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************************************************************************** The eBay Assistant Version .005 Beta Shareware Edition Copyright (c) 1999 Alex Olshove - All Rights Reserved 3012 Hill Court Grand Junction, Colorado 81504 webmaster@ebassistant.hypermart.net WWW Site for latest updates: http://ebassistant.hypermart.net ************************************************************************** DISCLAIMER: I WILL NOT be responsible for any damage this program may do to any possessions other than my own, nor for any money or personal possessions lost in its use. Although the program has been tested to be bug free, there is always the chance of failure. Please enjoy this product, and report any bugs or suggestions to me at my internet address. eBay is a product of eBay Inc. This program parses web pages copyrighted to eBay and they are in NO WAY responsible or required to give support for ANYTHING resulting from the use of this program. I, Alex Olshove, reserve the right to change anything stated in this or any other documentation and info pertaining to The eBay Assistant. By using or placing The eBay Assistant (eBayAssistant.exe) on your or anyone else's computer, you agree to the terms above stated, especially note that I, Alex Olshove, am in NO WAY responsible for any damages done to anything other than my own possessions, and can in NO way owe anything to anyone due to anything in relationship to this software. ************************************************************************** NOTE: This version is shareware, please be sure to peruse the EBAYASSISTANTREG.TXT file REQUIREMENTS: The eBay Assistant requires: Pentium 166+ CPU 16MB+ of RAM 33.6k+ modem Windows 95/98/NT Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. A valid eBay account. INTRODUCTION: The eBay Assistant is an application that runs on Windows 95/98/NT machines for the sole purpose of accessing eBay's web site to assist you in the tracking of eBay auctions and to automate and streamline some of eBay's native functionality. This program requires that you already have a valid account on eBay and will not perform it's best functionality if you don't. FEATURES INCLUDE: *Built in browser (IE 4 must be installed on your computer). *Item tracking. Keeps a list of all of the auctions that you're interested in without you having to have bid in the auction. You can pull up the Item tracking window, right click on the item, and update it, view it in the browser, or delete it. *A clock watcher (configurable by item) that: alerts you a predetermined time before an auction ends OR Automatically bids on an item a predetermined time before an auction ends. *One click bid posting. If being tracked, Allows you to bid on an item by clicking the 'bid' button. Will default to the next minimum bid but can be set to whatever you want to bid. *A feature that I don't have a good name for that bids the minimum bid until you get the highest bid but stops at a predetermined $ amount. [dunno what it's good for yet other than just wanting the absolute lowest bid to outbid somebody by outbidding them by the bid increment] *AutoUpdate that loops through all of the items in the list and updates their information. Can be looped updating all of auctions continuously or just one iteration. *eBay time synchronize function that allows all of the time-based activity to reflect eBay time as accurately as possible without having to download eBay's time each time a task is to be completed which speeds things up. It gets your system's time, calculates the difference between your time and their time, and then use that difference to calculate the clock watcher and count down (see next feature). The program downloads and calculates the differences or you can set them to the second to ensure the most accurate time keeping. *Accurate real-time "time to end of auction" countdown that looks like # Days, # Hours, # Minutes, # Seconds. With this, you don't need to keep hitting the refresh button. But in case you do, see the next feature. *AutoRefresh option that refreshes the browser every n Seconds (settable by the user) in case you don't trust the real time countdown. *Fast e-mail. When you want to send an eBay user email, just click on their user name and the e-mail address appears on the next screen without having to enter your userid and password each time. *Search Save. Allows you to save your favorite eBay searches. GETTING STARTED: This program is generally useless unless attached to the net so login with your provider before continuing. When you start the program, go directly to the 'Settings' screen by clicking on the 'Settings' button or by selecting File->Settings from the menu. IMPORTANT: Under the 'General' tab of the settings window, enter your eBay UserID and Password. Your password will be encrypted so that any old person viewing your registry (where the settings are kept) will not be able to understand your password and use it on his/her own machine. The eBay Assistant will not perform many of its functions correctly including bidding on items if a valid eBay UserID and Password are not entered. Click on the 'eBay Time Diff.' tab and then click