Robert M Posted July 27, 2008 Share Posted July 27, 2008 Wow! I just posted an item on Ebay to sell for the first time in a few years. You know I thought this was 2008 and not 1998. How can Ebay, one of the biggest websites in the world have such a crummy interface. When you type in the description in plain text with formatting, does it automatically convert the formatting to html? No it doesn't it, it just treats it like a text block in html and removes all formating. How lame. So I need to manually add line breaks and bullets to my listing in html tags. Luckily I know the tags I need, because Ebay doesn't provide handy buttons to insert formating into a post like the Atari Age forum does. I mean if Atari Age can do it, what is Ebay's excuse? The really lovely part is when I go to preview my post, and it puts the preview into a pane not big wide enough to show the whole listing, so I have to scroll the little tiny preview pane left and right and up and down to preview my post. Never mind that there is plenty of room for the whole page on my monitor, Ebay decided that the preview pane should be a fixed size that is automatically too small to match the width of a post. Truly amazingly bad web programming. Completely unforgivable in 2008 from such a big website. End rant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustJeff2 Posted July 27, 2008 Share Posted July 27, 2008 I am not a big fan of ebay (go ctcw), but I find the UI just fine.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted July 27, 2008 Share Posted July 27, 2008 I agree. Ebay was originally put together as a monolithic CGI DLL. That was how you did dynamic websites in the early days, before web application languages like asp, coldfusion, jsp, php, or .net were invented. They've bolted stuff on top of it, but that 1980s style of coding is still evident. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted July 27, 2008 Share Posted July 27, 2008 I've started using GarageSale for OS X, which is a nice front-end for listing and maintaining auctions. Much faster to list items and you don't have to deal with eBay's constantly evolving (and horribly convoluted) interface. I can't wait until someone else comes along and starts a new auction site with a clean design. http://www.iwascoding.com/GarageSale/ ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert M Posted July 28, 2008 Author Share Posted July 28, 2008 I've started using GarageSale for OS X, which is a nice front-end for listing and maintaining auctions. Much faster to list items and you don't have to deal with eBay's constantly evolving (and horribly convoluted) interface. I can't wait until someone else comes along and starts a new auction site with a clean design. http://www.iwascoding.com/GarageSale/ ..Al Yes, If I posted things for sale more often, having a tool like that would become a must have item. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strattsp Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 I use garage sale as well, but they pissed me off when they they introduced version 5 and didn't mention anything about having to pay for the upgrade. It took a while and a few back and forths to get version 4 back with a valid liscense. And of couse now the widget doesn't work anymore, so I actually have to log onto ebay to check my auctions. Oh well, it is still a whole lot better that having to list auctions using their interface. When I do use their interface, I have to search for the "not an idiot" link that takes me to the old listing interface with more options, like actually specifying a shipping weight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemoncurry Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 One word: TurboLister. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strattsp Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 System Requirements • Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista • Pentium II and above • At least 250 MB free disk space, more than 500 MB recommended • RAM: 128 MB, more than 256 MB recommended • Internet Explorer v5.5 or later installed Kinda leaves us MAC users out in the dark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. DID!! Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 (edited) You know what I hate, deep within my soul? The way they handle the "vintage" category. Instead of making it just "before x date" and "after x date", they will have a general category, then a vintage category - which means 50% of people will put them in the vintage, and 50% will use the general, meaning I have to comb through the listings twice. Well, thats just two searches, not that bad, right? Well, if it just so happens the item is still being sold wholesale, like, say guitars, the answer is big flipping "no", because you will have to search through hundreds of retail and second hand new guitars to find that old Tele. And so much for using that trusted "email me when this item is available" option, because you'd get sent hundreds of emails weekly, telling you about crappy new Telecasters. They do this in many other fields, including video games. This also totally sucks if you're selling, because if somebody is searching through a particular field, unaware of the other, they'll miss your item. Of course, you can get listed in both for more money. The whole sorting system sucks in general, full of either too vague or too specific categories, the whole thing's is terribly managed. It's just like Microsoft, get you self into absolute power then avoid any real effort to improve your product, because you can. Oh yeah, they also like to occasionally hide the most useful feature on the whole damn site - "Search completed items". Every now and then, they'll change things around and hide the darn thing on you. Even if you hate eBay, that ability to immediately find out the real world value of nearly any secondhand item is absolutely indispensable to anybody that buys or sells anything collectible or second hand. No, lets hide that guys. System Requirements • Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista • Pentium II and above • At least 250 MB free disk space, more than 500 MB recommended • RAM: 128 MB, more than 256 MB recommended • Internet Explorer v5.5 or later installed Kinda leaves us MAC users out in the dark. You should be use to it by now! Edited July 29, 2008 by Mr. DID!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Beard Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 So am I confused or has eBay changed the formatting of their searches drastically since this morning? Cuz if they have, the new improved version seems to pretty much suck. Maybe I'll get used to it, but they took away all the direct links I pretty much used constantly. What the hell? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horseboy Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 So am I confused or has eBay changed the formatting of their searches drastically since this morning? Cuz if they have, the new improved version seems to pretty much suck. Maybe I'll get used to it, but they took away all the direct links I pretty much used constantly. What the hell? Ya it sucks. They have hooked you up with the Beta version of the new search/browse interface. It is absolutely horrible. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and hidden away somewhere there will be a tiny "opt out" hyperlink. Click it and it goes back to normal. This has happened to me about 10 times in the last 4 or 5 months. I am dreading the day that it isn't Beta anymore and we are forced to use that terrible piece of garbage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Beard Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and hidden away somewhere there will be a tiny "opt out" hyperlink. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you! Wow, that's just scary. I repeat, eBay: What the hell? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horseboy Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and hidden away somewhere there will be a tiny "opt out" hyperlink. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you! Wow, that's just scary. I repeat, eBay: What the hell? I feel ya. The first time it happened I was terrified. I thought it was ruined forever. It took me a half day to figure out how to fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemoncurry Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 I wondered what was going on too. I was happy being reminded about the opt out, but when I just went there to do so, I had already been reverted to the old way. Weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucebidder Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 I personally enjoy the new interface, especially the best match searching.. 2 days ago I did 3 searches with these results: Search: Bally Astrocade My best match: Timex Watch waterproof to 100 feet Search: Fairchild Channel F My best Match: Morgan fairchild partially nude poster Search: Magnavox Odyssey My Best Match: A Religious Cartoon Why oh why would I want to opt out.... Also have any of you run into it where you cannot opt out. I was stuck for like 2 weeks unable to opt out and finally after 3 emails to tech support they allowed me to opt out. Apparantly not everyone is allowed to opt out.... How RUDE!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the maddestman Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 After the way eBay have treated people, particularly us Aussies, I've decided to never go back there and I know many others who have made the same choice. I'm happy at http://www.oztion.com.au now, and hope eBay goes the way of the dodo! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedBeard Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 horseboy: your avatar just cracks me up! ><>RedBeard /* haven't used e-bay much lately, will go check it out soon... */ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math You Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Yep, the new interface is just plain annoying. Options that were previously on screen are now hidden in slow loading menus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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