So I've been working on the collection tool, and I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Here's what I have so far -- if anyone has any additional ideas, etc, I'd definitely welcome them.

To begin, the collection tool allows you to create logical "groupings" of items (games, accessories, etc). This can be as simple as one primary list (grouping) of all your items, or it can be broken up into multiple lists as you see fit. Items can belong to more than one list, allowing you to create "collections" of items. An example of this would be Color Dreams games. You could create a master NTSC list with every game as well as a collection of just your Color Dreams games, both sharing several games. What this allows each collector to do is showcase their lists as well as create goals for themselves. Using the Color Dreams example, you might create a grouping of all black version carts as a goal for your collection.

Another example would be for NTSC and PAL collectors. You could have a grouping for all of your games (master list) as well as individual lists for each region. Within certain regions, you could still have additional lists that cater to specific logical groups of items, one example being the "Classic Series" games.

You can specify which list is your highest priority, and so when a user browses the list, they can see what you have and what you need, based on the NintendoAge database. Within any list, you can specify a priority on individual items that you wish to obtain. These features allow collectors to prioritize items they're looking for on the group level as well as the individual item level.

The collection tool allows you to add items to your collection in a number of different ways. You can add an item as part of your collection, specifying whether or not you have cart/accessory, box, manual, map(s), guide(s), etc; the condition of each based on a 1-10 scale and/or whether or not the item is sealed.

You also have some META information that you can specify for items as well, which is hidden from people browsing your lists unless you specify otherwise: the price you paid, the date purchased, the place/person you purchased/traded it from, quantity, price for sale, etc...

The collection tool uses a "tagging" system, similar to the way you might use Post-It notes. By tagging items, you are creating a type of bookmark "group" that can later be found by clicking on the tag -- all items that share the same tag are shown. The difference between tags and lists is that a tag can span multiple lists. Lists contain logical grouping of items (games, accessories), tags contain logical references to items. A good example of this is for trading -- you create a tag called "pending" and tag the games that are pending trade. Other ideas for tags are "bidding on," "incoming," "outgoing," etc...

For the physical quality of items in your collection(s), you can specify a threshold in which to flag items to be placed in your "upgrade" list (items that you want to eventually find better quality copies of). For example, if your threshold is set to 7, anytime you add an item to your collection that you rate as being 7 or below (quality rating), it's automatically flagged as an upgrade item. This creates an intrinsic pseudo list of items that you want to eventually upgrade, without having to explicitly create one. So when you (or someone else) clicks on your upgrade list, all items that match that fail that threshold are shown. Note that you can manually add an item to your upgrade list as well (you might have a game that is rated an 8, but it's one you eventually want mint).

For any "element" in your collection, based on what you've specified as having, additional pseudo lists are created based on anything missing (according to the NintendoAge database). These lists are obvious: carts, boxes, manuals, maps and variations (if the setting to track variations is "on"). These are list you do not have to create manually. For example, if you have Baby Boomer in a list, and specify that you own just the blue cart, the manual automatically appears as a wanted item under the wanted manuals list and the box automatically appears under the wanted boxes list. If variation tracking is turned on, you would also see an entry for the black cart version.

Getting items into your collection(s) will be as painless as technically possible, so I've modified the search areas to better facilitate this process. Now, when you run a search, you can add items to your "queue" in bulk or individually -- this acts as a holding bin. You can run multiple searches, queue items, then go to your collection manager and selectively (or collectively) put the items where you'd like them to go. This will cut down on number of "clicks" to get things where you want them.

"Helper routines" are there to save you even more time. You can run various macros to auto-populate your lists. You start by choosing a region code, then you can specify whether or not to auto-populate cart, box and manual (or all, or none) as being owned by you. So if you were a cart-only collector, you would choose the USA region, check off the "cart" checkbox, and then submit the form -- this will put every NTSC USA region cart into your collection. From there, you can selectively remove the ones you still need which are placed in your "needed" list. The "none" option I mentioned is something I'm personally excited about. Let's say you want to start collecting Canadian games -- you would use the CAN region macro without specifying cart, box, or manual. It will auto-populate your list with placeholders for games you're seeking (all would be flagged as "needed", since you didn't specify owning any of it).

Trade and sale lists behave essentially the same as other lists. At anytime, you can copy or move an item into another list. For these types of lists, you'd want to specify the META information for quantity and price.

Am I missing anything? Any thoughts, feedback, criticism, etc, would be welcomed.

-Dain

Please summarize in one sentence or less!

Sure -- the collection tool will just be a simple text file you can upload. Nothing fancy.

Sounds wonderfull Aside from the money you spend on it , is there a tool to see how much your collection is worth? With the value refferenced to ebay values? or something like that When does it go online so we can check it out ?

The value reference is something I've talked about in the past, and will likely be a reality at some point. Because "worth" is relative to a lot of things (such as market fluctuations, condition, etc), it would only serve as an estimate anyway. Arguably, the most likely source of this data would be from ebay, since that's the most common venue in which to find most items.

The tool will go online in a few weeks, possibly sooner in a more simplified form. I'm still actively developing it between work, sleep, time with my girlfriend, and eating LOL

-Dain

Sleep? I think you should cut back on that.

