At 09:28 PM 3/4/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I'm just itching to know more about this. Please post something as soon as
>you can.
Here is a basic overview.....
A key part of the CCG and CMG hobby is the collecting, which usually means
trading and/or selling cards. Another key part is the designing of cool
decks, which entails coming up with cool ideas, sharing those ideas with
others, etc. There are a boatload of websites out there dedicated to these
purposes.
Unfortunately, web-based interfaces are, to be blunt, pretty clunky for
doing sophisticated things. But they are ideal for collecting and sharing
information around the world. For example, entering your trade list and
want list into a given website is usually slow and painful. But it's
critical to do it if you want to work trades with others around the globe.
Comparing one person's trade list against your want list is also painful to
do via web-based interfaces. Now try to do this on a half-dozen or more
sites, each with a different interface and requiring you to duplicate the
effort each time. Bottom line: it's a time-consuming, far-from-optimal process.
With Card Vault, we're striving to establish the product as a gateway to
these sites. The goal is to let the websites do what they do best and have
CV do what IT does best - i.e. merge the best of both worlds.
CV does a great job of letting users quickly and easily manage their
inventory. CV does a great job of letting users build, manipulate, and tune
their decks. Starting in V1.1, CV adds the ability to easily reconcile
trade/want lists from another user against your own inventory. What CV does
NOT do is offer global repositories of decks, trade lists, etc.
So how do we merge these two realms? That's where the Partner Sites concept
comes in. Imagine being able to upload your trade and want lists to a
half-dozen trading sites with a few mouse clicks. Imagine being able to
compare the trade/want lists of others against your own inventory quickly,
easily, and at your leisure. Imagine downloading up-to-date pricing
information and instantly knowing the value of your collection (or simply
the cards you want to buy/sell). CV won't replace the websites in any way -
you'll still use the sites to search for potential trading partners, find
cool decks, etc. But CV WILL let you utilize these sites more effectively
and more efficiently, and it will let the maintainers of the sites focus
their energies on adding new features and functionality to the site.
CV communicates with Partner Sites through a standardized interface,
allowing the user to easily view and manipulate things on his/her computer,
yet ultimately putting the important bits of information up on the Partner
Sites. [NOTE! The user controls exactly what information is/isn't shared.]
To make this possible, we've specified an API for how CV will communicate
with Partner Sites. It's a very simple and straightforward API that enables
CV to send information to Partner Sites and retrieve information back. In
the same way that data file updates are handled, Partner Sites define the
services that they offer and how to access them. This enables a Partner
Site to change its behavior over time, adding new services or changing
things, as needed.
Information is shared via standardized file formats. All of CV's important
file formats are now fully documented in the Authoring Kit. They utilize
XML for maximum versatility and ease of support by others. Partner Sites
need to send and receive information using these file formats. However,
these formats are provided as an open standard that can be easily used to
allow other client tools to access the Partner Site if the Partner Site
chooses to do that.
Full documentation on Partner Sites will be published in the near future.
Right now, it's still a bit rough (the documentation - not the API), so it
needs some cleanup.
We already have one Partner Site operational and steadily bringing more
services online (they're our guinea pig). We expect to have others online
in the weeks to come. If you are currently using any online deck sharing
and/or trading sites, please encourage them to support Card Vault's
interface. It should require only a small amount of work for the site to
integrate, but the net benefits to the end-user should be huge.
Thanks, Rob
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Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (559) 658-6995
Lone Wolf Development
www.wolflair.com