Eli

Export Brickstock List with Pictures to Excel

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Hello

I'd like to know if I can export brickstock list with pictures of parts/sets to excel?

I know there is possible to export xml file, but without the pictures.

Thanks in advance

Eli

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Hello

I'd like to know if I can export brickstock list with pictures of parts/sets to excel?

I know there is possible to export xml file, but without the pictures.

Thanks in advance

Eli

I have been wondering the same thing. I am in the processs of bricklinking a couple of large sets and it would be nice to have images as I am setting things up.

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Take a look at this BrickLink forum posting for a solution by me.

This helps to explain why I was struggling to find the original post on the BrickLink forum - it was here!

David

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Did you look at the BOM option in LDD? I use it for my model parts list but strip the pics out of the spreadsheet. Does mean you have the bricks in question in a model.

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Given BrickLink's policy of purging forum posts after 6 months of inactivity, I'm re-posting the essence of the original BrickLink posting here. That way, it is more likely to preserve the link to the template spreadsheet for the future.

I find that managing Wanted list items is okay when you have a small number of items and small quantities. However, if the number of items on the list is too big or has a large quantity and needs to be split over multiple stores, management of the list becomes a little cumbersome. For example, the wanted list for
is a bit horrendous.
I have used BrickStock and Brickficiency to alleviate the list management / store selection process but I find myself wanting something with the capabilities of Excel. Now while I can get BrickStock and Brickficiency to create reasonable output for use in Excel (the BSX files), neither include the image of the part as part of the export.
As a result, I set myself a little exercise of creating an Excel spreadsheet to assist in the management of wanted list items which includes the image of the parts. I have completed the first cut and thought that it may be of use to other BrickLink users. The spreadsheet is written in Excel 2007, which I would expect will cover most versions of Excel still in use on people's machines.
If you are interested in taking a look, it can be downloaded from Google Drive. The spreadsheet is a template with macros. What that means is when you double click the file in Windows Explorer, it will create a new instance of a spreadsheet based on the template. As it contains macros, you will likely get a security warning about running macros from an untrusted source. As of the VBA code for the solution is fully visible, you can always not enable the macros and inspect the code beforehand to give you peace of mind about what it is doing. Also, as the VBA code is not hidden, you can always fold, mutilate or spindle it to your hearts content.
I haven't used the spreadsheet extensively in anger, so if you do use it and encounter what you think is unexpected behaviour, please drop me a PM and I'll take a look at the problem.
Hopefully someone else will find this useful.

Regards,

David

Edited by djm
Updated Google Drive link to point to most recent version

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Hi Oldnut and David

I was travelling and just now I had time to see this topic.

Oldnut: Yes, I've been used ldd export BOM for projects and small lists.

David: Your Excel spreadsheet is great and will help a lot.

I'd like to know if is possible to add a column for the weight? It's shown in Brickstore/Brickstock but when de xml is generated, this column is not added. Unfortnatelly, I don't know to create spreadsheep and macros.

Thanks all!

Edited by Eli

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I'd like to know if is possible to add a column for the weight? It's shown in Brickstore/Brickstock but when the xml is generated, this column is not added. Unfortunately, I don't know to create spreadsheet and macros.

Thanks all!

Hi Eli,

I don't know whether or not BrickStock provides the ability to define what columns appear in the XML it creates. I've had a quick look in BrickStock to see if there was a configuration option but did not find anything obvious. Perhaps someone else with greater knowledge of BrickStock may be able to help?

I do know that you can save the order details from BrickLink as an XML file and that file will include the weight. The weight would then be available for use within the spreadsheet. This will only work when the data relates to an order which you have actually placed. It won't work where the parts have been only listed in BrickStock and do not have a corresponding order in BrickLink.

Regards,

David

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I don't know whether or not BrickStock provides the ability to define what columns appear in the XML it creates.

I've subsequently looked at the source code for BrickStock. From what I can make out, the columns which are written to the XML file are predefined and cannot be amended. As the item weight is not one of the columns which is written, I believe that you will be unable to get BrickStock to write the weight to the XML file unless the BrickStock code is changed.

Regards,

David

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I've subsequently looked at the source code for BrickStock. From what I can make out, the columns which are written to the XML file are predefined and cannot be amended. As the item weight is not one of the columns which is written, I believe that you will be unable to get BrickStock to write the weight to the XML file unless the BrickStock code is changed.

Regards,

David

Hi David. I forgot that is possible to donwload direct from the brickling ther oder xml. Thank you for remind me. Will help me a lot.

And thank you for look the Brickstock source code.

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Hi David,

I just found this topic and was happy to come up on this great tool you developed.

Unfortunately when trying to get pictures using Brickstock for my wanted list it doesn't seem to work.

Is the tool still up to date?

 

Thanks and regards,

Peter

 

 

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Hi Peter,

over the last few years I have made a tweak or two to it but it remains fundamentally the same. I've uploaded the most recent version (from April 2019) to Google Drive. Can you confirm two things;

1) that the cell C7 in the Reference worksheet is reflecting your user profile directory and

2) that there is a sub-directory within that directory named brickstock-cache

Regards,

David

Edited by djm

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On 5/1/2020 at 11:23 AM, djm said:

Hi Peter,

over the last few years I have made a tweak or two to it but it remains fundamentally the same. I've uploaded the most recent version (from April 2019) to Google Drive. Can you confirm two things;

1) that the cell C7 in the Reference worksheet is reflecting your user profile directory and

2) that there is a sub-directory within that directory named brickstock-cache

Regards,

David

Hi David,

When I opened the file it asked me if I wanted to enable macros and as soon as I did cell C7 got automatically filled in with my user profile directory.

There is a folder in there called brickstock-cache and in that folder I got two files named database-v0 (w/o extension) and database-v0.lzma.

In your excel sheet when I click on the button Populate Image Library nothing happens, the sheet Image Library is empty (besides the headers).

When I click on the button Populate Wanted List Images then even the two sample images disappear from the Wanted List sheet.

 

When the other day I could get this to work I started looking into how I could get the images and was able to find a way to get them directly from BrickLink using a vba macro

(sadly not through BrickLink API but using a link to the image itself.)

However it took  a while even for 300 items. Guessing using the brickstock database would be significantly faster.

Have you tried using BrickLink API before?

Regards,
Peter

 

 

 

 

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Hi Peter,

the premise of the spreadsheet is to leverage any part images cached by other applications so that it doesn't need to the BrickLink API. FYI although Brickficiency was a valid application at the time the spreadsheet was written, it isn't any longer as Brickficiency development ceased.

Can you try creating a new list in BrickStock, add something simple to it e.g. a 2x4 Black Brick (part id is 3001). An image should be displayed in the BrickStock "Add Item to Untitled" dialog window, click the "Add" button and then the "Close" button. That should be sufficient to cause the image to be cached by Brickstock. Close BrickStock (you don't need to save the list), try clicking the "Populate Image Library" button and let me know the outcome. My expectation is that the Image Library should contain at least the image for the Black 2x2 Brick.

Regards,

David

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Since BrickStock now seems to be somewhat in stasis and BrickStore was updated/revamped in a major way this year, I have tweaked the spreadsheet once more. Brickficiency has been removed as an option and the Excel template has been configured to allow it to use BrickStore's image cache. If you are currently using BrickStock, you may want to take a look at BrickStore.

The updated Excel template is available for download from Google Drive.

Regards,

David

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