Buy/Sell/Trade website --- web developers please read.

[crabjuice]

I spoke to Derrick and he would like to find a person or team capable of designing a trade website as I previously suggested. It would be required to be written in ASPX or PHP so it can be hosted on Derrick's webserver.

We are looking for a specific format that will be very beneficial to the economy, players, and player interaction. Ideally the site would somewhat follow the format of most retail websites, where you have Categories and sub categories. For example you would have a category of "Resources" with a sub category of "Ingots" and a sub sub category of "Shadow" so it would essentially be:
Resources > Ingots > Shadow

And this would display every player's ingots that are for sale. In addition, a player will have there own "profile." The profile will allow you to enter whatever you have for sale and your contact info, so if you populate the "Shadow Ingots" field with 8904 and specify 10gp each, it would then automatically be placed in that subsubcategory of Shadow ingots for 10gp each. Obviously it would be encouraged that players keep there profiles updated once they have sold or bought something. A player's profile would look something like this:

Name(s):
AIM:
ICQ:
IRC:

Resources
Ingots
Iron: 8238
Shadow: 8904
Dull Copper: 0
Valorite: 1092

Magic Weapons
Swords
(enter sword discription here)
(enter sword discription here)

Macing
(enter mace discription here)

etc etc

We would also want to have the "Magic Weapons" category be searchable that way people can search for "force or power" etc.

I myself have probably about 20 things I would like to sell but don't want to make 20 or more forum posts and keep bumping them. It would be much easier to just have them listed in my profile and see if anyone ever contacts me for them if they are interested.

I am not sure how easy this would be to design but any input or service offered would be greatly appreciated from the community and Derrick.

[fooka03]

what databases are available/required (MSSQL, MYSQL, Oracle)?

look and feel requirements, same as forum?

search functionality, tiered drop-downs for category, sub-category, and item? or something else?

coexistance with main-page/forums. utilize same cookies or have a separate login and profile.

if we use the same cookies then this type of functionality can be piggy-backed onto the forums and the user profiles here. there would just be a new look to the members page to add in the search function.

the more info i have to work with the easier it is for me to design and the more it will be closer to what you're looking for.

[crabjuice]

what databases are available/required (MSSQL, MYSQL, Oracle)?

Derrick will have to answer this for you.

look and feel requirements, same as forum?

That should be fine

search functionality, tiered drop-downs for category, sub-category, and item? or something else?

Tiered drop downs could work or even like most retail sites have it like links on the left, for example:
Resources ---> Ingots ---> Shadow

whereas each word is a link, so you could just click on Ingots and go back to that sub category.

coexistance with main-page/forums. utilize same cookies or have a separate login and profile.

if we use the same cookies then this type of functionality can be piggy-backed onto the forums and the user profiles here. there would just be a new look to the members page to add in the search function.

Sounds like the best way to handle it.


More info....
A buying section as well as selling section in profile. A misc section and rare section where people can just type in discriptions of things since that aren't common.

Let me know what else you need....

[Maahes]

coexistance with main-page/forums. utilize same cookies or have a separate login and profile.

if we use the same cookies then this type of functionality can be piggy-backed onto the forums and the user profiles here. there would just be a new look to the members page to add in the search function.

the more info i have to work with the easier it is for me to design and the more it will be closer to what you're looking for.

I think your account sharing idea between forum and the new site would be very cool if possible to achieve.

I've started messing around with a script called noahs classifieds, very impressed with it so far, so if anyone is gonna do work on this i strongly suggest it.

I will keep playing around with this idea: http://naivlys.com/noah/

Thoughts? Ideas?

[fooka03]

I need answers to the database question and as to if this should be a separate site or added to the forums. Once I know those things I can start work.

[Edit]That script can be used for a separate page approach. However if we're attaching it to the forums, and by that I mean integration not just account details, it'll require a lot more work than the good it will accomplish.

The simplest approach is to just work this system into the current forums. Less server overhead, improved ease of use, familiar look and feel. All of these things will add up to more use by the gen pop.

[Maahes]

I need answers to the database question and as to if this should be a separate site or added to the forums. Once I know those things I can start work.

