thomas and friends mini series

Heh, highlighting wasn't my idea, it came from a user's suggestion . Don't worry about whether a feature is easy or not to implement, because that's not really obvious from looking at the UI (yesterday someone left feedback asking for a number field by each engine to count *how many* duplicates they have; but the entire program is built around "yes I have it or no I don't" and I can't add a number of each engine, at all; early on I'd implemented an undocumented feature to support multiple lists but it was clunky and I hated using it myself, so I kind of dropped it).

The most helpful thing for me is a little story (just a sentence or two) about *how* the feature is helpful or will be used. If someone had said, "I want to highlight some of the engines" I'd have ignored it; "I want to know if there are any blister packs that wouldn't give me duplicates," now that's a useful feature and I can come up with a good way to show that. In general, I'm only going to implement a feature that makes it easier for (or is at least transparent to) the harried parent in the toy store aisle trying to figure out which blind bags they should get.

I don't have any other forum, so if you have any more ideas go ahead and ask here, at least until someone tells us to stop!

The duplicates are a good idea, but like you said people don't know how the system works behind the scenes, so it's hard for them to imagine what it would take to implement something that might look simple.

The italicized names are very helpful, so what I am doing with duplicates, I have + next to each one, so every time I get a duplicate (and let's be honest, who hasn't bought a whole pack to get just 1 train, OK maybe I am alone on that but I have to do it) I put a little + next to it. Then I count them all. I think I will use a dice method, I'll draw a box, and for each duplicate, I'll put a dice dot. That way I can do up to 6 in a box + what I have, 7. Hopefully I'll never have 7 of any engines but you never know.

That reminds me, I am planning to separate my duplicates and let my son play with them instead of trying to sell them, unless someone wants to trade. This way he still gets to play with this awesome toy, and I get to help him with a nice collection that he can keep later on.

I wish Fisher-Price could cooperate with you and supply pictures and actual release roster so you can be semi-official Minis collector guide.