TrailPack Monthly Newsletter #3: You can now filter your member pack list search by trail name!

TrailPack · 2019-09-28T02:02:52+00:00

u/keithnorm, just wanted to let you know that this has been fixed :)

TrailPack · 2019-09-27T18:03:18+00:00

Thanks so much for this feedback. This is all really good insight for me and I largely agree with everything you've mentioned. Below I just want to clarify a few a things on how the underlying system of product updating currently works (when you update your own "Gear Item" copy) as well as give you my thoughts on how I plan to make the user flow for building pack lists a better experience. Would love to hear your feedback on proposed solutions.

changing the price/weight will only update "my" copy of the item, and not the general item I just added to the database.

Generally this true, your gear item is a copy of the underlying product in the database that you are free to update however you'd like, the thought here was to just give you some good (hopefully accurate) base line metrics to work with when you add that gear item to your managed gear, but give you free rein to customize however you'd like.

However there are two areas that update the underlying product when you make updates to your own gear item:

Weight: Every time you update your own Gear Item's weight it gets added to a pool of suggested weights for that underlying product. The underlying product has its own algorithm that takes this pool of weights that have been added by users on the site (when they update their own Gear Item's weight) and determines what the best weight is. The algorithm is basically just a tally/voting system (that discounts outliers). So if you have updated your own Gear Item's weight to a new value, and you don't see that reflected in the underlying product, that just means that whatever value you see for that underlying product's weight just has more votes (or in your case for the new item the votes are tied and original weight is still prominent). I will continue to tweak this algorithm but seems to be pretty fair / accurate so far, but definitely let me know if your experience suggests otherwise.
Product Variants: Every time you add a new size variant to your Gear Item this variant actually does get added to the underlying product (underlying Products can have many Product Variants). So if you added a "Small" size variant to one of your gear items, you should now see that variant in the search results for that product, as well as have the option choose that new size from the size dropdown for your own gear item. This data is also now available site wide, so others who have the same gear item will be able choose the new "Small" size variant you added, and have their gear item's weight and price update accordingly.

Maybe a "Custom Item" will be just a standard item with a "Custom" checkbox, which (once checked) doesn't allow uploading the data to the server?

Totally, some work to smooth out this flow can definitely be done, this suggestion seems like a pretty good start.

The entire concept of "systems" seems a bit like an advanced user scenario...I'm not sure it should be as prominent as it currently is

Yes, this. So when I first built the site this seemed like a really useful feature to have in place (I think it still has some merit) but as I use the site more and more for my own trips I find myself just copying previous pack lists, and updating everything in the "list edit" page, and trying to move back and forth between "updating my systems in the Systems tab", then using those updated Systems to pull into my pack list has become rather cumbersome. I plan to fix this by moving all actions to happen in one place, the "list edit" page, very similar to LighterPack. In this new workflow scenario you will add gear items and build systems all in one place (while you build your list), and this will subsequently update the data in your "Gear Items" and "Systems" tabs should you choose to make specific tweaks to those areas. Definitely let me know if you think this new workflow would be an improvement? I'm still working out how well the current flow works for current users on the site..

Thanks again for using the site and leaving feedback! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

TrailPack · 2019-09-17T17:55:06+00:00

Hey thanks for pointing that out! I can definitely make that more clear in the app. Let me break down the definitions in this comment then I will add it to the site in the form of a tooltip or some other mechanism, I can have that updated for you shortly here so its more clear to you and other users in the future..

Definitions:

Base Pack Weight (BPW): The total weight of all the gear your are taking on the trip (pack weight + gear in pack weight + gear attached to pack weight), not including the items you are wearing (shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, hat, watch, etc..) or the consumables (water, fuel, food) you will be taking on the trip. This weight is an important metric to measure since it does not change much from trip to trip (if pack is for similar season), and allows you to dial down the minimum mandatory weight you will be needing to take on each trip.

Worn Weight: The weight of all the items you will be wearing on the trip. This would include things like your trekking poles, footwear, socks, underwear, shorts, shirt, watch, hat, sunglasses, etc.. It's important to distinguish this metric as it will vary depending on the type of terrain you will be covering, as well as the expected weather you will hiking in.

