I’m still plugging away on the new ABG’s, but I do have a day job, and that’s working at Warmoth.

Among other things, like the pre-cut string nuts, I did much of the development and programming for the Showcase. For those who don’t know, it’s a part of the site that lets you browse hundreds of in-stock necks and bodies. You get to see the actual piece of wood that’s for sale, so it’s a bit of a candy store for guitar players. There’s a lot going on there that isn’t immediately obvious, so I thought I’d share some programmer’s insights:

• The necks and bodies are all mirrored on Google Base and Froogle, where you can do all kinds of cool searches and comparison shopping that are not possible on the Showcase (yet).
• I used Google Base’s API to create a search interface for the Showcase on the Warmoth site. It’s accessible through the “Quick Search” box at the bottom of the lefthand nav on all the Showcase neck and body pages. Type in whatever you want, and it will return full-text search results from all 1700+ live necks and bodies. You can use this to keep track of all the awesome stuff they have for sale.
• The above-mentioned search interface is featured in Google Base’s API Application Showcase.
• I also created a search plugin for Firefox, so you can search the Showcase from your toolbar. Just grab the XML file here and put it in the SearchPlugins folder of your Firefox install. It should be in your dropdown list of search engines when you restart Firefox. Note: I’ve only tested this in XP with FF 1.5 and 2.0 . YMMV.
• You may know that there’s an RSS feed for guitar and bass necks and bodies, but did you know you can create custom product feeds with the search filters? Just use the search filter dropdowns and you’ll see another RSS link appear under the usual one in the bottom of the left-hand nav. Here’s a feed of only blue guitar bodies, for example.
• People like to talk about things they find in the Showcase in the guitar forums, and they often link back to the Showcase in their posts. Here’s an RSS feed of forum posts that link to Showcase items. Seriously.
• There’s also a product feed for the E-Store, which features both necks and bodies from the Showcase as well as pickups and hardware: Warmoth E-Store RSS Feed

Posted by Brian Goode on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 7:18 am.