Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / New Fields / Features continued...

Hey, great tool.

A simple organizational twiddle that would be useful would be a couple of editable user fields. Sometimes you’d like to have one (or more) keys to group and quickly sort all the auctions in a particular context — e.g., stereo equipment, baseball cards, toys, etc. Once you’re following 25+ searches, this would help a lot.

Then maybe, a “sort by” capability, so you could sort by User Field #1 and then by *Time Left." Maybe 2, 3 or 4 levels of sort would be a win.

Cheers

JH

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Source code questions. Where to post?

Greetings,

Either is fine.

You could post here, or send questions via email to cyberfox@users.sourceforge.net. Either way is fine with me, although I’m going away for a few days from Monday to Thursday. I’m spending Christmas with my SO’s family, and their internet access is a 38.4 modem, so I’m kinda out of the loop until I get back.

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Source code questions. Where to post?

Hi!

I have a few source code questions. Do you want me to post them here or somewhere else or send them to you by email?

Thank you!

Andrey.

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Main config file

Greetings,

You can pass what .cfg file to use in on the command line, to start the program… Does that help?

The savefile line says where the auctions.xml file will be saved, the search.savefile line says where searches will be saved. (I haven’t gotten to giving the searches savefile a UI configuration entry.)

Under Windows, you can do this easily by editing the shortcut. Under Linux, it should be just as straightforward, or if you’re running it by hand, swap to a shell script. If it’s MacOSX, I think you may have to make a shell script for each of the ebay accounts, and put the shell script on your desktop.

JBidwatcher will save its configuration to the file passed on the command line, it will store to the files listed in the configuration for savefile, and searches.savefile, so if all that stuff is set up, it should work fine.

The only thing that might be an issue is the display.cfg file, which lays out your display. I think I may have forgotten to locate that wherever the JBidWatch.cfg file gets written.

Give that a shot, and let me know how it works out.

— Morgan Schweers

p.s.
It’s just:
java -jar JBidWatch-0.9pre4.jar /Users/cyberfox/acct1/acct.cfg
and
java -jar JBidWatch-0.9pre4.jar /Users/cyberfox/acct2/acct.cfg

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Main config file

I’d rather have a config option include what config file to use. Before the version that switched to a main config file in the user dir – I had two dirs set-up, each for its own ebay account. This messed me up a bit. Any thoughts on going back to a local config file, in the dir of the program?

Thanks,
Ryan

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Feature Request: Remove Button Bar

In order to make JBidWatcher as small as possible on my screen… I’d like the option to remove the button bar completely from the screen. All the options on the buttons are available via menu items.. so no functionality would be lost.

The EBAY time could be moved down to the status bar or up to the menu bar.. leaving the ability to remove the buttons.

In order to protect someone from shooting themselves in the foot.. this could be a manual
entry option into the configuration file.

Thanks for considering this.

Sam

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / New Features / Request

Greetings,
1a. You can do this with the ‘Edit’ window (copy URL).
1b. Drag and Drop would be really cool, but all the browsers take different types of data. If I can find a consistent type that they all accept, I’ll make it a drag source.

2. I like this idea, but I need to figure out how to break up the status bar, in order to show something like that.

3. The current version SHOULD show items with bids, but without the reserve met, as still black text instead of coloring it red or blue. So if you see bids, but the items coloration looks like it doesn’t have bids, it means the reserve isn’t met.

4. Errrf, lemme think about this. I have ways of doing this, since it can export its XML already via an HTTP request. I can have one JBidwatcher being a server for your others, for example. I’’ll try to treat this with more detail later, but for now I’m pretty sure I’m not going to build it as a pure-server and pure-UI versions, anytime soon.

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Problem On Startup

thanks for the reply!

I’ll see what I can find.

I’m sure I installed that run time but I’ll give
it another check .

Sam

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Problem On Startup

Greetings,
JBidwatcher uses the Swing API for doing its graphical user interface. This means that it will not work with Kaffe, the default JVM that gets installed with a ‘raw’ install of RedHat, and some other Linux distributions.

Go to:

http://java.sun.com/getjava

and follow the directions, to get the official Sun version of Java that will work with JBidwatcher. Kaffe is a very old and not totally Java2 compatible, Java Virtual Machine. Sun and IBM both have good free (as in beer) JVM’s for Linux, although IBM unfortunately hasn’t updated theirs recently. (That’s why the URL I gave is for Sun’s version. The IBM one will work, it’s just a little older.)

Good luck!

— Morgan Schweers

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Web-based installation possible?

Greetings,
The program updates its time with eBay’s time about once every 30-40 minutes. However, in 0.9pre2, this will not work, because of some eBay changes.

Unfortunately, work has me absolutely SWAMPED, so I wasn’t able to get a new version out this weekend.