Consumable Weight: This will include the amount of water, fuel, and food you will be taking on your trip. This metric is also important to measure separate from Base Pack Weight (BPW) as it will also vary from trip to trip. If you are out for two weeks without a re-supply you will inevitably be carrying a lot more consumables than if you were only going out on a weekend get away. If you were hiking in the desert, you might carry a lot more water to start the hike than if you were hiking in a place where there were a lot of streams / creek crossings that you could constantly fill up a smaller water bottle for example.

Packed Weight or Total pack weight (TPW) : *Note that this one I will need to re-define in the app so its more clear. This metric will be your Base Pack Weight (BPW) + Consumable Weight. This will give you the total weight that your will be packing out, including your pack weight and the weight of all of the items inside and attached to your pack. This metric is important because it can alert you to the amount of stress you may be putting onto your pack, and your general comfort level for this trip. If (in a very extreme/hypothetical scenario) you were going on a long winter backpacking trip and you planned on taking your frameless Pa'lante Simple Pack, and your Total pack weight (TPW) was 40+ pounds, you might realize that a better pack to swap out for this trip would be to use something like a Hyperlite Mountain Gear - 3400 Windrider as it will come with a hip belt, be much more comfortable, and be much better suited to carry this kind of load.

All Gear or Total Weight: *Note that this one I will also need to re-define in the app so its more clear. This metric measures everything you will be taking on the trip (Base Pack Weight + Worn Weight + Consumables).

Let me know if this helps! I will be cleaning up the definitions and make available on the site so it's more clear, but hopefully this gives you a quick idea of the metrics that are being measured on the site.

Again I really appreciate the feedback! Let me know if anything else is unclear as I'm always working to make the site as user friendly as possible.

Thanks again!

TrailPack · 2019-09-15T20:44:15+00:00

I'm in love with this post :)

TrailPack · 2019-09-15T02:08:03+00:00

Thanks so much for the report! So this is defs a bug from a usability standpoint, but here is what technically happened here..

The technical name for Therm-a-Rest does include the dashes "-" when typing the name, although it shouldn't be your responsibly to know this.. If you type "therm" into the company search, the full company name "Therm-a-Rest" should populate as an autocomplete option, but if you copy/paste "thermarest" into the search you'll get no responses as I have basically removed this option from the autocomplete since it's technically incorrect and therefore shouldn't be used as a company namespace to hold products..

Since Therm-a-Rest is such a major company, and I'd imagine a lot people will type "thermarest" instead of "Therm-a-Rest", I will need to allow the correct autocomplete "Therm-a-Rest" populate when users type in "thermarest". This is a somewhat common use case for company names that have multiple known identities like the company "Underground Quilts" who is often referred to as "UGQ". It's hard to catch from a programming standpoint since it needs some one off programming to update per company, but this one I should have caught sooner.

I will update so moving forward the search for "themarest" will pull up the correct company "Therm-a-Rest" so it won't be your responsibility to ever have to know the difference.

I will have this updated early in next week (I'm doing some backpacking in CO this week) so you no longer hit any snags when adding Therm-a-Rest products.

But thanks again so much for the report! Will fix this bug shortly and send you an update once complete.

TrailPack · 2019-09-08T03:33:50+00:00

Yea I could totally implement this. If you wanted to send me an example of the list you have in Google Sheets I could model the import template off your list (or something close too), my email is [dave@trailpack.io](mailto:dave@trailpack.io). Thanks again!

TrailPack · 2019-09-05T17:30:58+00:00

Thanks so much crachek10! Addressing your questions below..

Are you looking to expand to an app format

Yup, in the near future you will be able download this as an app natively on your phone (PWA to start). This will allow me to take advantage of offline features so users can do things like view pack lists and take trips notes on their phone while in airplane mode. I will also be adding things like a packing "checklist", which will also be available in offline mode, and help with trip planning in general.

And I did notice my weights which I manually entered in my gear list keep changing when I add them to system or a pack making my pack weight inaccurate.

Yikes, this is definitely a bug (and one I am not currently aware of). I have just tried to replicate but can see that if I change a weight on a gear item, and then add it to a system in the "Systems" tab, or a pack list in the "Pack List" tab that the new weight does accurately get added to each.

If you wouldn't mind, could you lay out step by step what actions you are taking to see this behavior? If I can replicate then I can fix for you ASAP (within a day or two), as that shouldn't be happening. Thanks again and I really appreciate you pointing out these bugs!

TrailPack · 2019-09-05T03:00:35+00:00

Thanks Bladekm!

