Scry 3.9.0 has been released. After many months of wondering what to do with Scry after the shut down of mtgimage.com I have (kinda, sorta) resurrected Scry. Images are now pulled from magiccards.info just like in the old days. Otherwise things function just as they have before.
One of the problems I've noticed since switching to a local Oracle DB is the extension kept getting bigger and bigger as more sets were released. For example, 3.9.0 was over 9 MB in size. That's quite a lot for something that is mostly text with some small images. Why is it so large then? Well, Scry uses the AllSets-x.json file from mtgjson.com. That file is over 40 MB in size. Even though the extension is compressed 40 MB of text is still a large amount of text.
For this release I looked at what fields I was using from the mtgjson data; there was a lot that wasn't being used. Things like foreign names, the breakdown of the type line, and original text were fields that just weren't being used by Scry. In addition, Scry does a fair amount of processing on that file to change the structure from a list of sets with lists of cards to a list of cards where each set the card appeared in are attached to the card. Basically Scry inverts the mtgjson hierarchy.
Since Scry isn't using all the fields and does a hierarchy flip it made sense to do that outside of the extension itself. I wrote a Java project to do exactly that. It handles the complex hierarchy changes while retaining just the fields we need. The resulting JSON file is now down to 15 MB.
There is still room for space savings. Right now the card back is being packaged since there is no good online resource for it. It's currently over a half a megabyte. Since it's already compressed it doesn't get compressed much when the extension is packaged. There's room for adjusting the cardback dimensions and image quality to squeeze some more space.
The long-term goal is the host the Oracle JSON statically somewhere and have the extension download it on install and periodically as new sets are released. Removing the file from the extension would probably get the size under a megabyte. I've tried this before but it's difficult to keep the local DB in sync with a remote file.
Generate older sets with correct numbering for magicards.info images
Since switching back to magiccards.info for images you might have noticed that older sets would show the wrong image. That was because sets before Exodus didn't have card numbers. magiccards.info therefore follows a certain ordering depending on the set. For example, Alpha is ordered BUGRWAL (white at the end!). Very weird. mtgjson.com, however, doesn't include any number property for those older sets. So if you tried to view an older version of say Sylvan Library you might notice that the image you get for the 4th Edition version is wrong.
To fix this the Oracle file generator now sorts the cards in certain sets to match up with magiccards.info ordering and sets the number property correctly.
3.9.0 Changelog
Users currently on 3.8.2 should automatically get the update.
Scry 3.9.0 is available now.
[card=Jace Beleren]Jace[/card] = Jace
Magic CompRules
Scry Rollover Popups for Google Chrome
The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.
3.9.1 Changelog
One of the problems I've noticed since switching to a local Oracle DB is the extension kept getting bigger and bigger as more sets were released. For example, 3.9.0 was over 9 MB in size. That's quite a lot for something that is mostly text with some small images. Why is it so large then? Well, Scry uses the AllSets-x.json file from mtgjson.com. That file is over 40 MB in size. Even though the extension is compressed 40 MB of text is still a large amount of text.
For this release I looked at what fields I was using from the mtgjson data; there was a lot that wasn't being used. Things like foreign names, the breakdown of the type line, and original text were fields that just weren't being used by Scry. In addition, Scry does a fair amount of processing on that file to change the structure from a list of sets with lists of cards to a list of cards where each set the card appeared in are attached to the card. Basically Scry inverts the mtgjson hierarchy.
Since Scry isn't using all the fields and does a hierarchy flip it made sense to do that outside of the extension itself. I wrote a Java project to do exactly that. It handles the complex hierarchy changes while retaining just the fields we need. The resulting JSON file is now down to 15 MB.
There is still room for space savings. Right now the card back is being packaged since there is no good online resource for it. It's currently over a half a megabyte. Since it's already compressed it doesn't get compressed much when the extension is packaged. There's room for adjusting the cardback dimensions and image quality to squeeze some more space.
The long-term goal is the host the Oracle JSON statically somewhere and have the extension download it on install and periodically as new sets are released. Removing the file from the extension would probably get the size under a megabyte. I've tried this before but it's difficult to keep the local DB in sync with a remote file.
[card=Jace Beleren]Jace[/card] = Jace
Magic CompRules
Scry Rollover Popups for Google Chrome
The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.
3.9.2 Changelog
[card=Jace Beleren]Jace[/card] = Jace
Magic CompRules
Scry Rollover Popups for Google Chrome
The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.
3.9.3 Changelog
Since switching back to magiccards.info for images you might have noticed that older sets would show the wrong image. That was because sets before Exodus didn't have card numbers. magiccards.info therefore follows a certain ordering depending on the set. For example, Alpha is ordered BUGRWAL (white at the end!). Very weird. mtgjson.com, however, doesn't include any number property for those older sets. So if you tried to view an older version of say Sylvan Library you might notice that the image you get for the 4th Edition version is wrong.
To fix this the Oracle file generator now sorts the cards in certain sets to match up with magiccards.info ordering and sets the number property correctly.
[card=Jace Beleren]Jace[/card] = Jace
Magic CompRules
Scry Rollover Popups for Google Chrome
The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.
3.9.4 Changelog
[card=Jace Beleren]Jace[/card] = Jace
Magic CompRules
Scry Rollover Popups for Google Chrome
The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.