The redesigned Brickset site

plasmodium · February 2014

Yup, staying logged in. Once again, thanks for all the hard work you put in!

LegobrandonCP · February 2014

Is it possible for the forum link on the homepage to take me to "all discussions" view on the forum? I'm signed in on the main site.

ricecake · February 2014

Hi, I am having an issue with the news and activity RSS feed. It seems that the links to the new Star Wars sets added to the database are returning 404 errors, probably because of the angle brackets around Star Wars (to try and make them italics). The link that the RSS feed is trying to take me to is:

http://www.brickset.com/sets/850996-1/LEGO%C2%AE-%3Ci%3EStar-Wars%3C-i%3E-Darth-Vader-Key-Chain

EDIT: on here, it seems like it converts the % 3C and % 3E to angle brackets, so I've put it in a code block to hopefully try to preserve the link verbatim.

EDIT2: It did not work, it converted them in the code block as well.

Huw · February 2014

Thanks -- I'll get them tidied up. It happens when new sets are found in LEGO's activity feed which, as you can tell, contain some right dodgy characters.

The article titles were truncated, too, weren't they. I'll try and get the code sorted so it works better next time new sets are found.

iso3200 · February 2014

Favicon seems to have disappeared. Got two red lines (parallels?) instead of bricks.

masterX244 · February 2014

same for me @iso3200 and its the paralells icon as far as i know

Huw · February 2014

That'll be because of Cloudflare caching it. I'll edit the proper one this week and upload with Friday's updates so that should cause CF to start serving the proper one again.

plasmodium · February 2014

Speaking of the little icons in the tabs, I never get a 'Brickset' icon for forum tabs, just a generic white square sort of thing. Is that normal? (It's been that way for as long as I can remember though, now that I think of it)

For the main site I get the Parallels icon in Widows and the proper Brickset on Ubuntu.

ricecake · February 2014

Huw said:
Thanks -- I'll get them tidied up. It happens when new sets are found in LEGO's activity feed which, as you can tell, contain some right dodgy characters.

The article titles were truncated, too, weren't they. I'll try and get the code sorted so it works better next time new sets are found.

Thanks, the links all work great now. The titles are still being truncated, but since the links work, I think that's the most important thing. Thanks for the great site! :)

TheLoneTensor · February 2014

Any chance the forum can have the "search brickset sets" text field back? I really, really, really, really, really, really miss it.

plasmodium · February 2014

^Ditto. I literally just realised there was only the one (forum) search box today. I don't use either much, but when I did, I definitely used the Brickset box more than the Forum one.

Borgata · February 2014

I see the old favicon has been restored!
Great thing, my brickset's link in the bookmarks seems so "anonymous" before!

TheLoneTensor · February 2014

TheLoneTensor said:
Any chance the forum can have the "search brickset sets" text field back? I really, really, really, really, really, really miss it.

So...any chance of this happening?

Huw · March 2014

If I can work out where to put it without it interfering with the forum search, yes.

margot · March 2014

Routinely having to log back in to the forum from my desktop today.

flowerpotgirl · March 2014

^ yes It is not keeping me logged in either.

ricecake · March 2014

I got the sign in page a few times when clicking on some links, but if I just clicked "Back" and then on the link again, I would be signed in again.

Si_UKNZ · March 2014

I've been using the new design for a whlie now, and having seen the previews (which I had concerns about) I've been holding back from giving my feedback until the bugs had been ironed and I'd been using it a bit.

Background .. I know a fair bit about interface design and use touch screen devices 100% of the time.

Overall, I find this really painful to use for 3 reasons
(1) Scale - the whole thing is too big. hardly anything fits on my (usually spacious) screen. The whole site is scaled about 15-30% too big.
(2) Wasted real estate - combined with the above, this really does my head in. On a 1366x768 screen, on a set listings page, you can't even see the first item! That really shouldn't happen these days.
(3) Lack of balance - on many screens everything is shouting, and the readability really suffers as a result. Trying to visually scan set names in a list of sets is an obstacle course of big bold icons and things everywhere, the cognitive load is much higher on many pages for no good reason.

Overall, it looks better and is more functional but much of it is worse to use. Just the scale issue alone would swing this.

Anyway, just my 2c, I know Im probably p--ing in the wind :)

Huw · March 2014

Thanks Simon for your comments :)

Thankfully, I think you are in a minority: I believe the consensus is that the design works well. There's been a vast increase in the rate at which new users are joining since it launched which I think corroborates this.

1. I thought the scale was too large as well to start with, particularly on a widescreen desktop but after having used it for months now, I don't think that's the case at all.

2. The set listing page can be switched to 'classic view' if you don't like the larger layout

3. There's aren't any 'big bold icons' on any pages that I'm aware of. To which page do you refer?

Si_UKNZ · March 2014

Set listing pages for example have icons everywhere and relative weights are all over the place.

Exactly, I'm expecting that I'm in the minority on any chosen design commitee and certainly don't expect any change at this point in time of course .. Just felt a responsibility to lodge my feedback because one day this design too will get a refresh.

Huw · March 2014

Are you viewing a different page to the rest of us? There are no icons on the set listings pages, just set thumbnails as far as I can see.

graphite · March 2014

Huw said:
If I can work out where to put it without it interfering with the forum search, yes.

What was wrong with the way it was before with the set search where the forum search is now and the forum search at the top of the right side column within the "white" portion of the page?

Si_UKNZ · March 2014

^^ maybe it just changed :)
Certainly the weights look different now.