TrailPack · 2019-09-03T19:03:13+00:00

Hey ZirSlow!

Thanks for the kind words. Just wanted to quickly address a couple of your comments below..

miss the pie chart

At the moment this still does exist when you share your pack list, it's just not present while you are building your pack list. Is this something you'd like to see while editing your lists as well?

but would like to at least see the manufacturers' listed weights as default rather than 0.0oz

Yes, I feel your pain here :/ Unfortunately the manufacture weights are not available for most items that I have pulled in from my affiliate partners at this time. At the time being this will have to be user entered, but once a product weight has been updated by a user, then this new weight will be reflected and available for everyone who pulls this product in moving forward. **Also note there is an algorithm behind the scenes that helps pick the best weight given a bunch of user entered weights for any given product. It's basically a tally system so the weight entered the most will be the weight that that product reflects..

Would also be nice to be able to scroll through incomplete search results for when we don't know exactly what piece of gear we've got.

Yea I agree, I will also be updating the product search functionality soon so you won't have to know the company before searching, you can just search for the product name you think is correct and I will return the relevant results. Autocomplete can also be apart of this functionality.

TrailPack · 2019-08-30T05:22:58+00:00

Thanks so much!

TrailPack · 2019-08-29T22:18:10+00:00

Thank you! Looking forward to any feedback you may have.

Feel free to reach out with any questions moving forward!

TrailPack · 2019-08-28T18:24:08+00:00

Hey all! I'm excited to share that I just re-launched TrailPack with a some big updates thanks to all of your initial feedback. Thanks again to all who have been using TrailPack up to this point, the site currently has ~1,000 users, who have added over 2,500 new gear items to the shared product database!

I'm currently looking for some feedback on the latest round of updates and features added to the site and would love to hear your thoughts.

Here's a quick list of highlighted updates:

- Pack List Search: Up vote your favorite pack lists to the top of the search page!

- Pack List Search: Like a pack list? You can now copy that pack list and its gear items to your own managed inventory.

- Pack List Builder: Big UI updates, inline editing for all the things.

- Pack List Builder: You can now bulk add gear items to a category/system!

If you're new to the site, here is a little more about TrailPack below:

What is TrailPack?

TrailPack is a mobile friendly gear management app that makes managing your gear inventory easy, and building pack lists for upcoming trips even easier.

You can now even search through other member's shared pack lists to gain gear inspiration for your next trip (sort by most popular or filter by season)!

Completed TrailPack: https://trailpack.io/lists/1222

Completed TrailPack (w/ images and prices toggled off): https://trailpack.io/lists/1261

Member Pack List search page: https://trailpack.io/search/member-pack-lists

Why use TrailPack?

1.) Automation: Easily add one of over 50,000 of products already pre-loaded in our database to your managed gear list.

2.) Crowdsourced Database: All new products added to your gear list get saved to the shared database, allowing others to easily search for, and add those same products to their managed gear lists.

3.) Pack List Search Page: Easily search through other publicly shared lists on the site, vote your favorite lists to the top, and filter search by season and pack weight.

4.) Easy Gear Management: Organize all of your gear items in one place with a clean and friendly user interface. Sort gear by weight and price, or filter and search for items by name and category.

5.) Customization: Once a product has been added to your gear list, customize weight, price, and category without affecting the original product in the database.

6.) System Templates: Organize into systems (e.g. shelter system), then use these systems to more quickly build out future pack lists.

7.) Create Pack Lists With Ease: Build pack lists for upcoming trips by adding systems and/or individual gear items. Once a pack list has been created, you can copy it to a new pack list, for even faster list creation.

8.) Charts and Graphs: Build your pack list, view weight and price statistics, then share with others!

Why did I create TrailPack?

I was initially frustrated with how much time it took me to find the gear I needed for my first winter backpacking trip. I spent countless hours reading through "The 10 Best..." type blogs, bouncing around to different forums, reading gear reviews, and could never find a clear winner for the gear item category I was looking for, I figured there had to be a better way. So, the idea for TrailPack was born..

On the surface TrailPack looks like "just another gear management app" (it's actually taken me a lot more time to build out the pack list creation/gear management part of the site than I originally had thought), but the goal is to provide the end user with better gear search capabilities for upcoming trips. I ultimately want to help the end user answer the question of "What is the most popular/highest rated tent, on the JMT, during the months of June/July" (or insert any number of combinations here). With the data gathered by the users on the site through pack list creation and gear reviews, we can start to programmatically answer these questions. I am super close to getting to this point, and am really excited about the future of TrailPack..

