[Nick Snels]

Hi,

last week I had the idea to build a program which allows you to manage, share and expand your sword collection. I liked the idea so much that in the middle of the night I made a list of all the things I thought would be nice to have in such a program. I have listed them online at http://sword-collecting.blogspot.com/. I would very much value your input on this. Do you think such a program comes in handy? Or does such a program already exists and am I reinventing the wheel? All comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Kind regards,

Nick

[Mike Capanelli]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ninja-Sword-Katana-other-...dZViewItem


It's not compatible with Mac though. From reading your blog I think your on to something more useful and functional so even though it seems someone may have beat you to the punch you can still improve on what seems to be pretty primitive software in my opinion. Don't forget us Mac people when you develop it

[Nathan Robinson]

I've often thought about creating such a system for myArmoury.com. A web-based solution that allows for community-access and sharing is a much more robust solution. The output could very much mimic something like the Collections feature of this very site, but allow items to be added and maintained by the collectors themselves. Doing such a thing would require a large chunk of time that I haven't been able to find so that's why it hasn't been done. This very thing is on my brainstorm list, though.

[Ed Toton]

It is a pretty cool idea. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other programs out there for maintaining collections in general, that aren't specialized around weapons.

I was about to say that the best way, in my mind, to ensure it's cross-platform is to make a web solution. Having something like that as part of myArmoury would be quite cool.

In my case, I scripted something up for my website. It's not a robust system.. no database, just a flat text file with a script that webifies it, tallying things up and placing them in the right category: http://ed.toton.org/weapons/

Glad to hear it's on the wishlist.

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

I've had a somewhat similar reflexion myself... I think many collectors familiar with computer have.

The solution I have right now is a lot less refined, from the interface point of view, than what you propose. My primary goal was to be able to generate statistics about the balance of my weapons, so I created a program that reads a text file with all the measurements, and computes from them a set of numerical properties for each weapon. I can then process the results in statistical analysis software...

I designed the format of the input file so that it is easy to create it by hand. The program handles unit conversions and all that... In the end it's closer to myArmoury's Weapon Comparison Tool than to a collection database browser, maybe.

I think it would be nice, if a general tool is created, to include something allowing for comparisons between weapons. What you want to be able to compare between weapons is a whole subject all by itself... I'm thinking at least visual aspect, dimensions, and balance. And the more visual the better.

Making this an open-source program would be a good idea as well, because I suspect there are quite a few people around these forums that would like to contribute. Ideally, the program should be able to run either on a person's own computer, or as a back-end to a web server. This way, you could choose to either manage your own collection, or share it with the rest of the world...

Interesting idea anyway!

[Nathan Robinson]

It's nice to see that you guys are both stumbling into the same state of mind and approach that I've wanted to take. The intention for this approach was to make every "item" (ie, weapon or object) be in a database. The stats of this item would all be recorded, photographs associated, and other stats saved such as maker, materials, etc. Once all this is in a database, the data can be access many ways such as:

1) Filled into a hands-on review format, both as an official article and as member-submitted versions
2) Filled into the comparison tool
3) Filled into a "Collection Gallery" area
4) Statistically analyzed
5) etc.

A note about number 4: Once data is collected, it can be analyzed, compared, and used as a basis for various calculations. Many conclusions can be made from this data. The larger the data sample grows, the more finished a picture can be drawn.

The core idea for this was to make a "weapons database" similar to the concept proposed by the Oakeshott Institutes's "Sword Documentation Project".