My new Woodworking / Craft / etc Magazine Site.. [View all]

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/