I give the template idea :bigups: and a :clap: !

This is going to be one OUTSTANDING Module!!!!!!!

Today was an interesting day. I got a lot of work completed and I am to the point of configuring the communication with the APIs for eBay for posting auctions.

Then I looked at the utter mess I had while trying to port my code from the other shopping cart to Zen. What was only 500 lines of code had more than doubled since the start of the project a few days ago just in one file. That isn't right. Some things had reduced and others expanded. The more I would put in functionality and workarounds from the other shopping cart the more tricky it would get to figure out what was happening until I was at a point where I would modify a line in the code, upload the page and test it out to make sure the rest worked.

Truly a pain when it isn't very clean. I can see why Zen was re-written. I can also see first hand while a lot of people have attempted to port modules and have failed. Especially with something like ALP.

So I started working on a standalone web application that is not tied into Zen at all or to the other shopping cart's modules. The most that the application needs to know is the database name, server location, and user details. From there it runs on it's own resources to perform the auction processes. Unfortunately this code is not open sourced. This doesn't mean that I am not delivering what I promised earlier. I will still deliver a very free solution to Zen cart users as I told you before. But the code will be precompiled so you won't be able to get in there and make changes. This in turn gives the application a nice speed up and works very nicely when dealing with timeouts that can be crucial to the application working correctly or failing miserably.

So between what is happening in Zen and what I need the application to do it becomes a mess when attempting to merge the code while taking into consideration all of the work arounds that need to be done from the other shopping cart.

So as a result this application will be developed from this point on as a standalone application for Zen. This will allow me to reduce the code dramatically therefore speeding up the work flow. It will also help in reducing the memory footprint for testing with PHP on shared servers. I am going through 16MB of shared PHP memory. If I take Zen and its overhead out of the picture I should be able to reduce this enough to get it to work on a shared hosting solution. I am not making any promises at this point but I will see what I can do.

One thing you should think about considering if you want to use my application is the possibility that you might have to get a Virtual Private Server. This is like a dedicated server without the expense. I have seen decent ones range in price from $20-$30/month. I will let you know for certain when we have had a chance to test on a couple different shared hosting platforms. I don't expect it to go over very well. The main reason is because talking to eBay generates a lot of CPU overhead.

So please bear with me while I strip what code I have out of my Frankenstein Zen Cart development environment and rebuild into a freestanding application.

Looking good!

Well it seems I lied to you all. I apologize for that.

There is no charge for exceeding the 10k call monthly limitation while using eBay. It does however require that you turn your application over to eBay so they can go through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that it won't cause any outages on their systems before they turn you lose. The process takes between 5-7 days and there is no charge for this service.

I just got a clarification email from eBay Developer Relations.

I wanted to let everyone know so this doesn't come back and bite me in the future.

I am still waiting to hear back on the back links issue.

I don't think lie is the right word here. I know that you said what you truly believed would be the case. Therefore I can't agree that you lied.

Thanks. :0)

Apparently whatever code I do release will be fully capable and unlimited. There aren't any fees for it. It's just that eBay will crawl all over the software to make sure that there are proper limitations on things such as fetching categories from their systems and falling off gracefully after errors. Fortunately a lot of that functionality is built into the API library I am using to talk to eBay.

I have thought of a work around for shared host systems however. I can pre-cache the categories daily on my server then offer an option to use my pre-fetched tables with come basic SQL calls from the user's shared hosting account. Then we won't have to worry about not being able to select categories on shared hosting. I don't know how popular this would be for everyone. It's a matter of opinion really. But it could be done.

Also for the time being I may resort to turning globals back on. The interface will be secured and I am not really worried about someone injecting erroneous data into an admin interface at the moment as I am about getting the software into everyone's hands.

Doing this will fasttrack my success in getting it working sooner as I won't have to convert everything to globals off. Mainly right now I am putting in all kinds of workarounds to get it to go and I am not that close to releasing a completed application.

If I turn globals back on I could have the whole thing ready to go in a matter of about 1 more week.

Then once it is released and debugged I could concentrate further on making it more secure and releasing an update when it is.

Just some thoughts...

As always I am open for suggestions from everyone.

Newbie to Zen here.

The $3000 was if you wanted full checkout redirect.

You can have it so that if someone buys on eBay and goes to checkout, it will redirect them to YOUR checkout...

Although, I thought it was $5000.

A trick if you do start to hit yout 10K... Use a new set of keys..

I have 3 sets that I use on another project.

