BoatCrawler: A new way to search the sailboat market

[Ryban]

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I have decided to post it here as it’s the forum I frequent most and seems appropriate.

What is it?
BoatCrawler is a tool I made for myself to help me find a boat to sail around the world. I used BluewaterBoats.org, AtomVoyages.com, and this site extensively to find the right criteria for a bluewater boat.

The problem was, I had a very long list of boats that met my requirements, and it was a tedious task to check places like sailboatlistings.com and yachtworld.com for these boats, even on a weekly basis.

So I set out to automate my searches and create a dashboard of results. This way, I could wake up in the morning to a dashboard that displayed each and every example of "Boat X", "Boat Y", and "Boat Z", currently listed on sailboatlistings.com and yachtworld.com.

I found it useful, so I decided to clean it up and release it to a broader audience.

Where is it?
BoatCrawler (beta), and it can be found at:
http://www.boatcrawler.com/

You can create a new account, which will be automatically populated with sample data, or use a demo account for view-only purposes:

user: DemoUser
pass: DemoUser123

Note: with the demo account, you won't be able to make any changes to the queries, add queries, favorite boats, etc.

What do you mean "beta"?
Aside from myself, I've had very few other users test the app. As a result, you may encounter bugs or behavior that I am not aware of (you will).

If you do, please shoot me a pm or give me a comment here. Screenshots are helpful.

I also have concerns about server-load. The server has handled a modest set of queries for a small number of users, but I'm unsure of how this will scale.

Thus: I beg you to be patient while its in beta, and try not to judge me too harshly.

What are the limitations?

1. The mobile version currently not ready (sorry!)
2. It will only search YachtWorld and SailboatListings
3. For server load concerns, you can't have more than 50 queries at a time.
4. A single query cannot return more than 50 results, so be specific.
5. Geo-locating is slow -- I'm exploring other options
6. Queries only run once a day (unless they're new)
7. I'm on shared-hosting, so please be patient!

Craigslist will not likely be added as a search website. It would be technically challenging as CL is location-specific. Additionally, Craigslist has a history of sueing people for page scraping.

Other sites could be added, the two I chose were the two I used most.

Again, I beg you for your patience. The purpose of the beta is to get feedback on why it sucks so much, and not to win any praise.

Happy crawling!

[Jd1]

Great idea ! There, praise even though you didn't ask for any
I have not yet tried the product so can't offer feedback about suckiness ....

[Paul L]

Can a demo user add and execute a query?

[Ryban]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Can a demo user add and execute a query?

The DemoUser can't add or execute queries because it would muddle things up behind the scenes if multiple people were modifying the same set of data. However, the DemoUser's queries are executed regularly.

If you register and login though, you can do those things of course.

[Get-away]

Tried to sign up and that worked, but login wouldn't accept my password.

Reset password email worked, I have a new temp password via email, still says "Invalid login credentials" -

Great idea, love it. Hope it can let me log in.

Username I used was Getaway.

I've tried both firefox and chrome browsers.

[Ryban]

Originally Posted by Get-away

Tried to sign up and that worked, but login wouldn't accept my password.

Reset password email worked, I have a new temp password via email, still says "Invalid login credentials" -

Great idea, love it. Hope it can let me log in.

Username I used was Getaway.

I've tried both firefox and chrome browsers.

Very strange! I haven't been able to replicate this behavior but I'm looking into it.

Edit: I've looked over the logs and sent you an e-mail!

[Get-away]

Originally Posted by Ryban

Very strange! I haven't been able to replicate this behavior but I'm looking into it.

Edit: I've looked over the logs and sent you an e-mail!

Re-registered as you suggested in your email - all seems fine now - both Firefox and Chrome.

Used exactly the same credentials as before - just one of those thing I guess.

Cheers for the quick help.

[LeeV]

I've tried registering over a dozen times, but it keeps erasing my passwords and even if I change the password to something else, it does the same - on my iPad, and my Dell, using I.E. or Chrome. Passwords all have cap, lower and number(S).

Great idea, though!

[LeeV]

...and then I recvd an email telling me I'm in!

[AmericanVagrant]

Cool program, I checked it out using the demo login. How often is the database refreshed? I noted that there are currently 12 active listings on SailboatListings and 4 on YachtWorld for the Albin Vega, but only 7 total appeared in your application.

[nematon785]

Is the crawler capeable of eliminating sailboatlisting results based on date of post?

That site seems to contain a lot of results that are many years old, this is undesireable.

sorting results by date of posting for yachtworld would be very useful also.

did you also make a game i could play, to fill all the extra time i will have now?

[brendanwalls]

It deletes the password as soon as you press register

[hafa]

A few suggestions:

1. Make queries user-specific; we do not need to see other's queries.
2. Make terms consistent; you use "Size" in the query, but "Length" in the results.
3. In the Query, for Price, length and year, use drop downs or restrict to integers using regular expressions.
4. Make it clear that the price, year, length and location buttons on the overall listing are for sorting.
5. Differentiate the Yachtworld and SailboatListings buttons from the price, year, length and location buttons, as they filter, rather than sort.
6. Rather than restrict overall results, paginate them.
7. Remove the pulsing number on the query page. Very distracting.

[DenverSailors]

Amazing concept and I'm excited to see it mature. I have the same issue Aruban did. Am I simply too eager to access?

[hafa]

Originally Posted by DenverSailors

Amazing concept and I'm excited to see it mature. I have the same issue Aruban did. Am I simply too eager to access?

Perhaps attempting to login before clicking the link in the validation email? The notification at the top of the page subsequent to registration is easy to miss and could be more complete in describing the process.