[Edit]That script can be used for a separate page approach. However if we're attaching it to the forums, and by that I mean integration not just account details, it'll require a lot more work than the good it will accomplish.

The simplest approach is to just work this system into the current forums. Less server overhead, improved ease of use, familiar look and feel. All of these things will add up to more use by the gen pop.

I agree, if you can integrate a system that would work withing the forums, then by all means go for it. Derrick has confirmed that he has MySQL, .net and php installed on his web server.

[fooka03]

Alrighty, that's good enough for me to start.

To finish tho I will need to know what other plugins there are on the board to check if there's anything I'll need to work around.

[fooka03]

a side effect of doing development with this is a near-complete item catalog for the shard. to later improve this i would like to have a standardized image set for all of the items. to start this off I ask that people who have rare/CUB items to please email me screenshots of these items.

Critera for submission:

Desktop resolution set to 1024x768
The item in question is shown as a single piece (if stackable then only one of that item)
The item is centered within an empty backpack
The item's name is displayed without the cursor obscuring the item or the backpack
The image is saved as a PNG file and attached to an email with the subject "UO Screenshot" with the item name as the message body.
The image can either be a fullscreen SS or just the backpack area. If you are cropping the image please leave some extra space around the backpack to make it easier for me to work with later.

my email address is fooka03 (at) hotmail.com

These efforts will greatly assist the rares database project as well as the trading project. Your help is greatly appreciated towards making this a better shard.

[Anderthorpe]

Rather than cropping a bunch of screenshots, you can just get the graphics from the client files. The .mul formats are well documented if you run a search and you could just whip up some kind of script to build a database of individual images in an accessible format. That's just for the images, though. You'd need to associate the images with items yourself.

[fooka03]

Yes, I could do that. But that would be cheating. I had planned on doing that for the regular commodities but for the rares this is the best way to handle it. Besides, someone wants the players to do their own work on the rares. I'm just helping you guys catalog what is found

[fooka03]

Ok quick update.

I've found all of the items I need to add code-wise to the forums to implement this. I also have the basic SQL actions I need to do down.

Next step is to figure out how to add it into the existing forum structure without everything going haywire. The pages that will be changing are the View Profile, Edit Profile, and the Members page. The member search function will also be adjusted to allow for searching by item.

Edit Profile Changes:

At the bottom there will be a select field showing current items displayed. Next to/below this area will be a delete button. Selecting an item and clicking the delete button will remove it from your displayed list.

Below this will be an "Add New Item" area. This will include 4 drop down menus, a numerical field, and an "Add Item" button. The drop down menus will be Purpose (Buy, Sell, or Trade), Category (the category of the item you want to add, i.e. Resources), Sub-Category (the sub-category of the item, i.e. ingots), and Item (the actual Item, i.e. Verite Ingots). The Category, Sub-Category, and Item menus will be dependent on each other. This means that the Sub-Category menu will only populate when a category is chosen, and Item only when a sub-category is selected. Changing the Category will clear the other two menus. The numerical field will be for quantity and will default to '1'. The add item button will only work when a selection is made in each drop-down.

Members Changes:

The only change to this page will be the addition of 4 drop-downs (as described above) and an additional search button. The search button will only work when a selection is made in each drop-down.

View Profile Change:

At the bottom of the view profile page a select field showing all of the items the user has placed on their list. There is no other functionality beyond displaying the 5 relevant fields (Buy/Sell/Trade, Category, Sub-Category, Item, Quantity)

Projected limitations:

No link to item pictures, but that will be included later on. 10 max items in a user's list, this will not change as each item requires 5 additional fields within the USER table in the forum database. No ability to re-order the results page or the item display fields, this may change depending on the interaction with the current forum code.

Projected completion date:

1/4/09

[crabjuice]

Very impressive. I can't thank you enough for all this work you have contributed. I'm sure the community will be very appreciative.

[fooka03]

Update:

The max items will be 50. Anything higher than that will start running into the limitations of the database. There will be a new table added to the database, indexed on user id, to handle just the items. This way it should not interfere with any future modifications to the board.

[BlackFoot]

amazing