T-Minis App

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I've been tinkering around coding an app to track our Minis collection and to make sure I don't buy doubles at the store. If you have an android I'd love some feedback on the alpha version. I still need to take more photos and create a tutorial. I'll start on the iPhone version in the new year. Let me know what you think.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...air.tMinis
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  • Nigels, Pablo392, Super, YALLLOW
(12-30-2016, 02:11 PM)dwightepp Wrote: I've been tinkering around coding an app to track our Minis collection and to make sure I don't buy doubles at the store. If you have an android I'd love some feedback on the alpha version. I still need to take more photos and create a tutorial. I'll start on the iPhone version in the new year. Let me know what you think.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...air.tMinis

Awesome idea. While I do not collect minis I love the thought of an app to track the collection. I would love to see an app for Blue Plastic Tracks, that would be great. I should add that to the suggestion box. Big Grin
I see that at least some of the pictures you're using are the ones I took for my website. I imagine it would be a nice feature for users if you'd include a way to import into your app the bitmask produced from the 'share' link (or register as a receiver: clicking that link on Chrome 55 and later on Android will open the native sharing dialog) and be able to export the same link back out.

Also, just FYI, there's another Android app and someone was working on an iOS app a few months ago but I don't think it ever materialized.
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  • YALLLOW
Yes, I found your site through my research. I was very impressed with what you did and wanted a phone friendly version. How does your bitmask link work? In my quick search this is all I could find. http://revisual.co.uk/tag/bit-mask/ My coding is all self-taught so you'll have to bear with me a bit. I have a script for a base64 encode and was planning on doing that for the string of data that I save. T-Minis also tracks which ones you want so there are 2 separate Boolean values per mini. Is that something you're thinking about adding?

(12-30-2016, 05:57 PM)drewbenn Wrote: I see that at least some of the pictures you're using are the ones I took for my website. I imagine it would be a nice feature for users if you'd include a way to import into your app the bitmask produced from the 'share' link (or register as a receiver: clicking that link on Chrome 55 and later on Android will open the native sharing dialog) and be able to export the same link back out.

Also, just FYI, there's another Android app and someone was working on an iOS app a few months ago but I don't think it ever materialized.
Yep, those are the basics. The first engine is 0x0001, the second is 0x0002, the third is 0x0004, and so on. So a value like '351' would be:


. 111
. 2109 8765 4321 <-- engine number
3 0011 .... ....
5 .... 0101 ....
1 .... .... 0001

or the 1st, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th engines. You can just play around on the site yourself to see that, e.g. change the URL to '.../?name=share&wave1=0x351' and see which engines are checked (be sure to view source, too, there are 'DONOTDISPLAY' engines or sets that have been removed from some sets, that are still counted in the bitmasks but not shown, that you'll have to account for in import/export functions).

Base64 is only for moving binary data over ascii-only transmission channels; there shouldn't be any need for you to use it inside your app. If I was moving data between phones I'd do it as a binary attachment (but think about how you're going to preserve data when moving between versions: you don't want someone to lose part of their checklist in the future because they copied data from a phone that supported 2017/4 to one that didn't!).

I have some ideas percolating about supporting multiple lists (of which 'want' could be one) but haven't gotten around to it (honestly I always assumed if someone wanted a Wantlist with my site they'd just check the ones they wanted and leave the rest unchecked).

Oh and for what it's worth, about 75-80% of my visitors use mobile devices.

(12-30-2016, 02:15 PM)ripley802 Wrote: I would love to see an app for Blue Plastic Tracks, that would be great. I should add that to the suggestion box. Big Grin

Probably something like http://www.forumrunner.net/?p=faq which already integrates with MyBB would be easiest.
(This post was last modified: 12-30-2016, 07:09 PM by drewbenn.)
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  • ripley802
I think I have it working. Right now it's generating this format as a link.

https://mini.ixbyix.com/?name=share&wave...ave1=20001

I was going to add a link out to your site in the menu, what would you like me to call it? Also do you have referral tracking code you'd like me to implement?

I'm still looking into how to pull your info in to populate the app. I couldn't see how to register as a receiver?

