thomas and friends mini series

Hi DrewBenn,
The part where it says "Final Update", it's not final as in no more updates to list, is it?

picked up the super cruiser today. will remove the minis, replace them with spare metallics from my stash and resell it as not interested in the set as a whole.

happy to have found it just for the minis, didnt think we would get it over here at all.

drew, is there a way anyone can take over your site to keep it up to date? thank you for the amazing work you have put in over the years. many of us would have been stuffed without you!

Yeah, that it, sorry. The 5th was the 4-year anniversary of the site, which seemed like the right time to wrap it up. It was a fun hobby for a long time but lately turned into more of a chore.

If someone wanted to pick it up, it's just 2 files, an html and a javascript file, that need to be hosted somewhere. Plus all the photos if you want those; I could zip up the photos so they don't have to be downloaded individually (though plenty of people have scraped them, that's easy enough, too) and I could edit the page so the Share a Link button directs to the new page to make it easy for everyone to bring their collections across. So you'd need your own web host (or an online editor like codepen.io might work) and enough knowledge of html (it's easy!) to edit the page directly to add new trains (you can View Source on the page now to see how it's done). Then it's just the time to gather the information about new trains and add it all onto the page in the right order (you can't insert trains inside a table, only add to the end, so you have to make sure you find out all the trains in a new wave before you add it; and you can only have 31 trains in each table so you need to think ahead a little bit when setting up the 'unnumbered'-style waves).

Seriously thanks a billion for your work. I can absolutely understand why it would feel like a chore. It’s a pretty immense amount of releases over these years. It’s frankly too much. I wouldn’t collect without your site, so all the time you’ve put in has been immeasurably appreciated.

[Super]

Even though I didn't collect Mini's I appreciate all the work you put into the hobby for all to enjoy Drew. I know your efforts proved immeasurable for both Members here at BPT's and for the thousands and thousands of non-members who browsed this Forum everyday.

Thank you Drew

I dont know that i would have the skills, though i would love to take it over for a while at least. Almost needs to be 2 or 3 people doing it.

Would weebly work as a host?

As far as I know weebly doesn't allow "blank slate", you have to use one of their templates.
There are some free hosting sites, but they also show large banners or mess up your codes. Pictures would have to be hosted together so you don't rely on 3rd party uploading sites.

Hi Drew,
I feared that was the case, but nobody can complain. There are many of us who would have given up long ago if you didn't have your site. F-P website is far from useful, while Wikia is great, it's not organized in a manner to help collectors. Maybe wikia can help adopt your list, and certain collectors can have access to edit the wiki as they see new releases, just brainstorming here.

Hopefully we can figure out a way to keep the site going together. Thanks again for all the efforts and time you put into building it in most effective, organized and useful way.

It doesn't seem like weebly would work but there's nothing lost in trying! The checklist qua checklist doesn't need pictures: they're certainly nice to have and useful to plenty of people, but if the goal is just to have a way to keep track of what's in your collection, it's not necessary. The javascript file can be embedded into the html so you could get away with just one single file that needs to be hosted somewhere (I'd help create that file if someone wants to try).

On the other hand if all you want is a list of all the engines (without the saved-checklist functionality): a wiki would be perfect for that! Someone just needs to take the initiative to lay everything out in a useful format (all the information already exists in various wikis, just rarely on one, useful, page -- which was part of the reason I created my site in the first place!).

Drew you spoiled us all with your checklists, auto duplicate markers, italics, collapsing and expanding groups, highlights.. Like you said, it's easy to just share info as it pops up, but presenting in a useful format is what counts. You even went above and beyond to incorporate cookies, that's a huge benefit, so just spitting out a static list that people can't save on their computer is probably not going be anywhere as useful, for example creating a link that allows them to share their own checklists without messing up others, that was amazing.

Okay, here's a Proof of Concept of how it could work hosted somewhere else. It remembers your list but does *not* include the pictures (though they could be re-added by hosting them somewhere else (one of the wikis?) or maybe there's a way to add them to codepen or some similar site). Also, you need to have third-party cookies enabled in your browser for it to remember your checklist, which is... not ideal. But anyone could create their own (free) codepen account and add a pretend wave to see what's involved and if it's something you feel like doing a few times per year. If someone went down this route I'd help them optimize this page a little further from this quick-and-dirty PoC.

https://codepen.io/drewbenn/full/jOOyjEx

If you want to import your list, use the Share button on my normal page and take everything starting with the question mark and add it to the end of that link, so you'd get like:

https://codepen.io/drewbenn/full/jOOyjEx...ff&wave2=f .....

Then hit the Save button on the codepen page and go back to the first link I shared to see that it restored your full checklist.

To see the code, hit the "Change View" button at the top and change to "Editor View." You only need to look at the html code for now, so make that first pane wider, and scroll through that if you want to see the guts of how waves are added.