Topic: Deck Idea, Built Deck... how about List?

I like to make lists of cards. Lists of interesting cards, lists of what cards are in which trade binder, lists of what I'm expecting in a shipment, folders of folders of lists. You know the deal. If you don't, come see what I'm talking about in my Encyclopedia folder.

It would be cool if deckbox offered a generic "List" deck type in addition to the already existing "Deck Idea" and "Built Deck" types. How's that sound?

Cards in such a List should not count in the "# used in all decks" count shown on inventory/card screens, though the individual Lists they are in would still appear on the left in the card detail view. Lists should not affect trade in any way, since that's just a list, not a real or proposed deck.

Power users would really appreciate this!

Re: Deck Idea, Built Deck... how about List?

Yep, this was a long time request, for years now, and I do want to get to some kind of solution. I had various plans, including having a "tagging" system for inventories and wishlists, which helps mostly when the list you are making is a 'conceptual' subset of the cards you own, or want. (i.e. the "trade binder" is a subset of your inventory, and "cards you want because they have nice drawings" are a subset of your wishlist).

I think that would solve most of your requirements, correct?

Re: Deck Idea, Built Deck... how about List?

I have a lot of uses for lists other than cards I own/want to own/expect to receive/have in a binder. I'm also putting together lists of cards that make up various archetypes, or do various things, that my friends and I can use for researching before we brew. For example, I have all the banlists as "Decks" and have been researching mana fixing options as "Decks" and both of those should be "Lists" instead.

So to that end, having a list is more immediately useful than a tagging system unless you can tag cards which aren't in your inventory, and have your own personal tags appear inline and be organized in folders in the tree on the left. It seems like the infrastructure may already be present to add a new type of Deck so I figured I'd ask about that. Tags definitely seem like an elegant solution code-wise but the user experience design has to be good to support it. Maybe both ideas have their place here.

Re: Deck Idea, Built Deck... how about List?

djdanlib wrote:

So to that end, having a list is more immediately useful than a tagging system [...]

The problem is that if you want to mark things you have in a trade binder, you don't really want to use a separate list, since you *do* want to trade those cards presumably. Which means they do need to be in your tradelist so that everything else works ... (trade matching and trade finder, autocompleter from the trade page, intersection with other users, etc).

Re: Deck Idea, Built Deck... how about List?

We both agree that tags are a more elegant solution. How about this then, I'll propose this idea:

You could have two types of tags, Storage and List. A user can define a tag and it appears in the tree on the left with the decks and can be put into the folders with Decks. The tag has properties like Type, Privacy and Label. Maybe color-code cyan/orange based on type, so most colorblind people can still differentiate them. Tags would not need a "quantity" field associated with them, that seems like a function for a Deck.

In most card tables you would need a column and/or View type to show which Storage-type tags are associated with that card.  In normal view, there could be a Number of Storage Tags column next to the inventory counts, so the user could know to click a card and find out which trade binder or storage box it's in. An Edit button would be useful here. In Storage view, the cards could be separated into different tables by storage tags, with multi-tagged cards appearing in all associated tables.

If a tag was clicked, you would go to a view similar to the current Deck view, where see a table and you can add and remove cards from that tag. That's one way you could add cards to a tag without putting them in your inventory. You would also be able to click Edit in other views and add them to a tag. The Actions when you select cards in inventory/full DB views would let you add them to your tags just like you do with decks.

Thoughts worth pursuing maybe? I'm as interested in the ideal design as you are, since I'd be using it. But I work on software, so I also know shelving an idea until you have the perfect version of it means that it never happens. I'd be happy with something that covers the bases even if it's a little clunky at first.

Last edited by djdanlib (2016-04-05 14:11:16)