for many yet.
DeleteThis looks pretty solid to me. I do work with spreadsheet-type things in my day job, so I can appreciate this sort of thing. One idea that comes from my work is that sometimes we have the first column "anchored", meaning that when you scroll to the right to see other columns, the first one (in this case the player name) stays on the screen. I'm not sure how it's done, and it might not even be useful for you, so just a thought.
ReplyDeleteFrom a more card-oriented perspective, I was thinking that you might want to add a column to note rookie cards. Also, is there a way to note how many cards are in a set and have the program keep track of how close you are to a complete set? Obviously this could be a problem if you list parallels as part of the set--for example, I see you list the 1975 Topps minis as "1975 Topps" and then have "mini" as a note, which would make such a feature less helpful unless you're trying to complete both sets equally.
Again, though, overall it looks pretty useful. Nice job.
My main gripe with TCDB is that it just takes so darn *long* to catalog my cards. If I don't have big chunks of time to devote to it, nothing gets cataloged. I really like that your database seems a whole lot quicker. I use spreadsheets for my mini-collections, and some of my bigger player collections, and the only reason I don't catalog everything that way is that I can't link images up to those cards - which is another reason I'm a big fan of what you're doing so far.
ReplyDeleteMy only suggestion - and this is probably something specific to the way I collect - is maybe being able to enter/search by a theme, like cards with throwback jerseys, or pitchers hitting, stuff like that. I like when my player collections & mini-collections overlap, and it'd be cool to be able to denote that somehow.
First off, real awesome job putting that all together! As long as you're happy using it, that's all that matters. I too am not a programmer, nor do I use TCDB (though I've been tempted, I haven't yet due to comments from other users here).
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can have separate columns for First and Last Name so you don't retrieve both Steve Carlton and Carlton Fisk. I also assume an autofill option was active, it could help out with typos the more you enter data.
If scanning cards becomes an issue long term, maybe see if there's a way to perform a Google search while entering the player data for a image of the card, and it can be added to the player entry without you having to scan your card. Of course if you want to show card condition or something specific, then you'd have to scan your card.
Continued good luck with your database!