"Reloader Search" - (aggregated search site for reloading components)

[Jay Christopherson]

I've been working for a little while on a side project, since I've been getting tired of searching all over creation for components that I need to be in stock. Also, I needed a project that would give me a good grounding in some new web technologies that are out there - namely node.js, MongoDB, Solr, and a few others (for those that care).

Some of you have probably seen gunbot.net and that does a very nice job of pulling things together, but I thought I could do a similar thing in a slightly different way.

Basically, it works very similar to using any search engine - you go the site, type in what you want to find, and it lists all the results that it knows about. The more specific you are, the more detailed results you'll get. However, even just searching for "h4831" will bring the most likely matches to the top. If you are familiar with boolean searches on Google (+this or -that), it supports that syntax for extended searches.

Because some retailers do different things with regards to naming (CCI #450 vs. CCI 450 for example, or SC vs. shortcut) you sometimes have to get creative in searching for what you want. It tries to find the most likely matches though. Searching for "7mm 180 hybrid" should bring up a lot of Berger hits...

Last thing: This is a BETA application - I'm doing this on my own time, mostly for me to learn technologies. NO guarantees are provided as to availability or functionality. I might change it entirely between one day and the next... although, I don't think I will.

So, if you are interested, feel free to check it out. Results update hourly, because I'm trying to be nice to the nice retailers that are being included in the search results. Hopefully, they see the value of people being able to easily find their products and prices:

http://www.reloadersearch.com/

( I know at least one person that's not impressed with my domain name, so that might change too at some point, if I come up with something better.... ;-)

CURRENTLY INCLUDES:

• powders
• brass
• bullets
• primers
• may include some ammo and miscellaneous items as well for now

Some of the things I'm mulling over, but have no particular timeline:

• add a login, so that people can save searches and be alerted when particular things come in
• add a "top searches" tag group or something, just for general interest
• add other types of components like barrels, triggers, maybe reamers and stuff from PTG and the like

P.S.: I'm not making any money off this so hopefully I'm not running afoul with regards to the forum's policies.

 

[Jay Christopherson]

FYI, if it's slow to load the page, it's either busy collecting (usually at the top of the hour) or I've just restarted it and it's busy collecting. It's running on a very small host.

 

[ShootDots]

So far I REALLY like it! I thank you for 1.) Thinking up something like that for the users on this forum and 2.) For taking the time to put together something of this magnitude! I appreciate it very much!! AND You can bet I will be using it>>> A LOT!!

 

[Area Man]

Thank you. Can you filter "Out of Stock"?

 

[Jay Christopherson]

Thank you. Can you filter "Out of Stock"?

Yep, try something like "-Out" appended to your search.

 

[Jay Christopherson]

FYI, the results for Midway may be a little hit or miss right now - their site is a little more difficult to get individual component results on.

 

[ShootDots]

From my perspective (being a complete illiterate in techno anything) Midway is the most difficult of all sites to navigate through to find anything.. They are one of the best shooting "stuff" suppliers there is, but getting what you want off their site can be unnerving.. So don't "fret" JayChris..

 

[itchyTF]

How difficult is it to add vendors?

 

[Jay Christopherson]

How difficult is it to add vendors?

It's not really technically difficult at this point, it usually runs anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how the retailer's site is structured.

 

[CJ6]

I appreciate the hard work that you put into this. Nice

 

[gtl1946]

Your tremendous efforts are appreciated - THANK YOU !!!!

 

[Jay Christopherson]

I've added Southern Precision Rifles (bugholes) for Barrels.

 

[navyrad8r]

just tried it....NICE JOB! thank you for developing this, VERY nice.
Cheers,
Doc

 

[Jay Christopherson]

Added Recob's Target Shop.

 

[Lapua40X]

Added Recob's Target Shop.

Yeah, I saw that. Funny thing is they're down for maintenance. Oh well, ya can't win 'em all.
Thanks for taking on this task. I do a bit of commercial and private web site work and I fully understand the magnitude of your undertaking. It would probably be done with a team of software architects in the commercial world; you've taken it on as a one man job.
Best of luck to you. The tuff part is going to be making the searches user friendly (without the user entering the "-out" filter for example) for the folks who are experts at reloading but not so expert at using search engines.

 

[Jay Christopherson]

Added Recob's Target Shop.

Yeah, I saw that. Funny thing is they're down for maintenance. Oh well, ya can't win 'em all.
Thanks for taking on this task. I do a bit of commercial and private web site work and I fully understand the magnitude of your undertaking. It would probably be done with a team of software architects in the commercial world; you've taken it on as a one man job.
Best of luck to you. The tuff part is going to be making the searches user friendly (without the user entering the "-out" filter for example) for the folks who are experts at reloading but not so expert at using search engines.

Yep. Until they come back up (and hopefully not changing their site design), whatever is in the search base will just stay out-of-date.

I don't plan to do much more with making the searches friendlier. It's out there if someone wants to use it as-is... You don't *have* to use boolean search terms, it just makes your result set cleaner. Mileage May Vary as they say. This is pretty much just a technical exercise for my own benefit and reloading happened to be on my mind when I was trying to think of something that would involved a lot of different moving parts.

 

[Lapua40X]

This is pretty much just a technical exercise for my own benefit and reloading happened to be on my mind when I was trying to think of something that would involved a lot of different moving parts.

Now you know you ain't gonna get away with that. You lit the fuse and got us all excited and we are not likely to just let you sneak off into the sunset.

 

[Outrider27]

When you said MongoDB you got my attention, lol. Thanks for sharing your project with us; it will be useful. Now I just have to remember what I learned about boolean search terms some decades ago..... ;D

 

[Jay Christopherson]

This is pretty much just a technical exercise for my own benefit and reloading happened to be on my mind when I was trying to think of something that would involved a lot of different moving parts.

Now you know you ain't gonna get away with that. You lit the fuse and got us all excited and we are not likely to just let you sneak off into the sunset.

<waves the crowd through>
nothing to see here, move along...

If you don't point it out, I can pretend to ignore that I have opened a can of worms

 

[Jay Christopherson]

When you said MongoDB you got my attention, lol. Thanks for sharing your project with us; it will be useful. Now I just have to remember what I learned about boolean search terms some decades ago..... ;D

MongoDB is an interesting thing. Most of the work I've done is with more traditional, relational databases like MySQL, PostGres, Oracle, etc...

It makes some things really easy and really fast, so I can understand the attraction. I do think that it encourages poor design habits in some ways, because you don't really have to think about what you are doing to get going, which I suppose is part of the attraction for new-ish developers. It's definitely an excellent solution for what I'm using it to do though.