My spellbook builder

[grga.curkovic]

EDIT:
Spellbook builder is available at http://www.spellbookbuilder.com
It includes all released Arena and Academy cards.
It doesn't support Internet Explorer (don't know about Edge, wouldn't be my money on it).

ORIGINAL POST:
Hi gals and guys,

Writing from Croatia, been playing MW for about 2 years. I've been reading forums for a while but never felt like I could contribute so this is my first post.

Spellbook builder was incredibly useful when I first started building spellbooks, but over time and extensive usage I became aware of things that could be improved.

I'm currently on vacation and a few days ago I started looking into spell builder card database code before my daughter and wife woke up. Things escalated quickly from there and I spent entire day coding and by the time I went to bed I had a fully functional spellbook builder/card database.

The main reasons for taking this effort were:
 - official spellbook builder is somewhat difficult to use on a small screen
 - I often need to skim through all the cards so I can decide what to include (I only play ~50 games per year)
 - I wanted to search cards by restriction (dark mage only, druid only etc.)
 - I recently purchased Battleground Dominations and it is not supported on official spellbook
 - importing spellbooks doesn't work (I'm a mac user)
 - accidentally reloading the page is devastating

I needed up with a slightly different design and implemented all the functionality official spellbook builder has plus:
 - spellbooks are stored using browser storage - they persists across sessions
 - support for Battleground Dominations
 - card restrictions are searchable (through subtype)

At the moment I'm very happy with what I've got, but I plan to add the following
 - mage cards - the main problem here is that I need to take photos of them and the sets are at my friends (we co-own then).
 - "remember" number of sets owned - defaults are currently hardcoded for sets we own, but it may not be practical for other people

Anyway, here goes:



During the process I used information from card database and spellbook builder and I downloaded images for all cards. I believe these things are property of AW so I'd like to get approval to share my spellbook builder/card database with the rest of the world.

If I can get approval I would be delighted to hear the community feedback, implement new features and fix bugs (there are always bugs).

Another thing I'd like to do is add more data about the cards so they can be searched based on attack attributes (Piercing, Unavoidable ...), effects (Burn, Cripple ..) and other relevant info (Defense, Armor, dice number ...). It wouldn't be difficult to add this feature but data is not available and I don't have the time to enter it manually. If I get AW approval and there is interest it can be a community driven effort.

Cheers

P.S. Hope admins will approve this post

[Kaarin]

At the moment I'm very happy with what I've got, but I plan to add the following
 - mage cards - the main problem here is that I need to take photos of them and the sets are at my friends (we co-own then).

Mage ability cards are on the site. Example: [mwcard=ADRAMELECH WARLOCKABILITYOUTLINE]Adramelech Warlock Ability Card[/mwcard]

Another thing I'd like to do is add more data about the cards so they can be searched based on attack attributes (Piercing, Unavoidable ...), effects (Burn, Cripple ..) and other relevant info (Defense, Armor, dice number ...). It wouldn't be difficult to add this feature but data is not available and I don't have the time to enter it manually.

You may be interested in Spellbook builder from OCTGN Mage Wars module. It already has this feature. You can search in attack bar for burn or enchantments' text for armor. It also has every set till Academy and a lot of promos.

[Boocheck]

Hi gals and guys,

Writing from Croatia, been playing MW for about 2 years. I've been reading forums for a while but never felt like I could contribute so this is my first post......

I am really looking forward to this builder. Just from the picture, can i set what kind of Sets i have and then let dissapear the window? Its a dead space after first input. And also, mad man like me have everything twice now

I like that you immediatly see number of points it will cost you to add 1 spell and total amount.

Hvala Vam!

[Milevan_Faent]

If you make it able to spit out a text file that can be read by the OCTGN importer, then this will be amazing.

[grga.curkovic]

I am really looking forward to this builder. Just from the picture, can i set what kind of Sets i have and then let dissapear the window? Its a dead space after first input. And also, mad man like me have everything twice now

I like that you immediatly see number of points it will cost you to add 1 spell and total amount.

Hvala Vam!

Sorry for taking time to respond...

Thanks for the overall positive feedback. I'm still unclear if it is ok to release this to the general public as no official AW staff commented on this. I'd guess you have some inside connections being a playtester, is it possible for you to ask someone about this?

I'm having a hard time deciding which columns should be displayed. I want to keep the builder functional on a small screen so I can't have it all. What would be your choices? Is reveal cost relevant or could it be replaced with something more useful? Some feedback from other players will be helpful here.

