BrickLink Discussion Forum

In Catalog, Teup writes:

In Catalog, Admin_Russell writes:

In Catalog, Teup writes:

[...]

It looks like there will be gigantic changes? And that they will take longer
than a year?

As long as there are huge changes going on, I cannot do business. I thought we
had agreed that the changes would be made, September would be a cool off period
so everyone can get ready, and then we'd be back in business. I can't
do my work if there are continuous huge changes going on, or my inventory will
be a mess.... Please let's do what is necessary all at once.

A lot of these are changes to the background organization of the data. The default
presentation will be the same to the user, but by reorganizing things in the
back, we will be able to offer more options to users. This is particularly an
issue for the inventories page, where people want more views than we currently
have.

Aha, thanks for clearing that up! I don't think could survive 2 years of
daily part category changes

Hi Matthieu,

Why do you have your own storage system appearantly so closely linked to Bricklink's
catalog categories that any change might disrupt your workflow? I thought you
had devised your own administration system?

Hans-Peter

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Aug 4, 2020 02:47

Subject:

Re: Catagorizing pieces via molds

Viewed:

44 times

Topic:

Suggestions

In Suggestions, timewarp writes:

Its pretty simple, every printed astromech head (for instance) would link back
to its unprinted version under Mold (and vise versa in the "Item Appears In"
Molds.

Yes, this evident relationship is missing on Bricklink. I would phrase it differently
though.

Every experienced user of Bricklink knows that in there is a relationship between
e.g.

3001pb071 Brick 2 x 4 with Black '1' Pattern (Sticker) - Set 8672
Parts: Brick, Decorated

and

3001 Brick 2 x 4
Parts: Brick

by either stripping off the part number from
'p' onwards, or vice versa, to add 'p*' to search for all
printed or stickerred varieties. But this relationship has never been formalized
into an actual relationship in this list: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogRel.asp?utm_content=subnav
And therefore also does not show up on the catalog item pages.
For newer users this is confusing or obfuscating.

Please add a 1-on-n relationship for 'Plain versus Decorated', which
may or may not be automatically populated from the part number logic.

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Aug 3, 2020 04:55

Subject:

Re: Super Mario - Minifigs vs Animals

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40 times

Topic:

In Catalog, StormChaser writes:

In Catalog, jonwil writes:

How was it decided which enemies should be minifigs and which should be animals?

I'm not a fan of waiting, but I was waiting patiently for this topic to arise.
Fortunately, I was not required to wait long.

I originally had them all categorized as figures. I would like to see, by the
way, all figures eventually categorized that way whether they are animal or human
figures. It would solve problems.

Then I moved most to animals based on the new sorting criteria. I discovered
that the new criteria didn't help too terribly much. Or, to put it differently,
they didn't assist as much as I would've hoped.

To answer your question, the ones I left as figures were those that had seemed
to play some kind of role in the series as characters, especially with speaking
parts. My selection might not have been perfect, I'll admit. We can move
animals to figures or figures to animals as deemed necessary.

A Monty Mole for example seems very much like an animal to me because it is a
mole and not sentient in any way

I was definitely undecided about Monty Mole. It was a tough one. But this was
a playable character in at least four Mario games. In one game a Monty Mole
was an ally to the main characters. In another game a Monty Mole operated a
tank and in a different game a three-barreled cannon.

I would suggest extending the item name to include the context ('Mario'

,
lifeform ('animal'

and specific animal ('mole', 'dog',
'snake', etc.). That way, they would show up in searches despite being
in whatever category they are placed and whatever given name they may have.
In the absence of another tag system, the item name has to take that burden.
I can't see any problem with using longer, more descriptive names. So let's
use that field to our advantage.
Or maybe we'd need a new category for all those animal-character-named whatever
figures where the distinction is unclear.

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Aug 2, 2020 09:25

Subject:

Re: part 649pb07

Viewed:

30 times

Topic:

In Catalog, crepundi writes:

Please add "pedestrian crossing" to the part name, thanks!

649pb07 Road Sign Triangle with Children Playing Pattern
Parts: Road Sign, Decorated

Gisela

Actually, that would not be correct as this sign means: attention, playing
children (zone). It is not related to a crossing.

The crossing sign warning is

649pb11 Road Sign Triangle with Pedestrian Crossing 1 Person Pattern
Parts: Road Sign, Decorated

when the pedestrians do not have precedence
and

649pb03 Road Sign Triangle with Pedestrian Crossing 1 Person in Crosswalk Pattern
Parts: Road Sign, Decorated

bb0139pb02c01 Road Sign with Post, Square with Man Crossing Pattern, Type 1 Base
Parts: Road Sign, Decorated

when they do.

Of course there may be regional differences in style and formal use, but I believe
these meanings are never mixed.

