With this release we've added an even easier way to add items to My Alerts and My Collection!  We've also added a new feature called My Watch List which allows you to track items you are interested in but not ready to purchase.

You may notice the following buttons throughout the site. They work like a toggle switch.  Click once to add to a specific list.  Click again to remove it from the list - simple and consistent!

My Watch List

This list represents items that you would like to track.  You can use it as a simple wish list, but you can also get notifications when the price of an item in your watch list is lowered or is no longer available. 

My Alerts

This list represents specific Brass Guide models that you would like to be notified about whenever listed. 

We've had this functionality for some time, but it has mostly been associated with The Brass Guide.  In addition, it was never quite obvious how to add items and quite frankly, buggy.  With this update, we've attempted to make it easier and more intuitive to add alerts, and we've fixed the problems causing some not to receive notifications.

My Collection

This list allows you to track your own personal brass model inventory.  While primarily designed to be added from The Brass Guide, we wanted to make it easily available like the other lists.  Now instead of having to know a BG #, you can simply click the button, and it will be added to your collection from practically anywere on our site!

Quick Access

We've added the ability to instantly see how many items you have in each of the three lists by including indicators at the top of every page.

As you add and remove items from the three lists, the status counters will be updated accordingly.

My Alerts and My Watch List Notifications

Adding items to My Alerts or My Watch List does not mean you will automatically get notifications.  You must make sure that you subscribe to these lists.  You can do so by going to My Communication Preferences. However, we wanted to make it even easier, so we added the ability to subscribe directly from My Alerts and My Watch List pages found under My Account when logged in.

At the bottom of each of these lists you will find a quick means for checking which of your registered communication methods you would like to receive notifications.

Browser back button now works properly!

Thank you to all the customers that reported this problem.  Since an update made several weeks ago that changed how product list pages are displayed, it was realized that the back button on some browsers was no longer working correctly.

As web developer, I take full responsibility and apologize for this particulary annoying bug.  Unfortunately it took some time to work out a fix that worked across all browsers.

-Neil

In a previous update we added international phone number support since we've introduced the ability to add SMS numbers and wanted to display an indicator as to what the phone number format should look like based on the selected country.  However this caused confusion, as the new phone input fields showed an  example number.  While this number is not actually text and disappears as soon as you type in the field, it looked like a real number to many and thus caused concern.

To avoid any further confusion, we have removed the example numbers from all phone input fields.  We apologize for causing any confusion. Sometimes in the web world, new features actually cause users problems instead of intended benefits. :-(

We're introducing an update to give you more ways to get notified about items listed on our site.

My Alerts

When you are logged into your customer account and search the site using the Shop By Department, Shop By Scale, Shop By Category or Shop By Road menus or the Text Search,  you will see a new button

Clicking this button will add the search to your My Alerts page, which has been expanded to help you manage both your single model and the new search alerts.

NOTE: We highly suggest you avoid adding broad searches, like HO Scale, or Brass Model Trains, as you will get MANY notifications throughout the day!  Instead use the dropdown filters to further narrow your search before clicking the button to add your search.

My Communication Preferences

We've added a new menu item to My Account to allow you to register additional contact methods such as phone numbers for receiving SMS messages on your phone.

We automatically include your primary e-mail address. To register additional contact methods, simply click the appropriate button to specify a new e-mail address or SMS number.

After you enter your phone number or e-mail address, click Add and you will be sent a verification code to the contact method you are registering.

Once you receive your code, enter it and then click Verify. Your new contact method will now be registered.

The next step is to choose which notifications you would like this new contact method to receive. (Currently you can only subscribe to My Alerts, but we will be adding additional notification types in the future)

Click the blue button to select the notification types you would like to receive:

Then check any notifications in the popup window you would like to subscribe to:

If you decide that you no longer want to receive certain notifications for a particular contact method, simply click the blue button and then uncheck any notifications and save.  You may also delete your contact method entirely by clicking the red trash button, however your primary registered e-mail address cannot be deleted.

We hope you find these new features useful, but as always, feel free to send us feedback!

We've made some big enhancements to the Brass Guide My Collection feature for collectors who wanted more control over managing their list of personally owned models.  Now you have the ability to:

• Enter custom data for each model, including date purchased, purchase price, and specific notes
   
• Add new models directly from the My Collection page
   
• Easily add models to your collection from any Brass Guide list page wherever you see the green plus button 
  
• Upload up to 5 personal photos of each model in your list and order them precisely how you want
  
   
• Zoom your pictures and easily cycle through enlarged views
   
• Filter and sort your list by Scale, Category, Builder, Importer, and Road
   
• Download your collection with the same sort and filter criteria applied so you can create separate reports of your items however you choose

We hope you find these ehancements useful, but as always, if you have suggestions for further enahancements, please let us know by sending a message via our contact us form and select Site Feedback as the topic.

We've added a new video section to organize all of the BRASSTRAINS.COM videos, including Monday Morning Express, all viewable from within BRASSTRAINS.COM with no need to go to a different website.

You can access the video section from our Quick Navigation menu found on the left side of each page.

• Fix for New Brass models not showing when reservations are sold out
• Fix to enable embedded videos to show in Brass Guide