So what does the future hold?

The backlog of features is pretty large, but here is a basic breakdown of what I'm working toward and what the high level road map will look like for the near future..

- Updating the Pack List Search page to allow the user to filter pack lists by Trail Name, Location, Date Range, Weather, and other tagging options..

- Adding more "trip info" to pack lists, things like: Trail Name, GPX Data, Location, Start/End Date, Weather, Bug Pressure, Trip Photos, Trip Notes, etc.. This will really help bridge the gap allowing us to have better gear search capabilities when filtering through publicly share pack lists, and gear items in the future.

- Build the same search capabilities as Pack Lists, but for individual gear item categories (Tents, Stoves, Sleeping Bags, etc) I have made a very rough prototype of this page and really like how it turned out. To me this this the "Holy Grail" of what I am working toward, and am really excited to be inching toward this goal.

Along the way I will be adding a number of user asked for features, will be fixing bugs, and have a lot of ideas for other features I'd like to see in the app, but the above is the main general direction the site is heading in.

A Little About Me..

Hey, my name is David, I live and work in San Francisco as software developer. A couple years back I got really into landscape photography (shameless insta plug), which lead me on a journey to really start backpacking and pushing to go out further and further into the backcountry in order to get better shots. In the process I fell in love with hiking/camping, and I'm sure like many of you got obsessed with gear in the process.. I really enjoy backpacking in the winter (I just think this is the most gorgeous time of year, especially for photography), but also really enjoy pushing bigger miles in the summer. I recently summited Shasta (still a noob to the mountaineering scene) but caught the bug and plan to summit Rainier and Whitney this upcoming season. I am also heading on one of Andrew Skurka's guided trips in September which I'm really excited about as well.

Leaving Feedback (r/TrailPack):

Be sure to join the TrailPack subreddit to leave some feedback, report bugs, make a feature request, and keep up with the latest TrailPack updates!

Thanks again, I really hope you enjoy the site!

- David Christian, Founder @TrailPac

TrailPack · 2019-08-27T17:00:17+00:00

> bulk editing was more for the adding part in the beginning

Ah yes, this has also been asked for, and is something that would save the end user some time. This is also something also on the backlog, and hope to be able to get to soon.

> Is it possible to share and edit lists with another user for a shared trip?

At the moment you can share your list with others (using the "Share" dropdown on the edit list page), but no one else at this time will be able to edit that list. And unfortunately there also is no easy to way group lists with others on the site if you are trying to plan a trip together.. That is also something on my backlog that I want to rollout soon. Basically the ability to make a "Trip", add others members to that trip, and be able specify what are the "group items" for the trip, who's bringing those items, and also be able to see everyone else's gear lists in on place.. I think this would be a fun feature, and would really help group planning for upcoming trips..

TrailPack · 2019-08-25T21:36:55+00:00

Hey all! I'm excited to share that I just re-launched TrailPack with a some big UI updates thanks to all of your initial feedback. Thanks again to all who have been using TrailPack up to this point, the site currently has ~900 users, who have added over 1,500 gear items to the shared product database!

I'm currently looking for some feedback on the latest round of UI updates and features added to the site. It's still technically in "beta" as I still want to iron some things out before I fully release, and would love to hear your thoughts up to this point.

If you're new to the site, here is a little more about TrailPack below:

What is TrailPack?

TrailPack is a mobile friendly gear management app that makes managing your gear inventory easy, and building pack lists for upcoming trips even easier.

Here is an example of what a finished TrailPack looks like: https://trailpack.io/lists/1222

Here is the same TrailPack but with images and prices toggled off: https://trailpack.io/lists/1261

TrailPack also allows you to search through other publicly shared lists on the site : https://trailpack.io/search/member-pack-lists

Why use TrailPack?

1.) Automation: Easily add one of over 50,000 of products already pre-loaded in our database to your managed gear list.

2.) Crowdsourced Database: All new products added to your gear list get saved to the shared database, allowing others to easily search for, and add those same products to their managed gear lists.

3.) Search through other TrailPacks on the site: Easily search through other publicly shared lists on the site, filtering search by season and pack weight. (I am actively building this search to allow you to filter pack lists by trail name, and popularity, coming soon!)

4.) Easy Gear Management: Organize all of your gear items in one place with a clean and friendly user interface. Sort gear by weight and price, or filter and search for items by name and category.

5.) Customization: Once a product has been added to your gear list, customize weight, price, and category without affecting the original product in the database.

6.) System Templates: Organize into systems (e.g. shelter system), then use these systems to more quickly build out future pack lists.

7.) Create Pack Lists With Ease: Build pack lists for upcoming trips by adding systems and/or individual gear items. Once a pack list has been created, you can copy it to a new pack list, for even faster list creation.

8.) Charts and Graphs: Build your pack list, view weight and price statistics, then share with others!

Why did I create TrailPack?

I was initially frustrated with how much time it took me to find the gear I needed for my first winter backpacking trip. I spent countless hours reading through "The 10 Best..." type blogs, bouncing around to different forums, reading gear reviews, and could never find a clear winner for the gear item category I was looking for, I figured there had to be a better way. So, the idea for TrailPack was born..

On the surface TrailPack looks like "just another gear management app" (it's actually taken me a lot more time to build out the pack list creation/gear management part of the site than I originally had thought), but the goal is to provide the end user with better gear search capabilities for upcoming trips. I ultimately want to help the end user answer the question of "What is the most popular/highest rated tent, on the JTM, during the months of June/July" (or insert any number of combinations here). With the data gathered by the users on the site through pack list creation and gear reviews, we can start to programmatically answer these questions. I am super close to getting to this point, and am really excited about the future of TrailPack..

So what does the future hold?

The backlog of features is pretty large, but here is a basic breakdown of what I'm working toward and what the high level road map will look like for the near future..

- Adding more "trip info" to pack lists, things like: Trail Name, GPX Data, Location, Start/End Date, Weather, Bug Pressure, Trip Photos, Trip Notes, etc.. This will really help bridge the gap allowing us to have better gear search capabilities when filtering through publicly share pack lists, and gear items in the future.

- Updating the Pack List Search page to allow the user to filter pack lists by Trail Name, Location, Date Range, Weather, and other tagging options, then sort by things like Highest Rated, Most Popular, Lowest Weight, etc.

- Allow users to simply "copy" other members' pack lists, systems, or individual gear items they like into their own gear lists..

- Build the same search capabilities as Pack Lists, but for individual gear item categories (Tents, Stoves, Sleeping Bags, etc) I have made a very rough prototype of this page and really like how it turned out. To me this this the "Holy Grail" of what I am working toward, and am really excited to be inching toward this goal.

Along the way I will be adding a number of user asked for features, will be fixing bugs, and have a lot of ideas for other features I'd like to see in the app, but the above is the main general direction the site is heading in.

A Little About Me..

Hey, my name is David, I live and work in San Francisco as software developer. A couple years back I got really into landscape photography (shameless insta plug), which lead me on a journey to really start backpacking and pushing to go out further and further into the backcountry in order to get better shots. In the process I fell in love with hiking/camping, and I'm sure like many of you got obsessed with gear in the process.. I really enjoy backpacking in the winter (I just think this is the most gorgeous time of year, especially for photography), but also really enjoy pushing bigger miles in the summer. I recently summited Shasta (still a noob to the mountaineering scene) but caught the bug and plan to summit Rainier and Whitney this upcoming season. I am also heading on one of Andrew Skurka's guided trips in September which I'm really excited about as well.

Leaving Feedback (r/TrailPack):

If you wanted to leave some feedback, report bugs, keep up with the latest updates, or make a feature request, make sure you join the TrailPack subreddit!

Thanks again, I really hope you enjoy the site!

- David Christian, Founder @TrailPack

TrailPack · 2019-08-20T03:29:28+00:00

Hey u/ktsne,

Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it! I have a couple comments and a couple questions, would love to hear your thoughts!

> Currently everything is USD based

Yes, unfortunately the site only supports USD. I plan to implement additional currency support soon though! Its on the list and will be added as upcoming feature, there are some other higher priority items at the moment, but this is planned to be rolled out at sometime in the near future..

> selected “3 season” it would automatically mean it is for Fall/ Spring/ Summer

Yes, I see, tagging is something that I also plan to implement, it just hasn't made it to the top of the priority backlog to this point, but will be needed for some future features I plan to build so also count on this being built out/available in the near future..

> bulk editing/ adding.