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Aug 2, 2020 02:39

Subject:

Re: Make a real forum

Viewed:

71 times

Topic:

Suggestions

In Suggestions, jx writes:

The current forum setup is basically like a mailing list. Not very easy to navigate
or search.
It shouldn't be hard to setup a phpBB or myBB forum that is much easier to
navigate. It is probably even possible to integrate accounts here.

There's actually already a forum at https://forum.bricklink.com/ for stud.io

Please don't. To me, the Bricklink forum is much easier to navigate and search
through than the Studio one.
You do know that clicking on the small speech bubble icon next to the title of
the mail brings up the entire thread? And that you can toggle between showing
every message and only the thread titles? And that you can filter which categories
you want to ignore? And the power of the macro tags?

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Jul 28, 2020 11:32

Subject:

Re: discolored new white parts

Viewed:

34 times

Topic:

Colors

In Colors, ricardo1475 writes:

I need some help about discolored white new parts.

How is it possible that new white parts are not really white any more?
I have part out some brand new sets (straight from the box) some months ago and
I sold some white parts. Now I get the question from the buyer that the parts
are not really white. I have stored the parts in a drawer where there is no sunlight.
How is it possible that the parts are not really white any more? is it a factory
mistake or is it the dark drawer ore what else.
Can any body help me what the problem is.

Johan

I've separated all my basic white parts in translucent white (modern) and
opaque white (older) just to avoid these color differences. The translucent white
is slightly warm yellowish, while the opaque can be whiter and prone to discoloring.

The only times that I have seen real bright white, those parts happened to be
non-LEGO. So yours should be just normal.

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Jul 19, 2020 03:18

Subject:

Re: How to make an inventory

Viewed:

19 times

Topic:

Inventories

In Inventories, Deesby writes:

I am making an MOC, with instructions and parts list from Rebrickable.

I have created a want list for the parts, but is there any way to save which
parts I have bought and/or already own?

New to website and lego.

Thanks.

Easiest for you will probably to make a separate wanted list for the parts you
have already ordered and move those items from your 'need for MOC' wanted
list to your 'bought' wanted list.

Alternatively, you can use the 'have' field in the wanted list, but since
that is ignored by many parts of the Bricklink website, it is of not much use.

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Jul 11, 2020 06:38

Subject:

Re: Dark Green

Viewed:

43 times

Topic:

Colors

In Colors, infinibrix writes:

I think the change of ALL colour names should be a priority because however bizarre
Legos colour names may seem to us it is the manufacture who made those decisions
for their product and so it’s their name choices that should take precedence?
If an established and well-known paint brand names one of their colours ‘Bright
Yellowish Green’ distributors and retailers should follow that colour guide because
by re-labelling it as ‘Lime’ they only create confusion for their customers.
The customer knows the brand of paint they want and they know the colour that
the manufacture calls it and yet the customer is expected to somehow work it
out for themselves or if they’re lucky stumble across a third party colour guide?
The variations of the Lego product are confusing enough at the best times so
why create further confusion in areas that are easily fixed?

Once again, no thank you.

But if it’s just a preference thing why stop there... Why not just ignore the
Lego part numbers too and use our own/old peeron codes? But wait we already do?
I’ve never understood why the biggest Lego market place ignore Legos colour system
and ignores Legos official part numbers. Granted you can search by the Lego references
but we are still presented with this 3626cpb0730 instead of this 6003296?

You are presented with both on the catalog item page. Because for more than half
of the parts the official Design Id (BL: Part number) or Element Id (BL: PCC)
is not known, is not referring to the part (single part or combination) refers
to a technical difference (such as ABS versus PC or PE) that is not distinguished
on Bricklink and because there is relational information hidden inside the Bricklink
numbering system.

And for the color names: because Bricklink and the whole AFOL market had to choose
their own naming systems long before LEGO published their color names - which
are confusing at best.

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Jul 11, 2020 03:45

Subject:

Re: Dark Green - who's going to crack first?

Viewed:

32 times

Topic:

Colors

In Colors, Admin_Russell writes:

In Colors, Stellar writes:

In Colors, StormChaser writes:

In Colors, misbi writes:

isn't it about time that we set about resolving conflicting colour names?

My preferred resolution would be to update our colour chart to show TLG names
as a comparison:

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogColors.asp

It's literally as simple as adding a column to the chart, but it might take
some senior analysts and ***************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
************************************************************
to accomplish (witty and well-worded negativity edited out).

So you want something like this that can be well done in no time?

The only difficult thing would be combined Lego colors to one BL color, but we
can put a / or just add an empty row below the one that matches for each extra.

Sergio

It is not that easy. There is not a 1 to 1 correspondence. And the dates for
sure do not line up with LEGO colors.

Bricklink managed to include a fair list of the matching color names with Studio
(data/StudioColorDefinition.txt) in which those few name clashes posed no problem.
So why not here as well? In the worst case you'd leave blanks for the conflicting
colors.

Author:

hpoort

Posted:

Jul 8, 2020 02:27

Subject:

Re: Collecting the parts catalog

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44 times

Topic: