Hi all...I'm looking to develop a plugin I'd call "Collection". This would allow a database to be populated with (for instance) trading cards. I could show all available trading cards in a series on my site. There would be a whole Trading Cards section in fact. Then, when logged-in users were browsing and they stumbled across cards they had, they could "Add this to My Collection". That would show up on their personal Collection page. Also, if they stumbled across a card they really wanted, they could "Add to My Wishlist", which would give them a list they could print out and take to a Card show. It might even give people the ability to add cards that I didn't know existed.

This would be a flexible plugin, and allow the webmaster to define fields to allow any sort of collection to be dealt with in the same way...Books, Comics, Games, Auto Parts, Toys, etc. There would also be Categories, fully customizable by the webmaster. Multiple collections could also live on one site, you could have a site that had a collection of socks and shoes. They'd be independent of each other (although they'd live in the same tables of course).

So...here's my issue...I can create all of the U/I, any graphics and write tons and tons of psuedo code. I can create screenshots to illustrate the way it should work. I can even create the data schema, but my actual coding skills are a little light.

Anyone want to help out on this one? Please let me know!

Thanks,

Scott

This is a really solid idea for a plugin. I too have the need for a database of items ( in your example trading cards) where site users can contribute to the existing database. Seems that you have a pretty good handle on the design phase as well.

As far as my coding skills in PHP go, I stll have the training wheels on. I've done tons of development work and I am very proficient in SQL and have done lots of VB coding. Although I have many years experience in multiple programming lanquages, I am still learning PHP.

I have my site up and running, and have done some hacking, taking others plugins and making them work. I have briefly looked at the plugin docs, so I know that it is doable. Just a question of how long.

I'm up for trying to get this moving, yet I still don't know if my skills are strong enough to get it flying quickly. I'm sure that others will find a collection plugin useful, and hopefully you will get more interest.

Regards,
Henry

Hi Henry!

Glad to hear the positive words. Tell you what, give me some time and I'll work up some mock-ed up screen shots and logic. Then we'll see what we can do!

I'm out of town next week, so to be honest it won't be for about 3 weeks at the soonest. But I'm still brainstorming here.

Had a new idea today, the two buttons on each item will be labelled "Need it" and "Got it". heheh

Scott

(p.s. my actual use for this will be Vintage VW toys, but I figured trading cards is a more universal sample!)

I would love something like this for my site.

I have no php coding experience but would be willing to be a tester. I have a couple gl's and a test bed so I can try out pretty much anything without worrying about breaking my site. Plus my comic and toy collection would go well with a plug in like this.

So, if it worked out, could we get a quote from you like... "Best. Plugin. Ever."

Yeah, comics and toys would be PERFECT for what I'm thinking. I also want it to have a couple of custom fields so you could add stuff like "Condition", "Artist", "Writer", etc in the comics, and for toys you could add stuff like "Company", "Date Released", etc...

Also, I want to allow for multiple photos to be uploaded for each item. So you could show a toy solo from the front, profile, back and maybe in a diarama or something. Comics, you could show the front cover, the back cover and maybe a couple pages in the middle!

I'm going to try and do some work on this over the next couple of weeks. I may try and hack another module that can serve as a base for development.

I think that the plugin can be made generic enough that any 'collection' of items could be handled, whether it is comics or toys. My use would be more mundane that those, so I would try and insure that there was enough flexibility in its use.

I like the idea of multiple images per item, as this would allow several views of a database entry.

I'm looking to try and hack one of the photo album type projects, as I think that adding some more fields to the basic database structure would lend itself to this plugin. I'm fuzzy on how to do it right now, but I plan on starting to look at it this weekend.

Regards,
Henry