EVE Technology Lab

Why... because why not? No really because I thought it would be fun to have something a bit more specific to work on. So here is the challenge: Build a static web application for browsing the EVE market using CREST.

• The application should only contact CREST, aside from loading libraries such as jQuery or Angular, and should not rely on any other services.
• Should show all items on the market.
• Should allow a user to see the items buy and sell information.
• Should be properly RESTful and follow links, sent proper accept headers, etc.

Things you will probably need:

• As the market buy and sell information is behind authed CREST you will need to create an application on the developers site: https://developers.eveonline.com/
• Remember to make it a CREST application with the publicData scope.
• The root CREST URI is: https://crest-tq.eveonline.com/
• You can find information on the SSO here: https://developers.eveonline.com/resource/single-sign-on

My current idea on how I will try doing this:

• Load all the regions
• Load the market groups
• Build the tree structure out of that
• When a group is expanded check for types in that group and load them
• When a type is clicked load the market data for that type

Or something like that anyways is what I plan on trying to do. I am personally going to try and get something done this weekend. If anyone else decides to do something post your results here. :)

If you go ahead and complete something, and come to FanFest, look me up while out one night and I will see about getting you a drink.

Already started working something up


(Implicit flow for oauth as a tip. No need for the secret)

Very tempted to join in.

No idea what you mean here:

You're looking at this all wrong. You're looking at it as if building a service that needs all the information at once to do some kind of processing of that information. Please keep in mind CREST was built for allowing more clients access to TQ, not for building other services. For example DUST uses CREST and it doesn't take minutes to load the market. Your instinct to go straight to us having the benefit of SQL is also indicating how wrong you are looking at this. Instead of trying to prime all the information at once, as you are suggesting, start with two calls. One for the list of regions and one for the list of market groups. Then build the market tree from that and a selection for region. When someone clicks on a market group load the list of types for that group, again one call. Continue this until they click on a type and at that point load the buy and sell orders for that type for the region selected.

That is basically how the EVE client works as well. We only ever send to the client one types buy or sell orders at a time. The EVE and DUST client both do this. The only advantage the EVE client has is having the market groups store locally and knowing that you only get to see the region you are in.

This is exactly what CREST was built for and it performs this job fantastically. It just requires thinking about building a different kind of client.

That's all cool and stuff, but some options for bulk downloading data wouldn't hurt tbh.

Right now i am building simple app for alliance tournament replay analysis. Browsing tournaments and teams is done exactly as you suggest, but getting replays (one frame per request) certainly is not as fast, as i initially wanted it to be

Bloody hell steve, that was quick!

I get not found or denied when selecting items. I'll just assume that you've not implemented that part yet though.

I've refreshed everything. Still getting a mix of not found and forbidden (Sometimes one and then the other, on the same item.)

I tried The Forge, Domain and Providence. Tried Apoc and geddon in domain (that's the most specific combination I remember)

Google Chrome


I get the lists of market groups, which correctly expand, also get the items and their images.

Getting the same problem with Steve's implementation. A quick glance in the console reveals the JavaScript is requesting.

https://crest-tq.eveonline.com/market/10000069/orders/sell/?type=undefined

But it only occurs when clicking on the image for the item, as it seems openItem is getting the img element instead of the intended li, clicking on the text for the item works as intended. Adding pointer-events: none to the images should fix it for browsers that support it, or adding data-cresthref to the images.

I was planning on developing a JavaScript library for the API, and this sounds like a good excuse to do it I'll try to get something worked up this weekend.

Yup, works clicking on the text :) (Could have sworn I tried that, foolish me!)

That's quite naive, thanks for playing. Workflow: Run market research report. Buy BPO if key indicators are in line. Research it. Profit. Yes there's a delay, but what BPO to buy follows from what's profitable. I just threw a new BPO in the oven today, joining 8 elder brothers. Of the ten best profit items available today (and I mean real profit, not some silly IPH comparison), six are online meaning their profitability has persisted over multiple months, two are in the oven because they match the profile of long-term profit, and the other two are transients.

EPM does do imports from CREST for the existing portfolio for a different report, so yeah I actually know how to limit a list of requests to only what's needed.