Yeah , maybe you can combine your girlfriend with your work. She can watch how you work

I keep forgetting that sleep is for the weak!

Very impressive man! I don't think there's anything that you've missed. I suppose you could add a script that would compare a user's wanted/needed lists with the fs/t lists of others and vice versa, to make trading/dealing a lot easier, but for personal collection management, the setup sounds perfect!

I heartily endorse this event or product!

If you're serious, I suppose I could build the ability to simply upload lists that people can link to. I thought about using that as an alternative for people who don't want to mess with the collection tool.

-Dain

FYI...

Eveything being discussed in this thread is fantastic. I cannot wait until this is up and running. Will the list NGD is working on be a part of this database somehow?

NGD's list and this site, in many ways, are essentially the same thing data wise. The list is just one alternative to using the collection tools, for those who like to have a copy on their home computer with pictures and notes. Fact of the matter, though, is that you can export your collections as Excel spreadsheets (or text files) anyway, but they wouldn't have the pictures and other notes that NGD's list will have.

-Dain

This is also something I want to add eventually, sort of mimicking GameTZ, but would be further down the road.

-Dain

Sounds fantastic, I can't wait to get all my shizzle cataloged and ready to look at.

My list and NintendoAGE are about 97% meshed up right now Mike. I still have about 3 pages of notes of stuff we need to add to NintendoAGE. I need to get with Dain on some of the stuff so after that they will have pretty much the same info. Mine is just a hard copy that you could carry with you, and NA is much more useful considering the way you can group all the info together with much more info of course. The list will be done by months end for sure this time, I have 2 more people working on corrections for me and it is done.

Do we have a estimated time of arrival for the Collection Tools Dain? I need to know when I need to call into work for about a week to get everything cataloged in, hehe.
~~NGD

BTW--I love your new Solomen's Key NA avatar, sweetness.
~~NGD

So are we able to import any data from existing lists that we may have? Or will everything have to be entered manually? I'm guessing the latter, just because my lists (in Excel) probably look nothing like the collection tools list. Just thought I'd ask though!

Conceivably, a list that was exported from NintendoAge, then edited with changes, could be re-imported. But, there's a lot that can go wrong with that and it tends to get messy (from a programming perspective). I think the only thing similar to this that we might consider is creating an installable application (on your PC) that allows you to manage your collection from "home" -- BootGod is pretty good at that sort of thing, so maybe we'll eventually create a tool to do that.

-Dain

I'm eager for a tool similar to what Speedy mentioned, a kind of one-click comparison generator that would give "best-fit" matches between your needs and other people's "available for trade" items. At this point I've had to taper off from the 'Bay, buying lots just isn't doing much for my collection and to be honest, trading with everyone I've met here is so much more ideal than wrestling with some of the strangers I've met through eBay and hassled with.

Any updates on the collection database Dain? Just curious.

Yep, still being developed. I've been working on it as time permits, but I've had to flesh out some other data issues before it could be useful. I'll keep y'all posted.

-Dain

www.rfgeneration.com... has a great collection tool. We have the systems set up so users can submit game info, games scans, hardware info and pictures. Also if a game is missing you can submit that as well. From this site I know Speedy_NES and wldstrman use it. Speedy maintains the NES section.

I *really* like RF Generation's tool from what I've seen of it. But it's more of a "list" tool than a collection tool. You can create logical groupings of items in folders, etc. In fact, it's RF Gen's tool that inspired me to make the NA tool, simply because the other tool falls short of what I want to track. That's not to say it's not a good tool -- it is! It's just not good enough for what I *personally* want and need, and since I have the know-how to create my own, I figured I'd do just that.

To be sure, the NA collection tool won't be used by nearly as many people as the RF gen one, simply because our tool is catered towards NES (by design). The difference between what I view as a list tool and a collection tool is that a collection tool tracks all elements of an item, dynamically. For example, game 1 comes with a box, manual, styro, baggie, inserts (which ones?) and game pak. Game 2 comes with the same as Game 1, but also a map. Game 3 comes with all the aforementioned, as well as a weapons card, etc. You get the point. The system knows what you need, precisely, for every game in your collection. This may seem like overkill, but it's a collection tool, for collectors, who want to know precisely what they need. How many AVE sleeves do you still need? According to the system, you still need 5. If you choose to track variations, you'll be in pig-heaven as the system knows how to track those as well.

All that said, it's not really a competition between RF Gen and NA, IMO. I could actually care less how many people use the tool here, since I'm really developing it for myself, to track my collection -- anyone else that wants to use it, cool. I bet there are only really 5-10 people in the NES community (active) that would have the need (or desire) to use the tool anyway

-Dain

I think you will be surprised at how many people will want to use the tool. I think the NES variation market is going to grow considerable after it comes out. I think the main reason most people don't do variations it that they simply don't know what to look for on most of them. Seeing picture proof makes it a whole lot easier. I know I am camped outside Dain's house waiting to buy tickets to use the collectors tools

That being said, I think RF Gen has a great tool as well. The reason I like it is because it crosses system boundries and I can track other stuff there as well. But it just simply can't go in far as depth as I need to go for the NES by design. I don't think they will be competeing that much either. I like RF Gen much better than DP for other system, they have a lot more friendly members than DP does, that is for sure.
~~NGD

I second that!