TCG eBay functionality updated

Ok, fixed two problems that Laurin666 found:

1. Links submitted for other ebay sites (.de for example) should go to those sites, not to ebay.com

My link processing was always going to ebay.com. It now will go to the site as submitted in the forum post.

2. High prices weren't saving correctly

Items over 1000.00 (any currency) weren't saving correctly due to a spurious separator (1,000.00) that I somehow missed.

Thanks Laurin666! Everyone please let me know if you see anything else strange.

Jeremy, I wanted to find out the best offer price accepted for a HPL auction I was watching. Remember when you put up the original simple auction number search --can we still do this?, or do I now have to "submit" these to the site? i.e. I don't really want to be clogging up this section with non-Tolkien related book auction data. Is the old function still there? (I can't recall where, in the forum, this was discussed.)

BH

At the moment everything is cached once you look at it here, but that's fine. I still need to add additional functionality, including hiding/forgetting auctions that aren't a good fit for the site. I don't mind you using the tool for non-Tolkien related auctions here - it may well grow into a standalone site in addition to here, in order to support collectors getting more value out of eBay, so the more people use it, the more data I have for making it better/finding bugs/adding features.

Another dummy question, related to the auction section. Looking at the source, it sometimes just has "Urulöké"; & sometimes it has "Urulöké (via eBay)" --how do you link directly from eBay without going to the auction section of TCG? (Or is this just you?) Also, see when you're putting in links in your post (to an auction), how are people doing this? Are we still using the URL link tab when composing posts? (I see most people just have the item number --& the auction data comes up on the right.) I'm being a dumbass here, how exactly are we doing this?; as when I did it the automatic link didn't come up in my post...

BH

For the "(via eBay)" - I have created a browser plugin for Google Chrome that makes it one-click easy to submit eBay items to TCG when you are browsing on eBay. When you are on an item page, a button appears in the address bar - clicking on that submits the item to TCG, easy as that!

Clearly I use Chrome myself so I wrote the plugin there first. I am planning on making plugins for Firefox and, perhaps, IE or Safari if there is sufficient demand for it.

If you use Chrome (even sporadically, not as your main browser) can you give it a try and let me know what you think? This is a private link, the extension is not viewable from the Chrome web store yet.

eBay item hdhfodofglghmbdnkjaclmddmlndgefp



For your second question:

The forum software I wrote will detect most eBay links and automatically add the item to the auctions tracking database and show the data on the right side. The only time it will not do this, is if you use the URL link button rather than just pasting the link into the text box. I am not done getting everything working the way I want, and that is one of the areas that still is awkward. Let me know if you want the nitty-gritty details for why it works this way.

When an eBay link it detected, the formatting of the link is modified to make it more readable (the 'item number" text that shows up) - I am still playing with this, I think it is too intrusive right now and I will be moving to a more elegant solution sometime soon.

Khamûl wrote:
Jeremy, I wanted to find out the best offer price accepted for a HPL auction I was watching. Remember when you put up the original simple auction number search --can we still do this?, or do I now have to "submit" these to the site? i.e. I don't really want to be clogging up this section with non-Tolkien related book auction data. Is the old function still there? (I can't recall where, in the forum, this was discussed.)

BH

I have added a checkbox to the auctions page that says "Just looking (don't save)". If you check that box before you hit submit, the ebay auction data will not be cached or added to the recently submitted list, etc.

Because of the way I have things set up right now, you have to be logged in to use the auctions tool, so you will not see the item submission form if you are not logged in. (Also the browser plugin, etc. will give an error if you are not logged in as well.)

Let me know if there are other features you are interested in!

Cheers!

Q: Where's the "stay logged on" (or whatever it said) flag gone? I'm finding myself regularly logged out. I always ticked this & was logged on, pretty much, forever (--or until I purposely logged off).

BH

I have a lot of work to do on the login / registration process (it needs help). I will get that "keep me logged in" button back for you as soon as I can!