NOTE: The application is not finished yet, but I plan to get a lot done during this holiday week. If you want to receive occasional updates, visit the homepage and add your email address.
I want to share with you possibly the most critical aspect of the application - adding notes to your collection. This was especially challenging because US currency is a very complicated subject. There are different categories, note types, denominations, and series. Many of these notes have special variations like national charters and banks, web notes, experimentals, mules, plate numbers, light and dark green seals... you get the idea. From a development perspective, it's a nightmare to keep track of.
All of this could be recorded through individual form fields, but it would be one hell of a huge form. Just like you, I HATE long web forms. I tried to simplify the process as much as possible while still keeping it detailed enough for collection statistics and whatnot.
Below are screens of the few steps to adding a note to your collection on MyCurrencyCollection. I used this note from Heritage Auctions as an example:
The first step is to get the general categorization information (category, type, denomination, and series). You can either enter a Fr. number or select the proper values from a series of drop-downs.
In the example, we've entered Fr. 1800-2, which is a National Bank Note. Now you enter the charter number. (Non-national entries would skip past this to the final screen.)
If there was more than one bank associated with a charter number, select the bank from a drop-down. The banks are automagically populated so you do not need to type it all out.
Now it's time to enter all the details for your note. There are a lot of helpful features on this page that make entering this information easier. The buyer and seller fields auto-suggest values based on people you've dealt with in the past. And the attribute field auto-suggests from a large list of common attributes, like "star note," "web note," "fancy serial," and a list of common types of errors among others.
And of course you can upload super large images to show off your gems.
There you have it - the two (or three) step process to add a note to your collection on MyCurrencyCollection. Feedback, comments, questions, and suggestions are most welcome. This is for currency collectors out there - so if you want to store and share your currency collection online, let me know what is important to you?
dave
Dave