I can’t believe this is actually working.
If you are registered and logged in, you can add books to a page that will list all the the volumes in your collection. The link is right in the center of the individual book pages (above the amazon and review links.)
Feel free to play around with it, though it won’t do much besides listing the books in the order you added them, for now.
Things I gotta do:
1) Making it so the link shows up on the reading order view as well, because it’s a pain to always have to go to the full data page.
2) Formatting and Sorting your Collection List so it’s in order. I’m not sure if I’m gonna make it look like a full reading order page with all the data, but I at least want it to list the books in order. This is the trade off: Less data and custom fields and I can list more books on the page, so you can see a lot more of your collection. More data, it might take really long to load and/or break down with large collections. I’m not sure!
3) Right now this only works for you when you are logged in to view your own collection. That’s ok for now (I’m ecstatic about it!) but in the future it would be cool if each user’s collection got a permalink that they could share with other users and the rest of the internet.
Anyway, for now, we should celebrate. This is a major step towards awesome!
Edit: Temporarily Disabled While I Play With Some Code
Edit 2: Enabled again! I’m actually using a totally different set of code now, which means the ajax adding doesn’t work but it DOES sort by reading order! So go ahead and sort your collection!
Edit 3: Collection lists are now numbered, which I thought would help in organizing and keeping track of your books.
This is awesome! Seriously, great work. I actually don’t own all that many DC trades, but I’ll try and add the ones I do have to my collection in a minute here.
[Reply]
It’s working great! So far I’ve been able to add 6 books to my collection. I have a few ideas for making it even easier to use:
As it is now, the “Remove” link for each book kind of gets in the way, and it would be pretty easy to lose part of a collection with an accidental click or two. One possible solution would be to have DVDAF-style check boxes, although I have no idea how much work that would entail on the programming end.
And would it be possible to move “Search the Database” higher on the main page, so you don’t have to scroll down each time to use it?
[Reply]
Huh, I hadn’t thought of that. I’m not sure how to do the check boxes (right now the code works through an actual link, not a toggle) but I’ll look into it. It would make managing your list a lot easier.
Moving the search shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I sometimes forget about it, since I actually use the Filter more than the Search. It’s actually above the fold for me, too, but I bet it isn’t for a lot of people.
Maybe I’ll move it up to the top right or something? I’ve been saving that spot for something else, but I can always move things around more.
The title could probably be left aligned instead of centered, do you think?
[Reply]
I agree about the search bar being higher up…and I love my little collection so far! Though I’m simply including what I’ve read, rather than what I own. So much to read.
[Reply]
yeah, actually, I realized that it could be used for a lot more than just organizing your collection – could be a wishlist, or a reading list, what to check out from the library next, etc.
Do you think it’s ok to keep it being named “My Collection” or would something like “My List” make more sense?
[Reply]
Maybe users could have more than one list? Like ones for “My Owned,” “My Read,” and “My Wanted,” or whatever else. No idea how much extra work that would take, but it would be pretty cool. Even if that’s not possible, having just one list is pretty sweet too.
Although I’ve got to admit, having a list of everything I’ve read would be awesome. That way I’d be able to look at the reading order, and because of the checkmarks next to the books I’d be able to tell which things I may have skipped and what I need to read next, without having to rely on memory of what I’ve already read.
[Reply]
It’s definitely something I’ve been thinking a lot about.
It brings up some tough questions. First of all, the only way I can think of doing it right now is basically copying the “My Collection” database and code and doing it three times (or so) with different variable names. That seems stupid – a better solution would be to find some way that users could make their own lists and then select what books would be on what list. But that’s extremely complicated.
The other major question, then, would be what exactly would that check be referring to on the reading order page? Is it your Wish List? Your Owned? Are there three sets of icons? More? Things are starting to get cluttered at that point.
Maybe some way to select one list as “Active List”
And up top it says “Currently Browsing with My Wishlist as Active List” and a dropdown so you can change it to “My Collection” or “My Read”
But that’s really intense code. Good ideas, but probably pretty far off from actually existing. For now, I’ll settle for figuring out some way users can select whether they want their one list to display alphabetical or by reading order, haha.
[Reply]
Crappy work around for now would be to make multiple user accounts and use one login for “Owned” and another for “Read.” But that is crappy.
I’d say just use the list for whatever you think is more useful at this point. I’m using it for owned and beth is using it for Read, since she may own half of anything I own, but really I’m the one who is worrying about what to buy next ;)
[Reply]
I’m spinning this off into a forum post: http://www.tradereadingorder.com/forum/feedback/registered-users-can-now-add-books-to-my-collection/
Keep the ideas coming! :D
[Reply]
Making a forum post is probably a good idea, since this could go on for a while, haha. But yeah, I think it’s pretty great to have any list feature at all, so don’t feel like you need to rush into adding all of that other stuff yet.
[Reply]
The site seems to grow pretty organically, actually. At any given moment there are about a billion things I want to do, but based on what I’m talking about with people, what I get excited about, what I need the site to do for my own hobby uses, etc, it grows in different directions.
Tonight I’m gonna play a little with sorting the list in different ways, because I think I can get that done just by listing the existing data differently – IE, not having to have code make any new database stuff, like I’d have to do for separate lists.. I think.
[Reply]