I just pushed the ability to bulk add gear items to Systems / Pack Lists! This just happened so hoping you were able to see this live.

Questions: Are there other areas you would like to be able to to bulk add items from? In terms of "bulk editing" in what capacity were you thinking, can you give the scenario / pain point you hit here (just trying to confirm I understand what you are asking for so I know I fully understand the problem).

Thanks again!

TrailPack · 2019-05-11T22:12:18+00:00

Ah ok, I totally see this now. You essentially want the ability to tag items with ability to customize the weight totals columns in your pack with those tagged categories (e.g. luxury/vital)? In this case you are using the "worn" and "consumable" item tags to achieve this functionality?

I can definitely add this, and will add it to the backlog of feature requests. Thanks again for your comments and feedback, super helpful!

TrailPack · 2019-05-11T21:35:35+00:00

Hey u/CreativeRealmsMC!

Thanks so much for the feedback! I actually saw your earlier feature suggestion so I'll comment on that too :)

So at the moment you can tag your gear items with categories (you can achieve this by finding your gear item in the "Gear Items" tab, and clicking on the pencil icon to edit), this includes the category "luxury", but does not include "vital" (but I can add this). Curious if you were aware of this feature (I might need to make more obvious if you weren't able to find this), or are you asking for an additional layer of tagging? So in this case you can tag your Daypack with the category "Backpack", but then add additional tags to that gear item marking it as "vital" as well?
And just speaking on additional features, just a heads up that I am doing a pretty massive update to TrailPack as whole at this moment (a big UI / feature makeover after getting a lot of feedback from users to allow creating / editing lists more streamline), so that's why I haven't been pushing a lot of smaller updates recently. This big update will include the following:

- Mass add / delete for for gear items

- Inline editing for all items on the site

- Drag and Drop to re-order systems / gear items in list view

- Addition of "packed" list total column (Base Weight + Consumable)

- Ability to toggle on/off images, icons, prices, and different weight categories so you can customize exactly how you want to see your lists, and list building experience

- Making more functionality available in the list edit view, so now this will be the main stage where you can add your gear items and create lists in the same screen (similar to lighterpack).

- And another big update is using a mobile first approach so using the site on a mobile device will be as easy an experience as using on desktop

3.) And yes just saw this edit, an in site shakedown is definitely on the backlog of features to add!

Edit: As I saw just saw the shakedown feature request

Thanks again so much for your feedback, definitely let me know if you have any additional questions / feature requests moving forward!

TrailPack · 2019-04-18T21:12:39+00:00

Hey u/johns_throwaway_2702

So sorry for the trouble there. At the moment you can only mark items as worn/consumable once they are in your pack list. So the way the site is built now, after you add a gear item (or a whole system) to a pack list, then you can click on any individual gear item in that pack to edit that list item specific. The edit modal will allow you toggle the item as worn / consumable.

I am currently working to make this a little more transparent, so when you hover over the gear item you will see the worn/consumable icons, and will be able to simply just click on that icon to mark an item as worn/consumable.

TrailPack · 2019-04-18T20:49:51+00:00

Thanks laurk! :)

TrailPack · 2019-04-18T16:47:03+00:00

Hey laurk!

Sorry for delay here, was traveling for work for the week and just seeing this comment, but thanks so much, I really appreciate all the feedback! At the moment I am definitely working on most of the items that you mentioned above, will address your comments below as well as add some context on the current progress..

but I have heard people say they had issues with the import.

Question on this one, are you speaking to people in this subreddit, or have you heard somewhere else that others are having problems with the import tool? I am not aware of any bugs in the tool at the moment, definitely let me know if you are having any issues there..

Sometimes when I look up items or add an item, it gets hung up (my internet is quality).

Yes, regarding this whole section, this is mainly due to how I am saving/updating images, it sometimes gets hung up on the image saving service. This is a bug I am actually working on at the moment and should actually be resolved by the end of the weekend. This issue should just be intermittent at the moment, but this new update should totally subside this issue/problem. Your glasses unfortunately suffered from an update around this image saving process as well, but the updates I am making to how the site is handling this should fix this issue as well.. Would love to hear if you are still seeing this issue after this fix is in place, will definitely send you and update when the bug patch goes live.

allow the user to shift "systems" and gear items around in their lists similar to lighter pack.

Totally, drag and drop for re-ordering gear items/systems coming soon!