the 'Get Offset' button. This will synchronize your computer's clock with eBays. Since the eBay and the Internet lag at times, it's best to click this button a few times and keep the setting that comes up the most. For Example. if you click the button the first time and see -1 Hours, 0 Mins, -9 Secs, and the next time the Hours and Mins are the same but secs changed to -11 but the time after that the secs changed to -9 again and then to -8 and then to -9 and then to -9, then keep -9 as your offset for now. The values of -1 Hours, 2 Mins, -9 Secs means that to get eBay time, eBay Assistant must subtract one hour, add 2 minutes, and subtract 9 seconds from your system's time. Later on You can fiddle with the seconds to get your time dead-on with eBay's. When you're finished setting up The eBay Assistant, click the 'OK' button to save your settings. If you don't you'll have to reconfigure the program again. SETTING IT UP: The Settings screen has other configuration settings on 3 tabs. The settings operate as follows: On the 'General' Tab: UserID, Password - Your eBay UserID and password. Allows the program to perform functions with one click without having to enter the values every time. This works for things like viewing user's email address, bidding, MyEbay, etc. Goto eBay's Site on Startup - When checked, the program will automatically send the browser to eBay's main web page. View Countdown - When checked, the real time countdown will appear on the lower left corner of the main window. It will only appear for items that you have previously saved. Auto Refresh - When checked, the browser will automatically refresh itself every N seconds with N being the value you enter to the right of the option. The maximum value is 600 seconds (10 minutes). On the 'Item View' tab: View Countdown - When checked, the real time countdown will appear on the lower left corner of the saved items window for each item in the list as you view items. Auto Update - When checked, the program will continuously loop through the items in your saved items list and download their information from eBay. Not recommended for slow connections. Enable Auction Ends Actions - When Unchecked will disable checking for end of auction on all items in your saved items list regardless of the individual item's 'Enabled' setting. Auction end actions include the alert and autobid features. You probably want this option checked at all times. Update Item Before Autobidding - When checked, if you have chosen to automatically bid on an auction before the auction ends, the program will automatically download the item information from eBay before posting a bid. If it is found that your bid is lower than the minimum bid, you will be alerted as such and the bid will be cancelled. If you're on the computer at the time, this gives you the opportunity to bid on the item before the auction expires. Update Item List on Startup - When checked, automatically downloads the latest auction information about all of the items on your item list when the program starts up. eBay Time Diff. - See 'Setting it up' above. USING THE MAIN BROWSER SCREEN: The first thing you'll want to do is goto eBay's web site! To do this, click on the 'eBay Pages' menu option and select 'Goto eBay'. eBay's front web page will appear in the browser. Now just use eBay like you normally would in your regular browser. Search for the item you're interested in, wander around, etc. If you want to quickly get to eBay Announcements click on the 'eBay Pages' menu option and then select 'Announcements' and you will be taken directly to the eBay's 'Announcements' page. If you want to view your 'MyEbay' page on eBay's web site, click on the 'eBay Pages' menu option and then select 'My eBay' and you will be taken directly to your personal 'MyEbay' page. If you don't like those toolbars that have the web browser buttons and 'settings', etc. You can make them go away by clicking the 'File' menu option and unchecking the 'Tools' or 'Browser Controls' options. If you like them, but don't like them on your browser, you can grab the tool bars by the left margin and yank them off the browser and onto your desktop where they can be resized and reorganized into the shape you like. To put them back, simply dock them back on the browser and let go. To view a specific auction that you know the number of, enter that auction number into the text box entitled 'Item' and click the 'View Item' button to it's right. You will be taken directly to that auction. You can resize the main browser screen to fit your needs. SAVING AUCTION INFORMATION: When you locate something that you think you'd like to keep track of and possibly bid on in the future, click the 'Save Item' tool button or click the 'Items' menu option and select 'Save Item'. The information for the auction you're currently viewing will be downloaded from eBay and saved. The pertinent information will appear on the top of the page such as Item Number, recommended bid, Current Bid, Bid Increment, and Minimum bid. From then on, if you leave the auction page and return to it, the information will automatically appear at the top of the window. To update the information on that auction, click the 'Save Item' button