Collection Manager ... but with ONLINE Storage!

[mykro76]

PROBLEM:
I would like ONLINE storage of information about my dvd/cd/book collections, and access to it from my phone and from any PC's web-browser.

INVESTIGATION:
Yes, there's a few Collection Managers for Android, but they all use the local SD card for storage.

There's dozens and dozens of PC-based Collection Managers. eg: I use GCStar on Ubuntu. It uses local storage and only exports a static list to HTML.

There's hundreds of PHP-based Collection Managers. All the ones I've found are kinda crappy, sorry to say. And they're certainly not mobile-friendly.

IDEAL SPEC:

Hosting: ideally on Google's App Engine with Google authentication to log in, but a DIY PHP setup hosted on my own webserver is acceptable.

PC Front-end: A full-featured website with good images and search capabilities.

Android Front-end: Either an app or a mobile-friendly website, text-oriented with no/fewer images, fat finger-friendly buttons

Front-ends: need to support adding items by barcode, by IMDB number, Amazon code, ISBN, etc. Powerful search capabilities. Tracking of Items Lent To Friends.

I know it's possible, but has anyone done it?

Thanks!

[konzern]

i remember some topics on something like this, i think the website was called orbit or something like that

[konzern]

sorry its called orb

www.orb.com

[mykro76]

Thanks konzern but that's not what I'm after.. orb does media streaming. I just want to capture the metadata about the physical media in the collection.

[mobileappbuilder]

I thought you meant debit collection manager....

[dabotsonline]

I haven't used it myself but I believe PackRat is an Android application that satisfies some of your requirements:

http://packrat.unwesen.de/

[zse45tgb]

I've been considering writing something almost exactly like this, except without a PC front-end. I'm looking into PackRat as dabotsonline suggested.

[unwesen]

Thanks for recommending PackRat (disclosure: I'm the author). Cloud based storage has been on the list of things to add for a while, but unfortunately isn't there yet. It's a spare time project, and therefore won't progress as fast as some others might. But I'll get there, I'm sure!

[MCSolutions]

Thanks for recommending PackRat (disclosure: I'm the author). Cloud based storage has been on the list of things to add for a while, but unfortunately isn't there yet. It's a spare time project, and therefore won't progress as fast as some others might. But I'll get there, I'm sure!

Seems like a pretty nice application there. Where on the list is cloud storage? Any idea?

Reason I ask, is that I'm a developer too and this is certainly something I would consider doing. I do HTML/CSS/JS/PHP/MySQL also, which would be helpful in the ability to create a web front-end to the data once on a server.

On first glance, if you did do server storage, it would seem to need to be either a DIY off a personally hosted server or a subscription based service if I were to consider it. Based on the data load, it could get to be pretty decent in size if you had a good user base (if centrally hosted and subscription based).

If you had a web interface, that would be pretty much like a second application and could even be more complicated than the Android application.

Seems like server storage would only be useful if you did have a front-end on it. Otherwise, it would be about the same to just use local.

If I read right, the OP is asking for a pretty nice web UI to work with the data also, can you expand on why you'd want that and how you'd use it?

[mykro76]

If I read right, the OP is asking for a pretty nice web UI to work with the data also, can you expand on why you'd want that and how you'd use it?

Well, Google Contacts is the perfect example. You can manage your contacts in your phone, but it's so much nicer to manage them in Google Mail in a PC web browser. It's just so much more responsive and more pleasant to use.

So think Google Contacts, but with collection items instead of contacts.