1 Reply by nickh

(18 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

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.

Go to forum: Site Discussion

2 Reply by nickh

(18 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

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.)

Go to forum: Site Discussion

3 Reply by nickh

(4 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

sebi wrote:

Indeed, I have noticed people using decks for their cubes.  We will somehow add an option to mark a deck as a "non-playable deck", so that validity is not calculated, and maybe it will not be shown in the big deck listing either.

That'd be a good way to begin the differentiation. Ideally, if cubes were in their own category in the big deck listing, we cubers could get a lot of ideas from each other, and discussion amongst each other. What do you think about that, sebi?

Go to forum: Site Discussion

4 Reply by nickh

(4 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

#3 above just became a bit more important. deckbox.org actually doesn't consider my cube to be a valid deck:

It is not listed in the decks section and does not count towards the total decks count. A complete MtG deck contains either between 60 and 70 cards or exactly 100 (for EDH)

Go to forum: Site Discussion

5 Topic by nickh

(18 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

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

Go to forum: Site Discussion

6 Topic by nickh

(4 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Hey there, thanks for building and releasing this fantastic site! I've only just begun using it, but it's going to make keeping track of my cube and want-list a heck of a lot easier.

As I just mentioned, I plan on keeping track of my cube in deckbox. To do this, I have a couple of requests  =P

1) At the moment, decks are sorted in several tiers. The first tier is card type, and it doesn't seem like this can be changed. Could we sort decks by type or colour for the first tier? This is important for cubes, because each colour is usually examined by itself, irrespective of the other colours. As you can see in my test cube, it's difficult to get a sense of what's in each colour.

2) Could we have an option to view the mana curve for each colour in a deck in a separate graph? This graph of my test cube is quite hard to read.

3) I understand that the features above are only really useful for cubes; they're not very useful for "normal" decks. It would be cool if we could specify what type of deck the deck is supposed to be (Eg: cube, constructed), and that would influence how the deck's contents are sorted, what stats are displayed, etc.

Thanks again for the site, mate. You're doing a great job!
Nick

Go to forum: Site Discussion