Big Search

[havok4615]

Hi, i want to make a magic the gathering database, is there a possibilty to filter my search like this?https://www.magickartenmarkt.de/?mainPage=advancedSearch

[Arantor]

What exactly do you want to *search*? The SMF search functionality is for searching boards and so on and can quite happily offer you the choice of searching individual boards.

If you want to build an entire new database to search, you will need to write that from scratch (and speaking as someone who, years ago, did make an MTG database, it's a LOT of work)

[havok4615]

I want my Members to browse for the cards, like "hmm i need a green with this and this" *click* ..searching... done.

[Arantor]

Yeah, and that's going to be entirely custom code from scratch. Or point them at Gatherer (I assume it's still called Gatherer)

You're talking MONTHS of work to compile such a system. I know, I did it once already.

[havok4615]

Oh, okay, i thoug i make a table and give every card an atribut. i didn know that is that hard to code.

[Arantor]

How many thousand cards are there in MTG again?

[havok4615]

Thats not the problem, my buddys will help me, i just the need the functional search form. you "just" have to give me a php/html file with a working search, and tell me how to put the stuff into the database

[Arantor]

There's nothing 'just' about that at all.

It requires sitting down and designing the database for it, across multiple tables to do this stuff properly. It is a HUGE job, and I don't think you appreciate just how big a job it actually is.

[havok4615]

I thought it would be like this:
(look pic in attachment)

and the search engine looks for the stuff that matches.

Btw, is there CMS wich offers this stuff? i saw this search filter stuff in many onlineshops so i thought i could be done with an easy cms.

[Arantor]

Oh, no, no, no, it's not nearly as simple as that.

You have to do so much more to it than that to actually make it searchable in a meaningful fashion. Especially since you have things like split mana costs where you can pay something like 1{W/R} to pay 1 plus either a White or a Red, which believe me is a pain to deal with. Or the card... I think it's in Unhinged... that takes 1 million common to pay. Or the Unglued BFM cards that take 15 Black and both halves of the card to play. Though if you keep Unglued and Unhinged out of it, it's not so bad, just need to deal with the unique quirks of each set including the Planeswalkers.

The problem with having it in the format you're describing is that you absolutely have to have it consistent otherwise it's no good to you at all.

There is no CMS to my knowledge that would support what you want directly, and even if there were you STILL have to build the database and be ABSOLUTELY consistent in how you do it. Please understand I HAVE DONE THIS EXACT THING BEFORE. And I was using scripts to try to bulk import from Gatherer at the time to be more consistent than I could do myself.

[havok4615]

Can you leave me a copy? Would be great.

[Arantor]

No, I can't. Even if I still had a copy - I lost it in a hard drive crash 5 years ago - I wouldn't want to just hand over the result of a number of months work that I made for my *own* site at the time.

Besides what I had was vastly more complex than what you seem to be wanting. If you want people to search for cards, use Gatherer.

[havok4615]

What about this?
http://hex.tcgbrowser.com/
This look way easiert.

[Arantor]

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to bow out of this, it's clear you're just not listening to what I'm saying.