Malou Posted February 13, 2016 (edited) Hi there! I want to share with you something I worked on for the last couple of weeks. I know most of you use Bricklink to buy pieces, but sometime the bricks you want are actually cheaper or only available on the Bricks & Pieces website. Finding the bricks you want on the official website can be a long and arduous task since every brick must be searched one by one. Bricks & Pieces Helper goal is to help you find the value of you Lego Digital Designer (LDD) model and other bricks on The LEGO Group Bricks and Pieces customer support website. I created this in the form of a website so there's no OS dependency (it even works on mobile!). You can find it here : https://bricks.bbqsoftwares.com This website will help you find the value of you LDD model more quickly and easily by automatically searching for all the bricks and pieces in one simple action. Just upload your model and you’re done! You can also manually search for sets and individual bricks the same way you can find them on the official website, with a little added bonus that you can search for multiples sets or bricks at once using comma separated list. See what bricks and color are available in your country and the cost of the individual bricks. Keep an eye on the changelog since some more feature might be added in the future and the FAQ for the questions you may have and the limitations the tool has. Of course, this website is not sponsored, authorized or endorsed by The LEGO Group ;). Let me know if it's useful for you, have any questions or suggestions! - Malou Edited September 25, 2016 by Malou Changed link to https Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zerobricks Posted February 15, 2016 I gave it a try, but the pice of a model is stuck at around 22 000$ ? Can you make a step-by-step tutorial, what am I doing wring? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted February 15, 2016 (edited) Hi! You imported an LDD file? How many peices are there in you model? Are you using Chrome, Safari, internet explorer...? Edited February 15, 2016 by Malou Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zerobricks Posted February 15, 2016 (edited) One model had some 4000 parts. Now i tried a smaller, slightly over 1000 parts model and it seems to work better. BUT the program doesnt recognise PF components and splits them to uknown parts, which is not good since those components thend to havethe highest values. Also there is a lot of difference in prices between different countries. Edited February 15, 2016 by Zblj Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted February 16, 2016 I guess I was too excited to share this with you that I forgot to talk about the limitations . For the multi-parts elements, LDD file separate them in their base elements which numbers are different from the assembled element ID. You can test that using a mini figure for example. I’m working on that ;) Same for multicoloured parts (For example : https://rebrickable.com/parts/73590c03b), matching those multicoloured parts to the Lego website is tricky because they don't use a straightforward color code. Working on those too. The country refer to the same country you select when you're buying from on the customers service website. So if you're from Canada, you select canada to get the Canadian prices. I added a FAQ page on the website with some questions and answers. For the model total, it may be accurate . Tried with a 4000 pieces (I couldn't find bigger) and it seemed to work fine. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted March 7, 2016 Hi everyone! I updated the site and fixed bricks composed of multiple sub-parts. They should now be matched correctly. Some color mismatch where also fixed and I added sorting the other day for the list generated when you upload an LDD file. I also started working on custom lists. I also worked on sending a list to the Pieces and Bricks site. I have the javascript code necessary to fill a cart, but for some security reason, you obviously can't send javascript from one site to another. Looking for an alternative, I'll keep you posted. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
EdmanZA Posted March 8, 2016 (edited) This looks pretty cool and very useful for some of my projects. Do you have extending it to allow the import of other file types, suck as Bricklink .xml or BrickStock .bsx etc. on you development horizon? Edited March 8, 2016 by EdmanZA Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted March 9, 2016 I'll add this to the list ;) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
EdmanZA Posted March 14, 2016 I used this this weekend and it was great, thanks - saved me manually searching for 100+ prices. I noticed a slight issue when setting the store country to UK: if I searched by part number or LDD file, it returned the correct prices from the UK store, but if I searched by set, it returned prices in CAD$, from the Canadian store. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nils_O Posted March 14, 2016 Cool, that' looks like a great help for ordering bricks at Lego.com. I wonder why LDD doesn't have a similar function included... Great job! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted March 15, 2016 Thanks for the kind words! I fixed the country bug. Thanks for noticing that! While I was in there, I added a cookie so the website will remember your country when you reload the page. I also fixed a small crash with some empty results coming from the official website (notice this while searching for the new parts from today LDD update! :D ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bnelson01 Posted March 17, 2016 For your feature of exporting to Excel you should check out PHPExcel. It's a great library for creating Excel spreadsheets and pretty easy to get the hang of. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted April 13, 2016 Hi there! Been a while! I just pushed a huge update to the Bricks & Pieces helper website! Over 32 edited or new files, 6200 new lines of codes and countless hours later, you can now create custom lists! All you need to do is register with your email and you'll be able to save and edit the bricks list from your LDD model or create your own lists from scratch. Many more new or improved features are also included in this update and many more are coming! Let me know what you think! - Malou Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted April 25, 2016 New update! I fined tuned the website so the browser back and forward button can be used to navigate your previous set and bricks searches. You can also share search result link using a new button or copy/paste the dynamic url. For example: http://bricks.bbqsoftwares.com/#set-60072,60075 http://bricks.bbqsoftwares.com/#set-60073 http://bricks.bbqsoftwares.com/#brick-74968,87544,2362,30009 http://bricks.bbqsoftwares.com/#brick-73081 Custom lists can also be renamed now ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alasdair Ryan Posted April 26, 2016 (edited) I get a error saying uploading a standard LXF file. Error: Not an LDD file (File type detected : application/x-ms-shortcut) - Error code 415 Edited April 26, 2016 by Alasdair Ryan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted April 27, 2016 Are you sure it's an actual .lxf file and not just a shortcut or [sym]link to it? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alasdair Ryan Posted April 27, 2016 (edited) None of my files 50 old files ending in LXF,that can be opened and saved in LDD can be opened in your program. Edited April 27, 2016 by Alasdair Ryan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted April 28, 2016 Ok. Which platform (Win7, Win10, Mac, etc.) and browser are your using ? Can you send me an example file (in private if you prefer) ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alasdair Ryan Posted April 29, 2016 (edited) Win 10, Mozilla firefox. https://onedrive.liv...ithint=file,lxf Edited April 29, 2016 by Alasdair Ryan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted April 30, 2016 (edited) It's weird. I tested on Windows 7, latest Firefox, and it works fine. But again, I also received word that someone had a similar error on Win7... It's probably something related to drag & drop class (try clicking) or the way your files are managed by windows... did you tried a different browser? Anyway, I update some logic behind the code. You can test it again. You should at least get a different error message. If it still doesn't works, I'll put a classic upload form alternative. Edited April 30, 2016 by Malou Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alasdair Ryan Posted April 30, 2016 It works now,thanks. Can I suggest a improvement that if parts are not available in one certain colour that you could exchange them for a different colour that is in stock? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted April 30, 2016 Can I suggest a improvement that if parts are not available in one certain colour that you could exchange them for a different colour that is in stock? Yup, it's on the todo list. Meanwhile, you can login and save your list. Then you'll be able to edit it (manually remove the missing color and searching + adding the new color to the list). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted June 15, 2016 For everyone that might be interested, with the nice summer weather that's came back, I have less time to work on the website and decided to open the source on GitHub. Don't hesitate to contribute! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SylvainLS Posted June 15, 2016 What’s the licence? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Malou Posted June 19, 2016 What’s the licence? Didn't think about this. MIT. I added the license file on GitHub. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