You could set it up to have all 3 sets in the db, and it alternates each one. That way, it may not look quite so obvious when it stops on 1 and uses another.

Hi Jon!

Those are some pretty good ideas. My plan to write this so I can certify it once then pass it on to others as pre-certified eBay software. I will get some clarification on the checkout redirect costs. I was told that it was free but I will make sure before I enable that feature for everyone. Or I will at least make sure I put a note in there if that is the case.

The first release will not support checkout redirect at this time.

For those of you with multiple employees I have added security to the pages in Auction Lister Pro. This will allow you to restrict access to certain functions. For example if you don't want anyone to list auctions but you, you can restrict their login and deny them access to the create auction pages.

This is helpful if you have people notifying winners but don't want them to be able to leave feedback etc.

I have also added security to the administration front end. I am currently working on the layout changes to make it more custom tailored to run auctions on eBay.

By the way,

Auctiva has suddenlty started sending emails to our customers informing the customer that they won the bid and request payment.

Not only did they start doing this without our permission, but they send out the notices two to three weeks later, after the customer paid, and have the item they won.

Therefore my statement of not seeing a reason to pay for this mod has changed.

So let me know when you're ready and I'll not only buy it, I'll also prmote the living heck out of in the powersellers forum.

Good luck.

LoL John!

That's amazing! Talk about a bad PR show for you. If I were a customer I would get pretty confused and upset about being double billed or even seeing something like that after a completed sell.

Is it something Auctiva plans on changing?

I have an email in to eBay Developer Relations about the checkout redirect issue. They are usually fairly quick to respond to any questions I have but they may be out to lunch at the moment as I haven't heard anything yet. It isn't something that needs to be addressed at the moment anyway since I haven't worked on that part yet. So there is no rush.

I ran into a couple of small session issues that I am working on at the moment with my multipart forms but it's nothing to get too excited over. Everything is coming along smoothly.

It's still too early to think about planning a release date party but I will definitely let you all know when that is scheduled.

I'd buy but this is free software for the most part. So I will let someone else bring the chips and drinks.

Thank you for the promotional support. :smile:

Third party checkout redirect is only available to approved developers. This is a built in mechanism that I can program in to the item listing to be used. This basically identifies the location of the item upon successful auction completion. The "user clicks a button in eBay" and then is sent to your website for processing.

I am not doing this.

I am sending an "email" to the winning user and avoiding the third party checkout routine altogether.

I am still waiting on a thumbs up or thumbs down from developer relations on this.

It would be nice to simply notify the winner even if the checkout without account routine "didn't work at the present time.

Edit:
At the time I was writing this up eBay was sending me an email explaining that it was something like $5000 per year to be able to use eBay third party checkout. This also does not include a one time $2500 auditor fee. I knew they had someway of getting money out of the developers. It couldn't all possibly be free.

Well let's see....I re-read the email I got from Developer Relations and from what it looks like is something on the fine line of "Well you can get all the data from the API but you may lose customers in the process if you choose to do this."

I take this to mean that it is acceptable so long as I recognize the risk of emailing users directly. But if I want to be able to add my own Third Party Pay Now button then I will have to fork over some money.

Also keep in mind that when dealing with eBay buyers they tend to only use certified methods of payment such as PayPal. Most people that I have dealt with from eBay feel comfortable using PayPal as it is an eBay resource and they can always get their money back.

At any rate these are some things worth discussing.

David,

Isn't there a workaround for redirecting your customerto your site after they pay at paypal, instead of back to eBay?

I think there is a work around.

But one thing I have heard about Checkouts is...

A provider of a checkout MUST provide a link for the buyer to return to eBay....

Where this has to be I don't know...

But a provider I know does this but what the "user" of the checkout does is up to them.. eg, I can "hide" the link and either not show it, or replace it with my own... Which in fact, I did replace it with my own via Rover.

The answer is actually more simple than that. I have the official word and the word is "ok to go."

You can email your winners and redirect them to your cart without being charged a fee by eBay or incurring any bad kharma with them.

They do not support our methods but do recommend that you give your buyers the ability to use Pay Pal for dispute purposes. In fact there is some buyer policy that warns users to beware when asked to checkout on places other than eBay. I saw it once. I will have to dig it up again if you want to see it.

So if you are willing to accept Pay Pal you can do a couple of things to make your buyers more willing to checkout directly on your store.