(12-30-2016, 06:48 PM)drewbenn Wrote: Yep, those are the basics. The first engine is 0x0001, the second is 0x0002, the third is 0x0004, and so on. So a value like '351' would be:


. 111
. 2109 8765 4321 <-- engine number
3 0011 .... ....
5 .... 0101 ....
1 .... .... 0001

or the 1st, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th engines. You can just play around on the site yourself to see that, e.g. change the URL to '.../?name=share&wave1=0x351' and see which engines are checked (be sure to view source, too, there are 'DONOTDISPLAY' engines or sets that have been removed from some sets, that are still counted in the bitmasks but not shown, that you'll have to account for in import/export functions).

Base64 is only for moving binary data over ascii-only transmission channels; there shouldn't be any need for you to use it inside your app. If I was moving data between phones I'd do it as a binary attachment (but think about how you're going to preserve data when moving between versions: you don't want someone to lose part of their checklist in the future because they copied data from a phone that supported 2017/4 to one that didn't!).

I have some ideas percolating about supporting multiple lists (of which 'want' could be one) but haven't gotten around to it (honestly I always assumed if someone wanted a Wantlist with my site they'd just check the ones they wanted and leave the rest unchecked).

Oh and for what it's worth, about 75-80% of my visitors use mobile devices.


Probably something like http://www.forumrunner.net/?p=faq which already integrates with MyBB would be easiest.
I think this is how you'd register to receive the data: https://developer.android.com/training/s...ceive.html (and remember, it only works right now with Chrome 55 and later on Android, which I think is currently the Beta version (seems to be used by a few tens of users per day). So you'd need to visit my site with that browser and then click on the Share link at the top, and you should get a popup of a list of applications (email, etc.)... if it's not working let me know and I'll play with it). I assume it will come in as mimetype text/plain (I implemented this: https://developers.google.com/web/update...ator-share ), though I'm not really positive, and will have both a title and text in addition to the url (you can look at the 'function M()' in mini.js to see what it actually sets).

The other way to import would be to let someone copy and paste a link into a text field, and parse that (generally, you could just look for the existence of 'name=share&' and take everything after that token). That's obviously more clicks for the user but supports more use cases (like moving their checklist from a desktop computer's browser). If you have good ideas about how to smooth the export process from my end, I'm listening; a copy-and-paste link is the best and most-foolproof method I've been able to come up with but it's certainly a little cumbersome.

'mini.ixbyix.com' is probably the only good unique name to use to identify my site, if you add an export link. No need for any sort of referral tracking code (you could use any sort of nonsense parameter, and the javascript would just ignore it, but I'm not planning on doing anything to look for that so it would just be silently ignored).
I've been working hard on this updating the Android and building the iPhone. Good news iPhone version of the T-Minis app now available. This is my first app for the iPhone so let me know if you see any bugs. Thanks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/t-minis/id1202360649
Android also available here
https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...air.tMinis
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Dwight, thanks for working on an app for us Mini collectors, it looks great.
Drewbenn's website has been a life saver and without that page I don't think most of us would be able to continue collecting minis.

I don't know how everyone is sorting their collection, for example sorting them boxes, I write the box # on an ixbyix printout. So you can see that with that method we would have to rewrite the box numbers and little notes I have once there is a major change (like a new series, new packs, etc).

So I was thinking of using Drewbenn's website and put the data in an sql or simple excel database, and then use a simple script in another site or even on my local computer and have the notes stay with the database after each change. Having a dynamic sql or excel would help with searches or filters. I worked with access in the past, but if either one of you are working on getting site and app to talk to each other, it would be great if that data could be used to feed an access or sql db. Drewbenn, can the same method you posted above be used to receive simple data in csv or xml format?
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  • ripley802
Just thought of something else, in the app, can you allow a custom field so we can put a note like a "LOCATION".
I think it's getting out of hand, my collection is getting hard to keep up with the locations of each train, the "Box # 1, 12 etc" is going to get more confusing, but if a collector can put "location" tag to each engine in the app, that could be extremely helpful. Since it can be called "Location" the collector can say "drawer 3, box 4" etc.. if needed as well.
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