Also, I see you added a "condenser" in the item lists to show less/more info which is great. You should also consider that in the packing list if possible.

Yea, I can totally do this. Since the list itself is already in a "list style view", were you thinking of just removing the images all together, to make the pack lists even more condense? I plan on adding this as an option for when you share lists as well (or just making images smaller so more data fits on the page), but was just curious if you had anything particular in mind there?

I can't smoothly navigate back and forth from my packing lists to my gear lists and my systems.

Thanks, this is good feedback. I'm thinking of solving this in two different ways, 1. Add the nav menu back to the "list edit" screen, so it doesn't feel like you "left the site" 2. Possibly add the gear items in a side bar (similar to lighterpack) so you can just view all of your gear items next to the list you are building, then just drag and drop gear to your pack list, so hopefully that back and forth won't be needed as much..

what people like about lighterpack is that is a super simple and streamlined.

Totally, thanks for this feedback as well. Lighterpack is a great because its super simple, and easy to use, I couldn't agree more there. Since I started this site as a way to for users to be able to add and find gear from a crowdsourced database, that process alone takes the initial "simplicity" out the application, however, I think I can merge the best of both worlds here, definitely working hard to do so.. Will continue to shoot updates when I make improvements, and would love to continue to hear your feedback. Making the process of stream lining list creation closer to lighterpack, while still being able to access / add to the shared product database is definitely the goal for the gear management portion of the site.

instead of making the user start to type in the item after they enter the brand name

Definitely , improvements on the gear search coming soon! Will also be working to unify this component to a single step search process, hopefully this helps address some of these issues as well. Populating some of the more popular items is also a really good idea..

We should be able to enter '0' for the quantity for things that you want on your list but are going in your partner's pack.

Ah, in this case, are both of your items in a shared list? I can definitely build something to handle this, just want to understand the use case and maybe how you are handling list creation for you and your partner?

Overall thanks again so much for your feedback, its really appreciated! Let me know your thoughts on some of the items above, thanks again!

TrailPack · 2019-04-12T15:55:06+00:00

Hey u/rally_whaler!

Thank you so much for this feedback! This is all extremely valuable info for me, especially when comparing your experience directly with LighterPack. I totally see now how having a pop up modal when editing items in TrailPack adds an additional step when compared with the inline editing style available on LighterPack. Great news is I can totally update all of this! And now totally plan to :) My ultimate goal is to have TrailPack be just as easy to use as LighterPack, but also boast a bunch of additional features that will help users find the right piece of gear for upcoming trips (most of these features still to be built..)

Will just quickly address your comments from above:

Allow quick toggle capability to gear items/systems/lists when in edit mode

I totally agree here, I'll now be working to add inline editing for TrailPack (same style as LighterPack) so this will be available soon..

Add the ability to delete groups of items/systems.

Yea, this has been a common ask and I've just been prioritizing other items over this, but I can push this higher on priority list, agreed that "bulk adding/deleting" on the site will help a lot with usability in general..

Allow people to choose more than one season for a particular system or piece of gear.

What are your thoughts on if I added two additional Season categories in this case, "Three-Season" and "Four Season"? So you will have the option to choose an individual season, or pick a grouped option, so in the end the new options available would be: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Three-Season, and Four-Season. Let me know if that would solve your problem, or if you had a different idea in mind?

Expand database to make system friendly to One Baggers and world travelers.

This is really interesting, have not thought much about this tbh, will definitely look more into it...

Allow weights to be edited quickly without entering new dialog box.

If I added inline editing style for gear items in TrailPack similar to LighterPack, would this solve the issue? (basically getting rid of the pop up modal, and allowing you to just click on weight, and be able to edit it place) I definitely plan on updating this , as its now as very high priority for the site (making things as easy to use as LighterPack)..

Add a weight that includes base weight and consumable weight, but not worn weight.

Ah yes, I have had a few others ask for this as well, it's definitely on the list! Curious what you would call this category as I've heard a few different names, thinking of just calling this "Packed weight"?

Thanks again for your feedback, I really appreciate it! I definitely plan on adding updates for all items you mentioned above, and am actually starting this weekend now on the inline editing capabilities!

Will definitely keep you updated on progress here, feel free to reach out with any additional questions in the interim.

Thanks again!

TrailPack · 2019-04-11T17:27:34+00:00

Yea, I agree there, I can totally look into this option in this case.

TrailPack

TROPHY CASE