Help with Brickstore or alternative software suggestions please

[Plumber]

I have a large project on the go and build sections in Studio,  not being the sharpest tool in the box I often make daft mistakes in Studio which just don't work in real bricks, so I design in Studio then build IRL to check, then modify the Studio model with any alterations needed (often multiple cycles)

These 'check builds can be done with any bricks I already have regardless of colour so I can make alterations before making BL orders that turn out un-needed

I recently spent some considerable time and effort to catalogue all my parts into a Brickstore database along with their locations in a new storage system.

The idea of the database was that I would down/upload the Studio model parts list into Brickstore and compare the uploaded model list with parts in main inventory to show if I have the parts needed in any colour and to have the locations (comments and remarks).

So tried this for first time today and it seems that Brickstore is not capable of this colour agnostic manoeuvre  It seems that if a field is not in the 'Edit/Copy Values...' dialogue then its value MUST be a match.

I can get parts quantities on hand and quantities short for order but only if all fields of the part record match i.e. colour (as well as status, condition etc). It seems my only option is to make a copy of my inventory and set both files with all parts colour N/A gives me locations for picking but no quantities on hand/needed which I would have to note down as picking or run a separate data merge from start.

So is it me? I'm not very IT literate so am hoping I've missed something obvious?

I imagined many people would check build in colour vomit before committing to large BL orders and therefore do something akin to what I am trying?

Assuming Brickstore cannot do this for me is there another way?  Can it be done in Bricklink? In conjunction with BL? I'm not a seller but I do have a 'closed' store as it seems to be the only way to obtain a key for BL/BS synchronisation.

 

 

 

[JesseNight]

I have never used BrickStore myself so I can't say much about it. Personally I find the Rebrickable website pretty convenient to catalogue my stuff simply by adding all the sets I own. It has a good comparing tool too, intended for people to see what they're missing to build custom MOCs but it can be used to compare any sets, MOCs, or your own collection or custom list.
I haven't gone much further than that, but I think you can easily make a custom list from missing parts to export to Bricklink for example.

[Plumber]

Thanks for the suggestion,  just taken another look at Rebrickable and tried a compare search, unfortunately it still wants to match part colours 

The other reason RB doesn't work for me is that there doesn't seem to be any means to record where the parts are located/stored ( my aging brain is not up to the task of remembering where any of 4000+ part types are stashed!!), this seems to be a missing feature on most of the popular sites, its a workaround on Brickstore to add the location info as a remark or comment, I only ever found one brick inventory control software that offered this functionality natively but it was obviously a pro product with a price to match  and that waaaay was out of my budget 

I used to use Basebrick which is great but it's part storage location system was not comprehensive enough for my needs and also with my glacially slow broadband/their server speed it was painfully slow to use, it does have a 'compare' function which on the face of it offers what I need (check box to ignore colours) but it seems to return pretty random results for me

If I can find a way to convert my inventory Brickstore file to a CSV file I guess I'll have to dust off my spreadsheet (lack of)skills and query that way, though I can't help thinking I'm missing something obvious here!

Edited Wednesday at 09:24 AM by Plumber
spelling!

[JopieK]

18 hours ago, Plumber said:

I have a large project on the go and build sections in Studio,  not being the sharpest tool in the box I often make daft mistakes in Studio which just don't work in real bricks, so I design in Studio then build IRL to check, then modify the Studio model with any alterations needed (often multiple cycles.

Another strategy could be to use e.g. BDP palettes, than you know what parts/colors are currently easy to get. Another approach could also be to use some AI to create scripts to check your IO-files (they are basically ZIPs with I believe XML-text files in them). I e.g. rendered some locomotives based on IO design files using some vibe-coded python script to use as icons.

[Stereo]

Yeah, Rebrickable will tell you which part list a given part is in, but not really meant to sort down to X drawer, Y cabinet type detail.

 

I believe the intended workflow on Rebrickable for private projects is that you create a Custom List, load the parts into it, use the list details to make it a "To Build" type list, which creates a 'Build this List' button that moves you into their regular building UI.  From there you can edit the build options to disregard colour, part variants etc. as needed.  Then click "Find my parts" to show which lists the parts necessary for the build are in.  That page has a CSV export so you might be able to get a colour-specific list of what it found for you to take back to Brickstore's more detailed inventory; I haven't tried using it in any-colour builds that way.

Edited Wednesday at 04:39 PM by Stereo

[Plumber]

4 hours ago, JopieK said:

use some AI to create scripts to check your IO-files (they are basically ZIPs with I believe XML-text files in them). I e.g. rendered some locomotives based on IO design files using some vibe-coded python script to use as icons

I think I understand what you are saying but there is no hope of me reproducing it  Way over my limited abilities!

2 hours ago, Stereo said:

From there you can edit the build options to disregard colour, part variants etc.

This sounds more promising, do I need to have a 'pro' membership for this?

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm going to have a proper play this weekend see if I can make something work!

[Stereo]

2 hours ago, Plumber said:

This sounds more promising, do I need to have a 'pro' membership for this?

It's a standard option, you can either get to it from the build page ('Change Build Options' button opens the settings), or, on the account settings page, go to "Building Sets/MOCs" and change the defaults so any time you get to a build page it'll be set the way you use.

[Plumber]

Thanks for all your suggestions and help, have found a solution that works for me!

Copied Brickstore inventory (complete with drawer locations!) and my model parts list onto a spreadsheet and performed a MATCH() on part number columns of the two lists - bingo - an instant list of quantities (in hand or short) and locations independant of colour - one happy Plumber  and actually frighteningly easy in the end!