Why I'm writing about building TCG Marquee
This blog covers how TCG Marquee is built, one change at a time, from the first idea to today. Here's why, and what to expect from it.
Blog
How TCG Marquee is being built: the ideas, the tradeoffs, and the mistakes, written up as they happen. RSS feed
Watching the board without a cable
Firmware 0.2.8 adds a live log: the board shows what it's doing on a web page on your home network, so testing no longer needs a USB cable.
Two small fixes: stubborn photos and password pop-ups
A replaced photo kept coming back, and a search box kept offering to fill in a password. Both had simple causes, and both are fixed.
Group by set, fold binders, and a phone layout
Group your collection by binder, set, or game, fold groups away, sort by real card number, and use a layout built for phones.
Changing many cards at once, for shows and binders
Select cards with checkboxes, or a whole binder at once, and put them on the wall, take them off, or mark them for sale in a single step.
Finding cards in a big collection
The collection page got tabs, a search box, filters, sortable columns, and paging, so a collection of a thousand cards is as easy to use as one of ten.
A tidier admin panel with tabs and safer saves
The admin page was one long scroll. It now has tabs, a Save button on every settings tab, and a warning before changing a paying customer's plan.
About, contact, and cleaner pages for search
A second site audit led to an about page, a contact form, clearer titles and descriptions, and links between pages so none of them stand alone.
Dimming at night, in your own time zone
Each account now has a time zone, and the board dims at night by its own clock, at your local time, even offline and across daylight saving changes.
Rollback, and the bug that put it to the test
New firmware now runs on probation and the board goes back to the old version if it keeps crashing. The first test found a real bug, which is now fixed.
From 90 seconds to 7: faster page downloads
Loading the first 40 pages took 90 seconds. One request per batch, and keeping Wi-Fi awake, cut it to 7.4 seconds, installed as the first wireless update.
Wi-Fi setup from a phone, and big collections
Firmware 0.2: set up Wi-Fi from your phone, collections of any size stream in batches, and new firmware installs over the air after a fingerprint check.
The board arrives: the first firmware
The MatrixPortal S3 arrived before the panel. The first firmware joins Wi-Fi, pairs with an account, and downloads the wall, all shown on a computer.
Getting found: two rounds of search fixes
A first search check and a professional site audit led to clearer pages: prices anyone can read, a founder section, a changelog, and a support page.
A demo reel of cards that don't exist
For screenshots and demos, TCG Marquee has a demo reel: sixteen invented cards from invented sets, with made-up prices and art drawn by the server.
Getting the Apple TV app into TestFlight
The path from Xcode to TestFlight: App Store Connect, a required Xcode update, app icons, and an upload button that only worked outside full screen.
An Apple TV app you pair with a short code
TCG Marquee on Apple TV: open the app, scan the QR code or type the short code at tcgmarquee.com/link, and the TV becomes your price wall.
A logo that looks right on an LED wall
TCG Marquee got a logo built for its own screens: a square mark with no small print, so it reads clearly on an LED panel and in screen mode.
Six things to fix before anyone pays
A review of what real customers would hit first: billing gaps, Terms at signup, CSV import and export, price alert emails, and device limits.
Fixing a trend line that pointed the wrong way
The collection chart once said up while the value said down. It now tracks price movement only, over the same week as the number beside it.
A security review before letting anyone in
Before inviting testers, I reviewed the app's security and fixed what turned up, from how pages load images to how sign-in attempts are limited.
Setting up billing with Stripe
Subscriptions now run through Stripe: monthly or yearly plans, checkout on the site, a billing portal for changes, and webhooks that keep plans in sync.
Email that works: invites, resets, and an inbox
With Postmark, TCG Marquee sends invites, password resets, and welcome emails, and mail sent to the domain lands in an inbox on the admin page.
Accounts, sign-in, and an invite-only beta
TCG Marquee got real accounts, an admin page, and invite-only signups, so beta testers can use the top plan for free while everything gets tested.
Naming it: from CardWall to TCG Marquee
The project started as CardWall. The domain cost $10,000, TCG Ticker was taken, and TCG Marquee was available. Here's how the name was chosen.
Shop logos, QR codes, and a smoother ticker
Card shops can now show their own logo and a QR code to their website or social media, every fifteen pages. The ticker also stopped stuttering.
Show mode: price boards for the vendor table
Show mode turns TCG Marquee into a sign for your table at a card show: cards you're selling, your asking price next to the market price, and totals.
Picking the cheapest parts for a working prototype
The prototype uses an Adafruit MatrixPortal S3 instead of a Raspberry Pi: no SD card, less power, and a lower cost. Here's the parts list and why.
Screen mode: TCG Marquee without an LED board
Not everyone wants hardware. The Screen plan shows the wall at full resolution on any TV, monitor, or tablet with a web browser, on up to five screens.
A search guide, and 100 results per search
Card search got a help guide with real examples, and a fix: searches now return up to 100 cards at once, since each search costs one credit either way.
Scrydex approves using its prices in a product
Before selling anything built on someone else's data, I asked. Scrydex confirmed that a product like TCG Marquee is allowed on its paid plans.
Tabs for your account, plans, and a how-to page
The web app grew from one page into tabs: the wall, your collection, your account and plan, and a help page that explains how everything works.
More than Pokémon: every game on the price list
Card shows sell more than Pokémon. TCG Marquee added Magic, Lorcana, One Piece, Gundam, and Riftbound, plus a full screen mode for demos on a monitor.
Graded card prices, and two plans instead of one
Graded slabs are a big part of what collectors care about. Adding PSA, CGC, BGS, TAG, SGC, and ACE prices led to splitting the product into two plans.
First feedback, and a question: could this sell?
A friend who sells cards at shows saw the preview and liked it. That raised a real question: could this be a product, with accounts and a central server?
Seeing the LED board before it exists
The parts were days away, so the web app got an animated dot matrix preview that shows exactly what the LED board will display, in the browser.
The first server and a web app for your collection
The first working version: a small server that stores your cards, a web page to add and edit them, and a connection to Scrydex for prices.
From a flight tracker to a card price board
It started with a little LED sign that shows planes flying overhead, and a question: what if it showed what my trading cards are worth today instead?