Please Read - New eBay Watch Feature in Shoppers Square and Bug Report...

Hi everyone, I've been experimenting with a new feature for that I think many will find quite handy. It is a eBay watch box at the top of the Shoppers Square index page that will list any links to any eBay auctions that have been posted somewhere in the threads here on automaticwasher. Since we usually have so many links to such cool things posted all over the site, I'm trying to figure out a way of summarizing some of it.

The way this thing works is I wrote a special program that at 22 minutes past every hour scans through all of the threads in all of the forums (not just Shoppers Square) looking for eBay auction links. When it find ones it picks that link up, pings eBay to get the title, time left and country then posts it in the eBay watch box at the top of Shoppers Square.

I've separated US/Canada into one view and the UK in another view. I want add other countries such as Australia in time, but to start I want to concentrate on the auctions we see the most of which is US, CA and the UK.

There is also a suggestion box right above the eBay watch box on the right side. If you find an auction that you think might be of particular interest to members here but you don't feel like starting a whole new thread to announce it, you can simply copy the full eBay web address link or just the 12 digit item number and paste it into the suggestion box and hit the send button. This will record it and once I approve the suggestion will be posted in the eBay watch box just like the other items. I'll be approving all "suggested" items at first until I make sure the bugs are out.

eBay has some great tools for us web programmers to be able to take an item number and ping their special information API site and get some limited data about items. I wish Craigslist had something similar because it would be great to do this with Craiglists posts as well, but for now let's start with eBay because eBay has the necessary tools ready to go to make this work.

Please let me know if you see any bugs (I'm sure there will be some) associated with the new change here is this thread. Normally I post things like this in the Super forum, but since this only affects the Shoppers Square forum, I'm posting the bug report here. For now this will only be available on the desktop site, the mobile version wont have the eBay watch box yet, but it will in time. Once I get most of the bugs out I'll also be doing the same in the Supermarket forum on Vacuumland.

I've also included completed items at the end of the list, scroll to the right towards the end, any item in a blue box is a completed item. I did just in case anyone is interested to see if something sold and how much it sold for.

Just to be clear I'm not trying in any way to say you should not post new threads with cool finds, I totally encourage it that here in Shoppers Square, this is just another way of displaying and summarizing all of them.

Thanks everyone. Please let me know what you think of this new feature or if you find any bugs.

This post was last edited 10/08/2013 at 11:22


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Post# 707936 10/8/2013 at 10:53 (3,852 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes 6 Hi everyone, I've been experimenting with a new feature for that I think many will find quite handy. It is a eBay watch box at the top of the Shoppers Square index page that will list any links to any eBay auctions that have been posted somewhere in the threads here on automaticwasher. Since we usually have so many links to such cool things posted all over the site, I'm trying to figure out a way of summarizing some of it. The way this thing works is I wrote a special program that at 22 minutes past every hour scans through all of the threads in all of the forums (not just Shoppers Square) looking for eBay auction links. When it find ones it picks that link up, pings eBay to get the title, time left and country then posts it in the eBay watch box at the top of Shoppers Square. I've separated US/Canada into one view and the UK in another view. I want add other countries such as Australia in time, but to start I want to concentrate on the auctions we see the most of which is US, CA and the UK. There is also a suggestion box right above the eBay watch box on the right side. If you find an auction that you think might be of particular interest to members here but you don't feel like starting a whole new thread to announce it, you can simply copy the full eBay web address link or just the 12 digit item number and paste it into the suggestion box and hit the send button. This will record it and once I approve the suggestion will be posted in the eBay watch box just like the other items. I'll be approving all "suggested" items at first until I make sure the bugs are out. eBay has some great tools for us web programmers to be able to take an item number and ping their special information API site and get some limited data about items. I wish Craigslist had something similar because it would be great to do this with Craiglists posts as well, but for now let's start with eBay because eBay has the necessary tools ready to go to make this work. Please let me know if you see any bugs (I'm sure there will be some) associated with the new change here is this thread. Normally I post things like this in the Super forum, but since this only affects the Shoppers Square forum, I'm posting the bug report here. For now this will only be available on the desktop site, the mobile version wont have the eBay watch box yet, but it will in time. Once I get most of the bugs out I'll also be doing the same in the Supermarket forum on Vacuumland. I've also included completed items at the end of the list, scroll to the right towards the end, any item in a blue box is a completed item. I did just in case anyone is interested to see if something sold and how much it sold for. Just to be clear I'm not trying in any way to say you should not post new threads with cool finds, I totally encourage it that here in Shoppers Square, this is just another way of displaying and summarizing all of them. Thanks everyone. Please let me know what you think of this new feature or if you find any bugs. This post was last edited 10/08/2013 at 11:22

Post# 707937 , Reply# 1 10/8/2013 at 10:56 (3,852 days old) by TrainGuy (Key West, FL)
Checkrate/Likes 2 *Thanks Robert* I think this is a great idea!

Post# 707944 , Reply# 2 10/8/2013 at 11:38 (3,852 days old) by boboh1 (California)
Checkrate/Likes *Love it!* Great new feature. Love it already, thanks for taking the time to make this great idea happen.