You can put something like "eBay recommends using Pay Pal" on your checkout process. This will let the user know that you are aware of eBay and respect their right to use Pay Pal. You can also create a page about your eBay usage policy. This could be a simple page that you include in your checkout process in case the buyer is a little leary. You basically explain that they can checkout here to expedite the process and get their item quicker or they can checkout using Pay Pal and will have to wait for the order which takes longer to fulfill. Then you immediately tell them that they can use Pay Pal through your cart and kill two birds with one stone. Mention that you are Pay Pal verified and all that jazz too.

In the end there is no hard and fast rule that says you must use Joe Checkout over Pay Pal and there is nothing to be gained monetarily by eBay for using Pay Pal...well except for their own vested interest in their own company...but you are free to do what you want.

They only recommend that you use Pay Pal because it makes the users feel like you are more trustworthy.

Now if you want to have a button on eBay that says "Pay Tom Right Now" through eBay. I will be more than happy to code that up for each one of you that forks over the $7500 and a 6 pack. We'll split the 6 pack while we are waiting for eBay to give me a call and say you are good to go with your button. :0)

Well I thought of something a little more refined and cuts to the chase while I was proof reading.

I can just code the email up to say

==================================================

Hi [ebay id]!

I see you are the winner of auction item [auction id][auction title].

You can expedite the process of getting your item by using Pay Pal directly on our store www.crispycrackers.com or you can continue to checkout with Pay Pal using eBay.

If you choose to use Pay Pal on our site instead this will allow us to get your product out the door faster than if you used Pay Pal directly as the order would be fulfilled immediately using our software.

If you would like to do this simply click the following link and you will be directed to our store for immediate checkout.

Http://www.crispycrackers.com/[auctionid] blah blah blah

We look forward to seeing you soon [ebay id] and congratulations on your win!

Best regards,
Mr Crispy Cracker

So something like that is possible. Of course you could customize the email to say whatever you want it to. Right now it is buried in a PHP file. I am pulling it out eventually and putting that an several others in the database.

I had an idea that if your auction templates were themeable then you should be able to customize your emails around those themes too. When you notify the winner you could pick the themed email format to send them. Maybe have Happy Easter, Xmas, Mother's Day etc.

I will leave it up to you all to decide on how you want to do it. Right now you only get the use of one hardcoded email template.

I have also seen some mention of checkout without account running around here on the forums. I will have to read into this and see if it is something else that will need to be integrated.

It would be nice having the person come to the store to buy their products and have an option to create an account "after" they have gone through checkout process.

Just thought I would mention that I was a bit exhausted today so I took the day off from coding.

Here is my latest update from yesterday.

Unlimited Auction Templates now functional. Create a single auction description and save it for later use. Create multiple item auction templates with the same product. Simply click Auction Templates find the one you want to run...click Edit then Submit to eBay and it is all set to go with all of your predefined settings. When you click edit you will have the chance to edit anything before posting to eBay.

All sessions and pages now secured. Multi level access for store admins and store operators works. Ability to restrict certain users of Auction Lister Pro from posting auctions or any other feature you choose.

Auction Lister Pro is functional with osCommerce and Zen Cart as it sits.

I have a few more things to clean up then I will begin testing against the sandbox. Hopefully there will be a release date within the next week.

If you haven't created an account on my website yet you might want to do so ahead of time. I plan to mention the release date there. I also plan to start doing more postings there in my forums than here as this is getting to be quite extensive and I would like for people to find the support they need on my website instead of bugging Kim, Chris, Linda and Ian.

http://www.auctionlisterpro.com

See you soon :0)

Well I have gotten things where I would like them and we are officially in eBay testing phase at the moment.

What this means is that after my initial reviews I will do a preview release for beta testing.

I am currently waiting for eBay to fix the user registration tool on their sandbox. Once this is complete I will be able to create some additional testing accounts for myself to test with. I am at a standstill until I get an additional testing account.

Once I have verified that all is well and to my liking I will put a link on my website for you to download the software and beta test against the sandbox.

When it has been fully tested as is and any bugs found are worked out I will mark it as a done and set a release date for production usage.

I will also put my seal on it and submit it for eBay certification to remove the 10k API call limitation and make it an offical eBay compatible application.

(There is a problem with sessions so I have removed Admin Access Levels for now. I will be looking for a way to use Admin Access Levels directly from Zen cart)

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more confusing the knowledge base on eBay has changed to say "Using Self Certified software you are limited to 10k calls per day"

Per day? Per month? The question has been posed. "Which is it?"

The answer is "We are looking to increase the daily/monthly limit."

Ok so that was confusing. I will let you know what I find out.

dont you love the answers, they would make good Politicians

talk and talk and talk and not say a damn thing