again and the information will be refreshed. If configured to do so, a real time countdown will appear at the lower left hand corner of the window. The item must have been saved for this to happen. Repeat this for any item you're interested in. BIDDING ON AN ITEM: After you have saved an auction you can bid on it. To bid on an auction, enter the value you want to place the bid for in the 'Bid:' edit box and press the 'Final Bid' button or click on the 'Bidding' menu option and click on 'Bid on item'. The eBay Assistant will automatically get the key for the auction. Upon successful receipt of the key, a confirmation screen will popup to confirm your bid amount and item number. Click 'Yes' and your bid will be posted and you will be notified as to whether you are the high bidder or not. Another twist to bidding is the auto increment bid. This is a contraption that, when enabled, bids on the item and, if you're not the high bidder, will continue to automatically increment your bid and submit bid after bid until you win the auction. Before using this 'feature' you must set an absolute max value. This is a safety setting where the thing will stop bidding if you continue to fail to get the high bid. I'm not entirely sure what good it is other than outbidding the highest bidder by the increment. To increment faster or slower, you can set the 'increment' value to whatever you want. It defaults to the item's bid increment which you should consider to be the lowest value that should be entered. VIEWING SAVED ITEMS: To view auctions that you've saved, click on the 'View Saved Items' button or click on the 'Items' menu option and then click on 'View Items'. A window will appear that lists all of the items that you have saved. The main list lists the item numbers and descriptions of those items and the lower portion of the window contains the details about the item such as the number of bids, the seller, the high bidder, when it ends, etc. If configured to do so, a realtime countdown will appear on the lower left hand corner of the window. If you click on any of the labels representing the item details at the bottom of the window, the items will become sorted by that piece of data. For example, if you click on the label to the right of 'Ends:', the items will be sorted by the ending date. If you click on the the label to the right of 'Seller:', the items will be sorted by seller. Also, if you click on 'Item Number' or 'Item Description' at the top of the list, the list will be sorted by that respective column. If you right-click on a row (item) of the list, a popup menu will appear that allows you to do the following: View Item - Brings that item up in the browser of the main window. Update Item Info - Updates the information for the selected item. View and Update - Updates the information for the selected item and brings that item up on the browser. Delete Item - Deletes the selected item. Update All Items - Updates each item of the list from the first to the last. Exit - Exits the popup menu. Notice the area at the bottom of the window entitled 'Auction End Config'. This is an area that tells The eBay Assistant what to do when the auction is about to end. It's configurations is as follows: N seconds before auction ends, - This is the the amount of time in seconds before the auction ends that you would like the program to perform an action. The max value for this item is 600 seconds (10 mins). Alert Me - When selected, the program will put up an alert box, make a sound, and send your browser to the item when the auction is within the specified number of seconds of ending. Post Bid - When selected, the program will take your browser to the specified item and post a bid in the amount of what is in the edit box when the auction is within the specified number of seconds of ending. Enabled - When checked, the program will perform the selected actions when the auction is within the specified number of seconds of ending. Otherwise, the item will be ignored when the specified time is reached. When modifying these options, you must click the little 'Save' button to save the configuration. These options are disabled after the auction has ended for obvious reasons. SAVING AND RECALLING SEARCHES: If there's a certain search that you perform on eBay, you can save that search information to disk. To do this, run the search on eBay as you normally would and when the search results appear, click on the 'Search' menu item and then click on 'Save Search'. A window will appear requesting a name for the search be entered. Enter a search name or keep the default and click the 'OK' button. If you enter a name that you have already saved, you will be asked if you want to replace the existing search data with the new search data. To run a saved search, click on the 'Search' menu item and then click on 'Run Search'. A window will appear that contains a list of your saved searches. click on the search you want to run and click the 'Run' button and eBay Assistant's browser will show the search results. To delete a search from the list, click on the search, and click the 'Delete' button and answer 'Yes' to the delete confirmation. PLEASE READ CHANGES.TXT FOR UPDATE INFORMATION.