Need Wishlist Software

Dec 22, 2005 Author: Meredith | Filed under: computing

I think I’ve come up with an idea for a project to do after I’m finished teaching myself PHP and MySQL. I want my own damn wishlist software. I’ve been copying my lists into MetaWishlist but it’s not quite what I want. I have tried a gazillion others - seriously, I’ve tried Felicite, Baggle, The Things I Want, Wishlist.com, JustWish, grat.uito.us (thanks Nina), Froogle (thanks clubjuggler)…yeah, you get the idea. But none of them are quite perfect! So I’ve been looking around HotScripts and Sourceforge (haven’t really found anything at the former) and I’m finding a few examples, but none of them do quite what I want. So I’m just going to have to write something myself, even though I can’t code my way out of a paper bag (raise your hand if you get that joke). Here are my desired features:

Pictures - input a URL to an image and it either snags it (to the site or to something like Photobucket) or just steals the bandwidth. They should be resized so it’s uniform.
Tagging - MetaWishlist has this, but it’s clunky. I would love to have tag groups (like del.icio.us) and comma separated tagging (because I don’t like space separated).
Fields - Item title, optional description, size (if applicable), color (if applicable), price, tags, store name, item URL
Claiming - So people don’t buy two of the same thing. This is low priority for me.
Import/Export - Because I should be able to if I want to. Import from…dunno. Export to…XML? Excel?
Self-Hosting - For one thing, it’s fun. I like to run my own stuff. Also, it makes me feel my data is safer, although something remotely hosted that could export would be fine.
Pop-up Entry - Enter the item info using either a pop-up box or a frame.

More to come as I think of it, because I know there’s more I can think of.

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8 Responses for "Need Wishlist Software"

Nina December 22nd, 2005 at 4:15 pm 1

You may have already tried this, but have you heard of grat.uitio.us (I think I spelled that wrong)? It has the picture, tagging, and fields features, although I’m not sure it has claiming. It’s pretty useful.
Meredith December 22nd, 2005 at 4:17 pm 2

I tried that and I didn’t find it very intuitive, actually. I may have to give it another try. It seemed like it was pretty heavily geared toward social networking, and that isn’t quite what I’m looking for. But thanks for the reminder, I will try it again!
Ryan December 22nd, 2005 at 4:43 pm 3

You may want to try http://wishlist.confusticate.com/ — it does most of what you mentioned. It seems to lack an XML export, though I haven’t looked very hard. At least check it out (I’ll point you to my wish list if you want to see what a filled out wish list looks like).
Emiliano December 22nd, 2005 at 8:11 pm 4

Hi I’m speaking on behalf of TheThingsIWant.com.. Hey.. we seem to cover all your needs.. we do have tagging (and it’s comma separated). We have claiming. A URL field for adding pictures (we have a bot that generally finds them, if not you can input the URL and the image will get resized and stored in our server)
You can export your list through RSS..
We have all the fields you ask for (or very similar).. and it’s pop-up entry.. maybe you have not visited us in some time but the site keeps improving. Anyhow thanks for mentioning us.
Dan Parvaz December 23rd, 2005 at 7:56 pm 5

Just keep on learning PHP and MySQL. I use ‘em all the time on the job (although make sure you follow instructions for installing MySQL securely!), and you’d be surprised what they end up being good for. Hey, maybe you can whip up the killer app everyone really wants… some sort of communal interpreter-scheduling software.
Marktopia » Blog Archive » Wishlist Wishes January 5th, 2006 at 12:58 pm 6

[...] In addition to the MizCD stuff, I have been trying to find a nice wishlist application on the web, either hosted locally or a web service. I have tried out GreedyMe, which is pretty nice, especially for importing things from Amazon, however there is no way to mark something as received and they are “experimenting” with automatic tagging that doesn’t quite work right. I also looked at the myGifts sourceforge program, but Chris (he is using Typo for his blog, so it might not load right) told me that it doesn’t have a public view, so that is teh suck. I then found a random blog entry with the same concerns I had, but there doesn’t appear to be a resolution there either. So I ask for opinions and suggestions from the peanut gallery, has anyone found a good wishlist solution yet? Tags: none [...]
Alex January 20th, 2006 at 5:09 pm 7

I’ve been looking for something like this too, and I’ve also been unhappy with the public stuff that’s available right now. If you do come up with a good app, let me know. I’d be willing to pay for it.
Witchy September 17th, 2006 at 12:30 am 8

Did you ever find something? I’m looking for something similar; a wishlist that I can host on my own website for my customers to add items to that they want.