Post# 707948 , Reply# 3 10/8/2013 at 12:00 (3,852 days old) by turquoisedude (.)
Checkrate/Likes Cool! This is great Robert - I'm very poor at searching eBay so I for one appreciate having a selection of items of interest at one's fingertips. Thank you!!

Post# 707951 , Reply# 4 10/8/2013 at 12:26 (3,852 days old) by danemodsandy (The Bramford, Apt. 7-E)
Checkrate/Likes *One Comment:* I think the new feature is great, but there is one comment: It does take up a fair amount of real estate on one's monitor, especially if one uses a laptop and has the resolution set for easy reading (as I do). You have to scroll down past it to begin looking at threads in that case. While I'm sure I'll get used to it, I did want to mention it.

Post# 707954 , Reply# 5 10/8/2013 at 12:37 (3,852 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes Thank you Sandy, actually that was a good tip, because I just looked at it on an iPad's screen which is 1024x768 resolution and the radio buttons were wrapping incorrectly on such a small screen, so I believe I fixed that.

Post# 707981 , Reply# 6 10/8/2013 at 14:24 (3,852 days old) by chachp (North Little Rock, AR)
Checkrate/Likes *Great Idea.* I did notice that on my MAC in both Safari and Firefox I do not get the scroll bar below the items so I can scroll to the right. I don't know if this is just my issue or for others as well. On Windows 7 it's fine. I added a screen shot of both browsers. MACBOOK Pro OS X 10.8.5

Post# 707988 , Reply# 7 10/8/2013 at 15:08 (3,852 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes Hi Ralph, thank you for reporting that to me. I'll have to break out my Mac and figure out how to fix that. It seems to work fine on Safari for Windows. I'm sure there is some special trick that I need to do for the Macs. It does work fine on the iPad as well.

Post# 707990 , Reply# 8 10/8/2013 at 15:14 (3,852 days old) by chachp (North Little Rock, AR)
Checkrate/Likes *Nevermind I think LOL* Robert, I'm an idiot. I was trying to use my Mouse because I am old and so darn windows centric. I tried again using the touchpad and as long as I click inside that window first I can scroll. It's just the mouse that doesn't seem to like it. The text doesn't look the same but the functionality appears to be there. Sorry for the false alarm.

Post# 708020 , Reply# 10 10/8/2013 at 18:03 (3,852 days old) by redcarpetdrew (Fairfield, CA)
Checkrate/Likes You've outdone yourself, Robert! This is pretty cool and it's organized by ending date, too. This looks and works great on my iPad 3. Good luck on Craigslist... Don't they have some kind of nazi police lawyers that look for unauthorized third party stuff like that? RCD

Post# 708065 , Reply# 11 10/8/2013 at 21:44 (3,851 days old) by mayfan69 (Brisbane Queensland Australia)
Checkrate/Likes *just saw it......* Just saw it Robert now....a great idea! Cheers Leon

Post# 708087 , Reply# 12 10/9/2013 at 01:02 (3,851 days old) by mrb627 (Buford, GA)
Checkrate/Likes 1 *Very Cool* This is kinda cool. Not long ago, I thought about having a TV section that would group washer videos from YouTube together in one place. Like a RetroWash Channel. Malcolm

Post# 708111 , Reply# 13 10/9/2013 at 06:59 (3,851 days old) by frigidaireguy (Wiston-Salem, NC)
Checkrate/Likes *This is Wonderful* Thanks for providing this service Robert. I also am not a "Big Computer Person" so being able to see what is available all in one place is great. I really do appreciate all the help that you give us. Bob

Post# 707993 , Reply# 9 10/8/2013 at 15:19 (3,852 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes Thanks Ralph, no the mouse should work as well on a mac to be able to scroll horizontally over and see newer auctions, so I will double check that as there really could be something wrong. Thanks again for reporting a possible bug, and if it turns out to be nothing that's just fine, I'd rather have a false alarm than not catch something. Thanks again Ralph for your help, I certainly appreciate it.

Post# 708114 , Reply# 14 10/9/2013 at 07:23 (3,851 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes Thanks Guys, I'm glad you like it. Drew yes, while eBay provides tools to make things like this easier, Craigslist seems to do just the opposite, which is really too bad. That doesn't mean that I can't incorporate something similar, I just wont have access to the titles, descriptions and images, so it would be no where near as complete.

Post# 708158 , Reply# 15 10/9/2013 at 11:40 (3,851 days old) by RevvinKevin (Tinseltown - Shakey Town - La-La Land)
Checkrate/Likes 1 This is a very cool new feature Robert! Pretty awesome! Thank you again for everything you do to maintain and update AW for us all to enjoy! Kevin

Post# 708218 , Reply# 16 10/9/2013 at 18:14 (3,851 days old) by maytag63 (South Berwick, Maine)
Checkrate/Likes Nice!

Post# 708415 , Reply# 17 10/10/2013 at 15:21 (3,850 days old) by rberryiii3 (Palm Springs, California)
Checkrate/Likes very cool. �Thanks

Post# 709212 , Reply# 18 10/14/2013 at 05:43 (3,846 days old) by chachp (North Little Rock, AR)
Checkrate/Likes *Hi Robert!* Looks like you fixed the issue with the scroll bar on the MAC. I now have it in Safari and in Firefox. Thanks for this it works great!