Main App Interface And Sorting Presets
Jun 3, 2025
Just an App Interface…
We all want an interface that’s powerful, clean, and intuitive — but guess what? You can only pick two at a time. :)
Still, we’ll do our best to find the sweet spot — even if it takes a few rounds.
Over the past couple of weeks, we finalized the general design concept and UI structure. At the same time, a lot of groundwork was done on the database and the core logic behind sorting presets. Together, these pieces laid the foundation for building out the user-facing part of the app.
The "Start Sorting" button isn’t hooked up to anything just yet — but don’t worry, it’ll come to life when the time is right. :)
Universal Presets
Across all supported games, we can define a few common preset types:
- Card Series – Mostly helpful if a few mixed boxes fall off the shelf and you need to separate cards by set.
- By Name (2 stages) – Alphabetical sorting in two stages: the first preset gives you 5 piles, and each pile can then be run through a second preset to split them further — up to 30 stacks in total.
- Price – A price-based preset using EUR by default, but you’ll be able to switch to any currency and plug in your own price source via the settings menu.
- Random Shuffle – The simplest of them all. No recognition needed — just pure random sorting for fun or testing.
Presets for MTG
After reviewing what players usually look for, we decided to start with a small set of presets that should cover the most common sorting needs:
- Rarity – Common, Uncommon, Rare, Mythic, Special/Bonus, Other
- Type – Creatures, Instants/Sorceries, Lands, Artifacts, Enchantments, Other
- Mechanics – Token Generation, Sacrifice, Flying/Evasion, Mill/Discard, Combos, Other
- Color – White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Other
- Mana – 0–1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6+
Presets for Pokémon
Following the same logic, we’ve prepared the following presets for sorting Pokémon cards:
- Rarity – Common, Uncommon, Rare, Holo/Double, Ultra/Secret, Other
- Type – Psychic, Fighting, Water, Fire, Lightning, Other
- Mechanics – Rule Box Cards, Basic Stage, Abilities, Rapid/Single, Fusion/Tag Team, Other
- Category – Pokémon, Trainer, Energy, Other
- HP – 0–60, 61–100, 101–130, 131–170, 171–220, 221+
Remote Access
The card sorter already supports remote access from smartphones or computers — and multiple devices can connect at the same time.
All button presses and actions are automatically synced with the sorter and reflected across all connected devices.
There’s just one requirement: the card sorter and your phone or computer must be connected to the same WiFi network.
At some point, we’ll probably need to add an authorization system to prevent unwanted access — but that can wait for now. :)
Presets for Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece, FaB, and Lorcana
We haven’t developed presets for these games just yet — mostly because we’re still figuring out how well the preset system works for MTG and Pokémon.
In other words, it makes sense to focus on one or two games first, refine the approach, and then expand to the rest as things evolve.
What’s Next
Now that we have the foundation for the user interface, it’s time to bring the “START/STOP” button to life — so that pressing it actually starts the sorting process.
We already have working logic for managing the hardware, as we mentioned in the blog post: Hardware Sorting Test.
That definitely helps, but connecting these two modules will still take some effort and time.
Step by step, we’re moving forward.
To be continued...
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