Huw · March 2014

OK, cool, maybe you had a cached stylesheet or something.

weevin · March 2014

Would it be possible to add functionality to the forums to have a pop-up show up when you hover over a linked LEGO set? I'm picturing something like www.wowhead.com (World of Warcraft items) when you hover over a link for an item, it shows you the details of the item without having to click through to see exactly what it is. It would be awesome when someone linked an item ( #10197 ) if the title of the set (Fire Brigade) and the main picture from the database, and any other information desired showed up temporarily during mouseover.

Thanks a bunch!

Huw · March 2014

What, like this? Install the IE accelerator :)

Matthew · March 2014

Some of us prefer to use a half-decent browser @Huw ;o)

CapnRex101 · March 2014

^ Totally off topic, but good for a laugh:

Don't worry Bing, I am sure it is all meant in good humour...

jonboy2000 · November 2015

Not sure if this is the place to post this. I've been having problems with the main sire recently and can't work out what's wrong. When I start tying the set name in the search is doesn't show me a list of options that narrows the more I type. When I hover over the tabs i.e Forum it doesn't give me the drop down options. When I look at a set page I just get the set name and the info box on the right. No set picture, tabs at the top i.e minifigures and no tabs at the bottom i.e instructions. This only happens on chrome but not internet explorer? Any help would be appreciated.

Aleydita · November 2015

jonboy2000 said:

Not sure if this is the place to post this. I've been having problems with the main sire recently and can't work out what's wrong. When I start tying the set name in the search is doesn't show me a list of options that narrows the more I type. When I hover over the tabs i.e Forum it doesn't give me the drop down options. When I look at a set page I just get the set name and the info box on the right. No set picture, tabs at the top i.e minifigures and no tabs at the bottom i.e instructions. This only happens on chrome but not internet explorer? Any help would be appreciated.

Could be a cached corrupt JavaScript file.

Huw · November 2015

Yes it sounds like a JavaScript problem. Have you disabled it?

Athos · November 2015

I really am not liking the bricklink "sales" coming up on the sales page. A lot of what is listed there are incomplete sets or only the instructions. So you have to wade through a bunch of 90% off sales, which are really just instructions to find what you are looking for. I really liked being able to see what Walmart, Amazon and Target had all together, but the bricklink sales are making a mess.

Paperballpark · November 2015

Erm, @Athos, you do realise that this thread is about the redesigned Brickset website, not the redesign of the Bricklink website? Bricklink is completely separate to Brickset.

Huw · November 2015

Pulling in data from BrickLink is a new thing that I've been working on. More functionality will go live tomorrow.

However, from my initial observations I agree that the data in the BrickLink feed is a bit messy. For example, items marked as new and sealed are sometimes just separately bagged sub-sets from a larger set which is not ideal.

While the system is bedding in I'll be working with BrickLink to try and resolve issues such as this.

CCC · November 2015

Although it is a little messy, it is very useful to be able to compare BL and amazon prices together. I hope it doesn't disappear.

Paperballpark · November 2015

Well, don't I feel a fool now! :P

SMC · November 2015

I just had a look after reading this and bricklink has been added which is good for things on your wanted list that are not sold anymore. When you chick though it takes you to a search with 'Condition' set as 'New' but if you chick into this you can see that 'Sealed' 'Complete' and 'Incomplete' are all selected so taking off 'Incomplete' should solve the problem (how this is done from the brickset side I will leave to Huw). Another great new feature, thanks.

Huw · November 2015

^ That's the theory, but I think it depends how the vendor lists the items.

The Crooks Hideout, for example, the one with the highest discount in the UK, appears even if you filter to show just new and sealed: http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?view=buy&S=60068-1#T=S&O={"cond":"N","ii":0,"ic":0,"loc":"UK"}

Which might be valid given the actual polybag it's in may well be but it's certainly not what a buyer of the set would expect.

CCC · November 2015

That's because the seller is not really telling the truth. Although the bag is sealed, the set isn't.

SMC · November 2015

^ I would agree, there is not a lot you can do about people listing things incorrectly. It will also mess with bricklinks sold prices, maybe its something you can bring up with them. I also would never really think of using bricklink in the say way as Argos of Toys R Us so a % off list is less useful than it would be for normal shops.

SMC · November 2015

But having a base price for older items is very helpful.

Shib · November 2015

+1 for wanting to remove/hide bricklink from the list of vendors, it's really not the same (seeing as you have to factor in shipping/minimum order/condition/Seller feedback etc)

CCC · November 2015

The same could be said of ebay in many cases.

Shib · November 2015

yes, but eBay doesn't show up in the View Discounts in the UK section - Bricklink doesn't compare like the other shops there.

tecjam · November 2015

Any chance you could disable the Cookie Notice Script for logged in users?
It keeps covering the 'back to top' button and I didn't think it was necessary for members (maybe update the t&c?).

Huw · November 2015

In theory once you've dismissed it should save a cookie (oh, the irony...) and not trouble you again. What browser are you using?

tecjam · November 2015

Yes the functionality is there and it does work once you click it, I just like to avoid extra clicks. =)

On the ebay site for example, the cookie notice is more irritating as it pushes down the entire page, but once you've logged in, it doesn't bother you, so I don't click it as I always browse logged in anyway.
I was just wondering if this was possible here as I do not see any reason to display it for registered users ( as far as my legal knowledge goes anyway).

Huw · November 2015

I guess it could be hidden easily enough once you're logged in. Leave it with me...

Bricklover18 · November 2015

Did you happen to switch servers, the mobile site is different, but I like it. Good job!

Paperballpark · November 2015

Yeah I've noticed the mobile site is very different. Not going to have chance to go on the full site until friday though, to see whether that's changed too.

The redesigned Brickset site

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