My new Woodworking / Craft / etc Magazine Site..

[X_Digger]

I have a lot of craft magazines, both digital and paper. When I need to find an article that I vaguely remember about a project I might want to take up, I go a little nuts trying to find it.

I'm a web developer- coding websites is my day job. When I get an itch, I reach for a particular set of tools to scratch it. Those include php, mysql, javascript, json, css, and html.

So to give back to this group and the crafting / woodturning / woodworking communities in general, I've put together a web app. It's a database of information about magazines and their content. Search terms and page references are what it boils down to. The idea is that you can search for terms, like 'drill press table' and get a list of magazines / issues / page numbers where you'll find things that match your search.

It's a boolean search, so you can do things like '+table +dining -end -side'. Click on an issue in the results and see all items in that issue. Click on a magazine, and see all issues.

From the homepage, you can also browse to a particular magazine and export all its data, so that you could store it on a tablet to keep in your shop. (At least with my turning club, there are more hip replacements than hipsters, so the idea of a printed index may appeal to some of them.)

If you log in, you can add and edit magazines, issues, and data. Feel free to mouse over fields, I've tried to add pop up descriptions for fields and selections based on previous feedback. I've tried to make the data entry process smooth as well.

I was able to import the issue details for all the PDFs I have, and some of the search data that's present on some magazines' 'back issue library'. I also have some indexes of other magazines that were imported.

I would love if I could get more entries though- this will only work if multiple people input their data. When you register you don't have to put in a real email address, there's no 'account activation' or 'forgot password' functionality that would require it at this point.

This is free. There are no ads, no spam, no malware, or pop-ups. I'm hoping that others find usefulness in it, and possibly want to help.

Do let me know what you think- if there are other features that you'd like to see, hit the 'contact' link and let me know. (Or reply here, of course!)

I'll be adding more data as time permits and new magazines arrive.

http://www.rowelab.com/magdb/

[northoftheborder]

1. Sounds like a great idea.

I have boxes of torn out pages from magazines (gardening, cooking, crafts, antiques, what have you!) Most are filed in folders, but still more difficult to find than your method.

[X_Digger]

2. My wife has sticky notes and folded pages in her gardening magazines & reference books. :) n/t

[northoftheborder]

3. That was my method too, until I had to move!

I had to throw out stacks and stacks of precious magazines containing oceans of information; first I went through and tore out any saved info.

[northoftheborder]

4. Fine Homebuilding was one of my stacks - but couldn't just chooses certain topics to save.

The whole magazine is fine; did give those away to my postman, who sneaked them home without his wife knowing!!!

[X_Digger]

5. Update!

Just wanted to bump this post- I now have 45 magazines in the database, almost 2,900 issues, and ~33,000 search terms.

Still looking for others to add their magazines to the database, especially for other crafts!