Forum plugin to auto link set numbers

[paulrobinson]

It's very common to refer to sets by there number. This is great for accuracy and it's concise, but most people don't know all the sets by number. What I normally do is google for the set to see which it is; but this is a hassle.

Does anyone know if it would it be possible to create a plugin for this forum that detected set numbers in posts and converted the set numbers to links to the set. Maybe to rebrickable, for example?

Paul.

[Rufus]

I can't answer about whether a plugin would detect the numbers automatically, but it might run into problems with numbers in links etc. You can always use the Set Index; It isn't complete, but most sets are in there, I think.

[sdex]<set number>[/sdex]

Like this:

8448

I'll move this to Website & Forums.

[paulrobinson]

That looks handy. The only problem is that it relies on the poster to use it.

You might be safe by only replacing a sequence of 4 or 5 digits surrounded by white space or punctuation.

[dhc6twinotter]

Sounds like a good idea to me. The aviation forum I frequent uses something similar to label airport codes. If I place my cursor over the airport code, like LAX, then the name of the airport will appear above the airport code, which in this case, would be Los Angeles International Airport. It's a nice feature, especially when somebody is using the airport code for some obscure airport that I've never heard of.

Something like that for LEGO set numbers would be pretty handy, IMHO.

[Fugazi]

This has been discussed before, and as Rufus mentioned one of the concerns raised was how the software can tell when a number is a LEGO set number, and not something else (part ID, price, number of pieces, etc). I see no easy way to automate this feature without poster input (a special code to identify authentic set numbers).

[Splat]

While waiting for Eurobricks to implement something like this, I developed my own little 'bookmarklet' that I use. It searches for numbers within posts, and add the set thumbnail image, as well as links to a larger image, Brickset, Bricklink, and Peeron. I do have to activate it on each page that I visit, but I tend to find that there are only certain posts that tend to have lost of set numbers mentioned. This could also be turned into a GreaseMonkey script so that it runs automatically.

The Javascript can be found here:

http://jsfiddle.net/J9ALL/3/

Info about 'bookmarklets' can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Bookmarklet

Info about GreaseMonkey can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Greasemonkey

Is it perfect? No.

Does it incorrectly match prices, piece counts, and years? Yes.

Are there other 'false positives'? Yes.

But... it works well enough for me.

Edit: This forum didn't like the code that I tried to include. Go to the JSFiddle Page to see the code.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Splat

[Someonenamedjon]

Looks like a great ideal! Now i can know the sets people are referring to.