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Problem On Startup

When I try to run JBidWatcher.. I get the following
error..
When I attempt to start the applet with the
usual java command the following errors
appear.. I’m not sure where to move forward
for troubleshooting….

java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError: [exception was
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Ljavax/swing/UIManager;]
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:native)
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:59)
at kaffe.jar.ExecJarName.main(ExecJarName.java:54)
at kaffe.jar.ExecJar.main(ExecJar.java:71)
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Ljavax/swing/UIManager;
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:native)
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:59)
at kaffe.jar.ExecJarName.main(ExecJarName.java:54)
at kaffe.jar.ExecJar.main(ExecJar.java:71)
[sam@kyle sam]$

I’m fairly certain I’ve got something set up incorrectly
since I still consider myself a linux noob.

Any hints would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Sam
LM8.2
JRE 1.3.1

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / New Features / Request

First I’d like to say that JBidWatcher is a great utility, I am enjoying it with tremendous success. JBW might have the greatest ROI potential ever! :^)

I have some thoughts for new features, some of which I’ve noticed mentioned in a previous thread.

1) The ability to copy to the clipboard an auction’s URL would be nice. This might also be a drag-n-drop capability (dragging from JBW to another window would paste the auction’s URL.) I often find myself wanting to send auction URLs through IM so I can coordinate bidding with other people.

2) I saw this mentioned in another post: the ability to show the sum of the cost of several auctions. The way I think this would work best would be to have a small place at the end of the status bar that shows the sum of the prices of all the currently selected auctions. That way you can quickly and easily total up a few items without even visiting any menus.

3) Another one from a previous post: the ability to see if the reserve it met on an auction, and maybe an icon representation of payment options (PayPal, etc.)

4) A way to share auction data between copies of JBW. Ideally I’d love to see this someday be a client-server app, where a process stays running on a server that is talking to ebay, and then a seperate client piece that allows users to connect to the server to get status and make changes. I realize this is a HUGE change, but it’s something that might be worth thinking about someday down the road. The problem I’m facing is that I’m often away from the computer running JBW when I need to check on status or make changes to bids/snipes. I love the current Java implementation, I wouldn’t want to see it done as JSP with an HTML frontend— rather what I’d like would be to have the current program essentially posting the auction data to a server that then does all the actual work. I haven’t gotten under the hood enough to see if this is within the realm of possibility, but maybe it HTTP POSTs the XML config data to a server process that can then execute the various bids/snipes. This is just rambling blue-sky dreaming, but it’d be great for the hardcore ebayers, and also for people who have a slow link to their desktop. Servers tend to have good uptimes, hardware redundancy and fast network connectivity. All those things would help make JBW even better.

Sorry for the rambling, thanks again for a great tool, and I’m looking forward to pre3 and the 1.0 release!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Web-based installation possible?

thanks for your answer I have still one ask. in which interval is the time of the program adapted with e-bay the time?

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Two new features I just added...

Greetings,
Yeah, that’s the plan…

I changed a lot of stuff, in cleaning up the code, so I want it to get decently tested. I’m still trying to figure out how to fit in the documentation I need to make this a 1.0… That’s my big ‘weakness’ in the program now. I’ve got other features to implement, but for me the documentation is what’ll make it a 1.0.

Thanks muchly for the words of praise!

— Morgan

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Two new features I just added...

Are you going to release this as pre3? :)

Much thanks for your great work,

Ryan

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Two new features I just added...

Greetings,
Well, I’ve got a time synchronization problem I need to make a release to fix… Beyond that, I added the following two often-asked-for features:

Drag and drop from a foreign eBay site now adds the auction! Note that it still gets it from the US site, but it figures out the item correctly, and everything, so no more cutting and pasting necessary for German, English, Australian, etc., sites.

Tooltip-comments. The comment will now (FINALLY!) display in the tooltip when you hover your cursor over an item with a comment. HUZZAH!

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Web-based installation possible?

Greetings,
Ah, I think I understand.

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Web-based installation possible?

Hello.
I want upload JBidWatch on my webspace(Linux-Apache Webserver), not a local installation on my home computer. How can i start this program ; program-design of the html file, and settings in the configuration tool.
Thanks for your help.
Peter Lehr

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Web-based installation possible?

Greetings,
I’m not exactly sure what you mean…

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Web-based installation possible?

Hello
I am absolute Java beginner. I would like to install JBidWatch on my account. Is a Web-based installation possible?
Greetings
Peter Lehr

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Potential new features...

There are a lot of good code side things you listed, but on the user side, here are the ones that sound the most helpful to me:

12/15 + use my ebay sync to check what max bid is.

18: ID as ASCI, and an import option for them would be nice IMHO.

Mind if I ask a side question? (e-mail if you want, or don’t answer if ya don’t want to) Do any Linux work, or are you mostly a Windows person?

