Hey again. I've been importing a couple of cards, and reckon this could be improved a lot with just a single change:

When importing a list of cards, allow us to specify which set each card belongs to. You can choose how each line should be formatted; whatever makes your life easier. The main thing is that this will significantly reduce the amount of time that needs to be spent correcting each imported card's set.

Thanks again for the site!
Nick

This would indeed be useful, I subscribe.

They have something in the works for this. This is a pretty often requested feature.

Want to buy status on said thing in the works :).

silvermarmot wrote:Want to buy status on said thing in the works :).

Don't buy anything here, they'll rip you off. 5 gold nuggets will probably only get you "maybe next weekend" :P

More seriously, I come with a question.

How would you people see such a feature for bulk importing cards?

One way would be to just keep the existing Add many textarea, and make a convention on its contents. For example we could define the format as:

(Magic 2010) 3 Lightning Bolt
(Alpha) 2 Lightning Bolt

Then, of course, people who have collections stored in excel have to somehow export them into this format, then paste them in the import box. We could also make the format closer to a CSV format, like

3|Magic 2010|Lightning Bolt

Other solutions would entail the presence of a separate dropdown field for the edition - so that you would paste in the box all your cards from Magic 2010, then select Magic 2010 in a dropdown and click import. Then paste all your cards from Mirrodin etc etc.

I lean in favor of the first solution. What do you guys think?

If you would do a textarea with a convention, I for one would like it somehow like one of these:
a) hardcode the order of the parameters according to relevance and leave empty the fields that don't concern you:
Lightning Bolt|3|Magic 2010|foil|promo|mint|english
Mimic Vat|4
Unsummon|4|Magic 2010||promo
or
b) same as above, but grouped by edition
Magic 2010
Lightning Bolt|3|foil
Unsummon|4||promo
Scars of mirrodin
Mimic Vat|4

But to be honest, I think a more simple and elegant solution is a data grid and the option to choose the columns that concern you.

Whatever the method, the biggest problem is that such a feature would really benefit from an autocomplete dropdown, seeing as whatever method you choose, there will be a lot of typing involved. Really looking forward to this though, in any form.

I would prefer the piped version just because it is easier to manipulate with a text editor. I would also perfer to keep inputting cards as simple as possible so I am voting for this format:

3|Magic 2010|Lightning Bolt

I lean more toward using the set abbreviations. If I'm not mistaken, they are unique to each edition.

1 'A' Fireball
4 'DS' Fireball
4 '7th' Fireball
20 'M10' Fireball
4 'MM' Counterspell
8 'ZEN' Arid Mesa

I'm sure there is a table somewhere on the interwebs that would detail all abbreviations. On the other hand, there is no reason to not use abbreviations and long spellings.

Sebi, if I had to choose one of your two options, I would go with #1. Specifically, the pipe-delimited version, since it would make it a little easier to create/alter import files in text editors. I think the two options have separate use cases, however.

Option 1 is good for people who have their own XLS or CSV tracking files, or people who are also using a desktop app with an export feature.

Option 2 would be good for something that I do, which is import Starter Packs (like the new Scars precons). I just go out to Cardkingdom or something, copy the decklist, and paste it into the text box. If the dropdown existed, I wouldn't have to take the extra step of going into a text editor and replacing paragraph breaks with paragraph break, pipe, 'Scars of Mirrodin'.

sebi wrote:Then, of course, people who have collections stored in excel have to somehow export them into this format, then paste them in the import box. We could also make the format closer to a CSV format, like

3|Magic 2010|Lightning Bolt

IMO, this is ideal. It's easy to read, easy to generate, and easy to type. Pipes ("|") are probably the best delimiter, because other potential characters (commas, dashes, etc) are contained in some card names.

The only way that this could be improved would be to continue to allow inputting cards in the current format, and provide the option to specify additional information. For example, working from Trickster's suggestion, allow users to submit like this:

3 island
1 lightning bolt

or like this:

3|Alpha|Island|mint
1|Magic 2010|Lightning Bolt||english|foil|promo

In the latter format, any fields that are empty are simply not set when importing. (Eg: Lightning Bolt above doesn't have its condition set.)

TheShaman wrote:I lean more toward using the set abbreviations. If I'm not mistaken, they are unique to each edition.

1 'A' Fireball
4 'DS' Fireball
4 '7th' Fireball
20 'M10' Fireball
4 'MM' Counterspell
8 'ZEN' Arid Mesa

I'm sure there is a table somewhere on the interwebs that would detail all abbreviations. On the other hand, there is no reason to not use abbreviations and long spellings.

Before I found deckbox.org, I began building my own site. One of the things that I was surprised at is the lack of a common abbreviation for set names. Or at least, I was unable to find an official list of abbreviations.

