

Magic: The Gathering card search "startup" - blinks
http://mtgcauldron.com/

======
trickjarrett
Well this is something I feel extremely qualified to comment on. Since I do a
Magic the Gathering podcast/site at <http://www.mananation.com>

You're getting into a very cramped space. You're competing with the game maker
who has a card search, card vendors have search, some better than others, and
then there are the other outlets which provide card search.

Right now, your search is extremely limited and the results are underwhelming.

The UI needs a lot of work. It looks like the site fails to load with the
search at the top and a banner under it. There's nothing on the default page.
Secondly, aside from the domain, there's no Magic the gathering symbols or
graphics.

Your search results need card images, and it needs information which makes me
need to use your database. Why shouldn't I go to Gatherer.wizards.com or
MagicCards.info?

~~~
blinks
I'm indeed grateful for the criticism. I know of Gatherer, and can't stand it.
I've used Essential Magic for some time, but it's slow and clunky.
MagicCards.info is also good, but limited in its one-box search.

I built Cauldron as a sort-of Google for Magic. Because of this, all the power
is in the search box. It can do all the searches that any other application
can do, and has all cards, so I'm not sure what you mean by "limited" and
"underwhelming." Perhaps an example?

I've been focusing on the backend, mostly, and I concur with the UI complaint
-- I'm working on a module where I can start getting articles up on the front
page, but for now, there's nothing there because nothing needs to be -- I'm
not selling anything, etc.

The cards themselves currently link to the MagicCards.info card detail site as
a stop-gap. I plan to get that information, as well as the kinds of
information in Essential Magic, to make my own card detail pages.

As I say, my only excuse is that right now it's set up purely as a card search
site -- by the way, did you see <http://mtgcauldron.com/help/> ?

~~~
trickjarrett
I hadn't seen the help page. That info needs to be on the frontpage, otherwise
a new viewer has no idea how your search works. There's no intuitiveness to
your search system. That's not a dish, it's an observation.

If you want to email me for more feedback or if you'd like to discuss ideas,
trickXmananation.com (X=@)

------
andrewljohnson
I don't think you're in the same ballpark as the standard bearers.

There's WOTC themselves: <http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/index.aspx>?

And these guys have a pretty good search too:
<http://magiccards.info/query/cards/3529389.html>

No need for another wheel, especially a square one.

~~~
blinks
Could you give some useful criticism? I know of both these searches, and I'm
not a fan of the "let a thousand input-boxes bloom" search mentality.

This search is just as powerful (if not more) as these two, if you search for
what you're thinking about. See <http://mtgcauldron.com/help/> for examples.

~~~
andrewljohnson
Your help page throws an error.

~~~
blinks
Yeah, sorry about that -- working to fix some of the criticisms here and
caused errors for a while. Should be ok now.

Also, I think I'll need to move the help to the front page. Something to work
on this weekend. Thanks again for taking a look.

------
thorax
Make your engine search-as-you-type and you're onto something. Don't hide your
searchbox up on the top right-- I couldn't find it on my wide screen.

Seemed fine enough once I started getting results, but I'd center/leftify the
search box and make it search-as-you-type because you're filtering on a known
set of data.

~~~
blinks
Search-as-you-type would indeed be good for prefix data, but the search box
itself checks quite a bit -- one-word searches are regularly in the 1,000-card
range. I'll look into it, though; I agree that it would improve things.

My UI is terrible, I know. "Leftify" is a great term, btw. Do you think it's
visible enough from the header, or should I move it down?

As for "known set of data," the query language is a full, SQL-like language
(including compiler to SQL). This is another issue with the search-as-you-
type, but compiling an 80-character (ish) search and getting a few results
back should be quick and easy, so I'll see what I can do.

Also, did you notice the sorting option, or was it too hidden?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Doing an autocomplete for that is no problem. Just use YUI autocomplete and
set up a remote JSON data source.

That's what we do, and we have millions of names to complete:
<http://www.trailbehind.com>

Here's the YUI library: <http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/autocomplete/>

I can send you the code for my autocomplete widget if you want. Email me at
andrewljonson [at] trailbehind [dot] com

~~~
blinks
Thanks for the link -- I'll take a look. It'll be much more useful when I have
dedicated card pages.

