mdoupe

Not sure. it's working for me with both the latest release and my current development version. Can you send me Appdata\Brickficiency\debug\Debug-import.txt ?

I'd love that option too. Unfortunately, the only way (that I'm aware) to find that info is to go to the store policy page. Retrieving thousands of store policy pages would take quite a long time (and might anger Bricklink in the process).

1. good idea, I'll add it to the list 2. the search considers all shops an item is available from, even if the shop only has one of the item. 3. it splits it over several shops, if that is the cheapest way to do it. 4. the amount of time searches take goes up exponentially. I'll probably bump it up to 6 in the future, but some lists already take DAYS to calculate at 5. 5. This is what the "Continue looking for larger combinations" checkbox is for. Also, note: if you don't like, say, the 2 store combinations that the search found you can immediately do another calculation with the cached price guide results. It does not have to download the page again until the next time you launch the program.

What can I say, it's thorough. :) I'm not really sure how to determine which routes are dead ends. Usually it only takes a long time if there are no rare parts in the search. (for example, if you're just searching for a bunch of plain bricks) Please note that you can cancel the search at any time and it'll give you whatever matches it's found so far.

Shoeboxes, IMO, are not big enough. If you have a dollarama near you, you may want to take a look there. They have large flat tupperware containers that hold almost twice as much. And since they are wide, they provide more room to dig. :) http://i.imgur.com/XWjEfEr.jpg

The database isn't distributed with the program, it's packaged up separately and downloaded the first time you launch the program. The issue is, it now includes thousands of set databases which take a long time to download. I download them and pack them all into a single compressed database, but this takes quite a long time, so it's unrealistic to have each user download each set inventory. The issue is, distributing a copy of the database is against the Bricklink ToS.

Informal poll: I'm trying to put together something for the report if no matches are found. For example, it finishes with the 5 store combos, and doesn't find any, so instead of just showing you a lot of nothing, it shows something at least partly helpful. I was originally thinking to show a list of stores sorted by the raw number of lots or parts they could provide, however that's already available on Bricklink. Then I was thinking that it might be good to help you eliminate some of the rare parts from the list. Perhaps a list of stores sorted by how many of the rarest parts they have from your list. I'm not sure how many items to count in this list though? The top 25% most rare items on the list? The top 10? What if there is only 8 parts on your list? Let me know what you guys think. I have the next version mostly ready to go, but part of it is that I have created a database much like BrickStore/BrickStock uses. What's holding it up is that distributing the database separately is against the Bricklink ToS. I've been trying to get them to let me do it under the same agreement they have with Patrick, but I'm getting a whole lot of nothing from the Bricklink CS team. I don't really want to revert back to the previous version's source, as there were quite a lot of changes made to change to using a database versus how it worked before. I also don't want to just go ahead and publish it because I have a somewhat large Bricklink store and I'd rather not be banned. :P

New in 0.94 - Context Menu Right clicking on a part or selection of parts will bring up a menu with a bunch of different options that look vaguely familiar. Store total price, item quantity and lot quantity are displayed at the top of each store in the report. Item images and names in the report are now links to the item in the respective Bricklink store. 404 errors while downloading part images are no longer reported (because that was very annoying). Fixed an issue reading Bricklink database files on some computers. The price column will now display 3 decimal places, and the total column 2. Both columns will round to said decimal places. The "Calculation Options" window is now called "Calculation Options". download here: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6HH_wCQ4odGeEV1Nl90WUFYRUk

I've just updated the test version with a potential fix: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6HH_wCQ4odGLTFKT0NrcnlTWTA Can you try it and let me know if it works?

Just posted 0.93. Sorry for the long wait. Download link here: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6HH_wCQ4odGdi1kbFllakdwUVU New in 0.93: Fixed some problems opening XML files and importing BL wanted lists Fixed a bug while reading price guide pages in other regions. I don't know if you guys know this, but there are countries outside of North America and some of them have different number formats! Added some more error checking while opening and importing files Can now change colour of parts and gear by double clicking on the colour Calculation will now skip superlots, if your Bricklink price guide settings show them (requires log in while calculating.) Can now re-download Bricklink DB files (from the tools menu)

I have been busy, but I've also been hoping BL2.0 would come along and make Brickficiency obsolete. With the survey they just released, it sounds like they've not even finalized the feature set, so BL2.0 might be farther away than I thought. I also saw no mention of anything like Brickficiency or "BrickOwl Magic" in the survey. I'm going to work on fixing imports once and for all and squashing the bugs that popped up in the test version this weekend. There were also a couple simple changes I wanted to make to the report that I can probably put in rather quickly.

Do the pieces have colours when you look on your wanted list?

Try the prerelease version: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6HH_wCQ4odGLTFKT0NrcnlTWT It works a little better during imports, but still has a couple bugs. Unfortunately I've not had time to look into them. :( Did you get it sorted out?

the matlab script was my inspiration for writing this program. :) That's a great idea! I will definitely implement it.