Some abbreviations can be determined by examining the HTML source from WotC's MTG Products page. For example, note the "SOM" abbreviation for "Scars of Mirrodin" in the src attribute of the img tag:

<td><i>Scars of Mirrodin</i> block</td>
<td><img class="article-image" src="http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Images/Expsym/exp_sym_SOM_C.gif" alt="Scars of Mirrodin" title="Scars of Mirrodin" border="0"></td>
<td>
  <a href="/magic/tcg/products.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/products/scarsofmirrodin">
    <i>Scars of Mirrodin</i>
  </a>
</td>

However, this abbreviation isn't used for every set. Eg:

<td rowspan="3">
  <i>Onslaught</i> block</td>
<td>
  <img class="article-image" src="/magic/images/exp_sym_scourge.gif" alt="Scourge" title="Scourge" border="0">
</td>
<td>
  <a href="/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg_tcg_scourge_productinfo">
    <i>Scourge</i>
  </a>
</td>

My preference is to be as explicit as possible. Thus, I'd suggest sticking with the full set name.

I prefer the pipe delimited option also, we use this at my work all the time. Even the most computer illiterate can be told how to convert an excel doc into a pipe delimited text file to paste into a web form, it usually works very well for those with little computer savvy.

As for the Edition field if you are, I would put it at the end of the record as the last item, that way it can be optional. Some people might find "1||Fireball" a little strange looking or might accidentally send 1|Fireball and you will have to evaluate each to see if its a matching Edition. Obviously you can check for this on the code side, but having it on the end just feels "cleaner"

1|Fireball
3|Fireball|Alpha
20|Fireball|Magic 2010
5|Counterspell
6|Llanowar Elves

And I agree that using abbreviations will just complicate things, stick with the full english name of the set. The nice thing is, people for the most part will be willing to conform to whatever restrictions you impose as long as it makes importing easier for them.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/askwizards/0804

This is the link to the definitave codes up till 9th ed. If you go down to the question on Aug 12, 2004. All the later ones are also on wikipedia (which I am pretty sure is correct. So if you wanted to use the code it is possible.

Well then. I see no problem with allowing both set codes and the full name, anything to make typing the card information less wordy for every day use, I say...

Was this ever implemented?

I agree with nickh and TheShaman:

TheShaman wrote:I lean more toward using the set abbreviations. If I'm not mistaken, they are unique to each edition

nickh wrote: IMO, this is ideal. It's easy to read, easy to generate, and easy to type. Pipes ("|") are probably the best delimiter, because other potential characters (commas, dashes, etc) are contained in some card names.

The only way that this could be improved would be to continue to allow inputting cards in the current format, and provide the option to specify additional information. For example, working from Trickster's suggestion, allow users to submit like this:

3 island
1 lightning bolt

or like this:

3|Alpha|Island|mint
1|Magic 2010|Lightning Bolt||english|foil|promo

In the latter format, any fields that are empty are simply not set when importing. (Eg: Lightning Bolt above doesn't have its condition set.)

Combining their suggestions and ordering to allow the [edition] field to be dropped if not desired:

3|Abbey Griffin|INN
15|Forest|INN
32|Forest|NPH

Full list of 3-char abreviations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_sets

An added bonus would be the ability to do mass import with all the fields allowed of a single card:

[Qty]|[Card Name]|[edition abrv]|[Quality]|[Lang]|[Properties][/Properties][/Lang][/Quality][/edition abrv][/Card Name][/Qty]

From right to left, 1, 2, 3, or 4 fields could be optional:

[Qty]|[Card Name]|[edition abrv]|[Quality]|[Lang]|[Properties]
[Qty]|[Card Name]|[edition abrv]|[Quality]|[Lang]
[Qty]|[Card Name]|[edition abrv]|[Quality]
[Qty]|[Card Name]|[edition abrv]
[Qty]|[Card Name]
[/Card Name][/Qty][/edition abrv][/Card Name][/Qty][/Quality][/edition abrv][/Card Name][/Qty][/Lang][/Quality][/edition abrv][/Card Name][/Qty][/Properties][/Lang][/Quality][/edition abrv][/Card Name][/Qty]

[/edition]

This would save me mucho time!

I vote for the Piped as stated above.

It's been nine months since the last post and no update on this issue? This seems like a no-brainer to me...

I've got a lot of pre-con decks that I kept intact. Importing them via a net-published decklist and then going back and adding editions and qualities is torture.

WesTX wrote:It's been nine months since the last post and no update on this issue? This seems like a no-brainer to me...

I've got a lot of pre-con decks that I kept intact. Importing them via a net-published decklist and then going back and adding editions and qualities is torture.

Hello. This will be part of the next release, although not exactly as described. There is a discussion on it with an alpha screenshot in the Announcement forums.