I will look into OCTGN, both for using their database and exporting to their format. Exporting should not be an issue, but it will be a bit challenging to test as it seems OCTGN is not available on mac.

[Milevan_Faent]

I am really looking forward to this builder. Just from the picture, can i set what kind of Sets i have and then let dissapear the window? Its a dead space after first input. And also, mad man like me have everything twice now

I like that you immediatly see number of points it will cost you to add 1 spell and total amount.

Hvala Vam!

Sorry for taking time to respond...

Thanks for the overall positive feedback. I'm still unclear if it is ok to release this to the general public as no official AW staff commented on this. I'd guess you have some inside connections being a playtester, is it possible for you to ask someone about this?

I'm having a hard time deciding which columns should be displayed. I want to keep the builder functional on a small screen so I can't have it all. What would be your choices? Is reveal cost relevant or could it be replaced with something more useful? Some feedback from other players will be helpful here.

I will look into OCTGN, both for using their database and exporting to their format. Exporting should not be an issue, but it will be a bit challenging to test as it seems OCTGN is not available on mac.

You just need an emulator (like Wine) running Windows to let you test it

[Tyrnan]

You just need an emulator (like Wine) running Windows to let you test it

Good luck with that! Way back, about a year ago, there was a version of OCTGN I managed to run with wine but it was very unstable. Later versions completely refused to work. I didn't try with the latest version of OCTGN and wine but I'm pretty sure that it will not work.
The only option that works for me is using VirtualBox and a valid MS Windows license of Windows 7 or higher (OCTGN dropped Windows XP support recently).
When you only need it for testing purposes you can also use one of these:
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

[grga.curkovic]

Here goes: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/spell-book-builder/sbb.html edit: http://www.spellbookbuilder.com

Images are hosted with AW servers. If anyone is interested I can provide an "offline" version that unzips to your computer to cut image loading times.

[Boocheck]

Really nice! I must say, i am really suprised how nicly is this builder working

Will it be possible to add PvS and Academy cards without pictures?

[Donovan]

Very nice. What would be absolutely unique would be the ability to search for card text like "flying" or "mana".

[grga.curkovic]

I'm glad you like it. I forgot to upload mage cards, if you check it now you should see mage ability card when mouse is not hovering over a card in the list.

I've done some work on adding more card data into the database used and it seems I have all the data needed to implement a search that would make it possible to find all flying creatures etc. At the moment you can search for cards specific to a mage or school in the subtype filter (try typing "Dark" or "Druid" into the field). I'll keep you posted.

I'm looking forward to PvS and want to add cards as soon as possible, but I don't have the card list, quantities, images... If I could get my hands on the set I would do it manually (hint to AW: get me the set )

I'm not playing Academy so there are two challenges: card database and specific spellbook building rules I'm not aware. If you can point me in the right direction I'll look into it.

[grga.curkovic]

I've updated the builder with ability to search all card text so searches like "flying", "stun", "ranged" and similar now work.

It's amazing what a bit of positive feedback does to one's motivation

[Halewijn]

wow! great job.

AW might learn a thing or two from your efficiency to update online stuff. 

[Donovan]

I've updated the builder with ability to search all card text so searches like "flying", "stun", "ranged" and similar now work.

It's amazing what a bit of positive feedback does to one's motivation

COOL!!!

This makes it the best spellbook builder I know. Finally you can look for cards that cause Sleep for example. Or cards with Regenerate, etc..

Academy spellbook rules can be found on page 19 of the Academy rulebook.

If you could load files from the filesystem (graphics and metadata files), we could make it multilingual? I could supply you with the German cards, and OCR-ed text.

Some feedback:

Perhaps change the order of card types to:

• ALL
  Equipment
  Conjurations
  Creatures
  Enchantments
  Incantations
  Attacks

Perhaps add 1 or 2 more full text search fields to allow for searches like "demon" & "regenerate".

In a private project I did I had 3 rows with 3 fields (3 x 3). Columns were AND-ed and rows were OR-ed. =;-)

[grga.curkovic]

I've changed card type order according to your suggestion (it makes sense) and fixed a small bug in search.

I'm talking to German Mage Wars Community about open sourcing the project and adding multilingual support. German version seems inevitable.

I gave some though to your request for improving the search. The proper way of doing it would be parsing the input and implementing AND/OR logic in the search algorithm. It is not a top priority now, but we'll get there eventually.

Seems this pet project is gaining traction and community support so Academy support might be coming too.