Thanks for the great program – very cool and useful,

Ryan

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Potential new features...

Please see my feedback below

1. Instant Pay by PayPal (Right Click -> Pay Now!)
I would just launch the https://www.paypal.com page. I’m nervous enough about PayPal to begin with…

2. Add more ‘Auction Management’ features (mark as paid, shipped, etc.)
These would be nice features. A link to a shipping calculators would be nice as well (USPS, UPS, FedEx)

3. Send email to (Bidder | Seller) for won/sold auctions.
eBay/PayPal does this well enough already. I don’t think it worth your effort.

4. Instant Messager messages on snipe results.
I don’t use IM. The ability to send email on this would be nice – IE mail to a cell phone or pager.

5. Wriet a structural and architectural commentary.
OK but only when you are done

6. Generate a dependency graph.
Code or Auctions? For code there are tools that do this already.

7. Break up AuctionInfo into AuctionInfo values, and AuctionInfoStorage.
no comment

8. XMLify configuration file.
it’s OK by me now…

9. Break debugging out of JConfig? (For dependency reasons.)
no comment

10. Make AuctionsManager a listener for an ‘AddAuction’ event, to break UI dep.
no comment

11. Abstract the idea of an AuctionList? (Same reason, create
a ‘GUIAuctionList’)
no comment

12. Provide a sum for the price for all selected auctions, for active auctions
it’s the max bid you’ve got listed with JBidwatcher. For closed auctions, it’s
the actual amount charged.
OK

13. Multiple select for Information, Show Comments, and ‘View in Browser’ if you are using the local browser handler. This would show ‘Next’,
‘Prev’, ‘View eBay Page’ links, for example.

Yes, good idea

14. Keys: Delete should tie to Auction | Delete, Insert should tie to Auction
| Add, CTRL-PageUp/PageDown might go to Next/Prev tab

Delete should also delete the watched item from My eBay

15. Reserve (Met | Not Met) Icons, Paid-status Icons, PayPal accepted, & more.
Yes!!!

16. Viewing Comments w/o Show Information. (Tooltip-style comments?)
no comment

17. Q: What’s up with Opera? (A: I don’t know why it doesn’t work w/ JBW!)
no comment

18. Send Auction List to other computer. (Dump the XML to it, or just item IDs?)

dump list so it can be imported on another machine.

19. Allow searching through the saved HTML files, including the descriptions?
OK but no critical.

Other ideas -
List in status number of views of an item being sniped in addition to number of bids.

Thanks again for a great program! BTW, I switched to WinXp and it works great for me!

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Potential new features...

Greetings,
Note that those are not in any particular order! (Well, they’re in the order that they came to mind while brainstorming about new features.)
— Morgan

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Potential new features...

Greetings,
In addition to a lot of the stuff in the feature list, these are ones I’ve bandied about and am considering. I’d REALLY like feedback on this!

1. Instant Pay by PayPal (Right Click -> Pay Now!)
2. Add more ‘Auction Management’ features (mark as paid, shipped, etc.)
3. Send email to (Bidder | Seller) for won/sold auctions.
4. Instant Messager messages on snipe results.
5. Wriet a structural and architectural commentary.
6. Generate a dependency graph.
7. Break up AuctionInfo into AuctionInfo values, and AuctionInfoStorage.
8. XMLify configuration file.
9. Break debugging out of JConfig? (For dependency reasons.)
10. Make AuctionsManager a listener for an ‘AddAuction’ event, to break UI dep.

11. Abstract the idea of an AuctionList? (Same reason, create a ‘GUIAuctionList’)

12. Provide a sum for the price for all selected auctions, for active auctions it’s the max bid you’ve got listed with JBidwatcher. For closed auctions, it’s the actual amount charged.

13. Multiple select for Information, Show Comments, and ‘View in Browser’
if you are using the local browser handler. This would show ‘Next’,
‘Prev’, ‘View eBay Page’ links, for example.

14. Keys: Delete should tie to Auction | Delete, Insert should tie to Auction | Add, CTRL-PageUp/PageDown might go to Next/Prev tab

15. Reserve (Met | Not Met) Icons, Paid-status Icons, PayPal accepted, & more.
16. Viewing Comments w/o Show Information. (Tooltip-style comments?)
17. Q: What’s up with Opera? (A: I don’t know why it doesn’t work w/ JBW!)
18. Send Auction List to other computer. (Dump the XML to it, or just item IDs?)
19. Allow searching through the saved HTML files, including the descriptions?

— Morgan Schweers, Cyberfox!

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Thanks for the .9pre1 release!

Greetings,
It should work with any JRE from 1.2.2 on, but I haven’t gone back and tested 1.2.2 in a long while.

— Morgan Schweers