That's not currently an option, no. In the future I may be able to add an option to allow "imperfect" matches that are missing some stuff. It would take some doing, though.

There is an unfortunate balancing act with Brickficiency... Too many rare parts and you will not find any matches. Too few rare parts and it takes FOREVER. As an upside, you can cancel it at any point (by clicking the dollar sign with the red dot on it) and it will list the cheapest matches it's found so far. I'm sure there must have been some decent matches somewhere in that 1.3 billion. :) Someone else was working on a similar program with a vastly different approach. Instead of iterating through every combination of stores, it would "tunnel" through stores adding them to the current combination (if valid) until it hit the depth you specify (ie. if you're willing to buy from 10 different stores, you set the "depth" to 10). Once it hit the maximum depth, it would either pass and save or fail and discard that match and then move on to another. I'm not sure how well it worked, as I never had a chance to use it and when I tried that approach, I failed miserably. :) I'm still working out some kinks in importing wanted lists. Unfortunately, I'm also working on a pretty large build for a show, so I haven't been spending much time coding. The price guide is where Brickficiency gets all of it's information about which stores a part is available from. If the part is not available from any stores, there are no stores to interrogate. The part "Dark Bluish Gray Door 1 x 4 x 6 Barred with Stud Handle" has never been made by lego: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=60621

Just posted a new test version: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6HH_wCQ4odGLTFKT0NrcnlTWTA mostly just fixes some problems with importing BL wanted lists and opening XML (Non BrickStore) files. This will be version 0.93 unless anyone finds any major issues with the current batch of changes. :)

I should clarify, it only searches the cheapest matches for the number of stores you're searching. IE. if all of the pieces on your list are available from exactly 1 store, but that store has ridiculous prices, it'll tell you about that 1 store and then quit happily. that's why I added the option to keep searching higher numbers of stores -- if you're not happy with the 1 store solution, it'll go on and check 2 stores, and 3 stores. Out of curiosity, which set are you referring to, so I can test it out myself? I'll never rule out the possibility that Brickficiency is broken. ;)

I've posted a new test version that I think should fix the problems launching the program, and possibly the problem where the price guide pages aren't being read properly. Check it out here: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6HH_wCQ4odGLTFKT0NrcnlTWTA and let me know if it works. Also, sorry for the long silence. I've been away on work for the last week.

do you have any other wanted lists besides the default "Main" wanted list? If not, try creating one. It doesn't have to have any parts in it, just needs to exist. I found that bricklink returns wanted lists differently if you don't have any lists besides "Main".

Well I discovered something for those having issues with the program quitting with an error that it couldn't read the part file. There is a part of my brain that knew numbers were represented by "5,8" instead of "5.8" in other regions, but I assumed C# would just go ahead and convert "5.8" to "5,8" when operating on a french language OS. I was wrong. I will have to figure out a way to convert "5.8" to a decimal variable regardless of region. It might take a few days though, as I'm a bit busy at work.

When you ran the calculation, did it say that it found some matches? I'm not sure it's worth it if people randomly get blocked. :)

I'm working with another gentleman on nailing down this issue. I believe I know what it is, just waiting to hear back from him on the test fix. if you PM me your IP, I can check with my web host. I got locked out of my own website for about a day when I was setting it up. I might need to switch hosting companies. I don't know of any that offer $2.50/month plans, though. Just posted version 0.92. Here's the link: https://docs.google....X3otZ3hiT2FjN2c Changes in 0.92: New toolbar The progress bar is now more granular when calculating. Fixed another bug in importing wanted lists (oops). Fixed a bug with displaying (or lack thereof) millions of matches checked. Matches in excess of the "Matches per combination" setting are pruned to save memory. Some very large lists were running out of memory before finishing calculation. Can now change status (by double clicking), condition (by double clicking), quantity, price, comments, and remarks. Also, deleting a line properly deletes the item. Stay tuned for more list creation and modification options. Items with status "x" will not be included in calculation. There is a button/menu item that will allow you to view the current/previous report. While calculating this will show any calculation levels that have completed, but not the current level. Added more error checking and debug info Calculation can now be cancelled at any time. The report will reflect any matches found at the current level. Names of stores for any given country are now cached between calculations (in addition to cached price guide pages that I failed to mention last release) Removed option to save bsx from the import window (don't worry, you can still file -> save as once it's imported) You can now double click a wanted list name in the import window to import it. Fixed a bug that would crash calculation if there were less items than the store combination you were searching for. You can now find a good combination of stores to buy 10,000 of a single piece from. Backend stuff nobody cares about.

There's (still) a problem with the import in 0.91. it's fixed in 0.92, which should be out tonight or tomorrow sometime. for now, the workaround is to save the wanted list as a .bsx file and then open it.

I was not even aware you could delete things from the list! :) I plan to add the ability to create/modify lists in the future, but for now I have not touched that. The next version may have the ability to uncheck items so that they will not be included in the calculation.