TFW2005 Presents: Ebay Launch Pad beta for Transformers!

TFW2005.com is proud to present a new feature on the site for the fans who frequent <b><a href="http://www.ebay.com" target="_blank">ebay.com</a></b> regularly. We are calling it <b>Ebay Launch Pad!</b> If you head over to our new area <b><a href="http://www.tfw2005.com/ebay/">here</a></b> you will be given a custom <b>categorized list of the last 10 auctions on ebay right now</b>, sorted by generation and then type of product (generation = G1, Armada etc, and type = comics, posters, dvds, etc). If you hover over the title of each of those listings, you will see a small preview of the auction including an image, current bids, current price - the important stuff. Then, if you see something you like, just click and it takes you there in a new window.

On top of this start page, <b>you can also browse the last 100 items in each category</b> by clicking the icons along the top of the page. This will load up a list showing full details, including image (if available), price, bids, ending time and finally - links to the auction itself. To browse back and forth between sections, just keep clicking the icons. To return to the start page, just click the "LAUNCH PAD!" icon up top.

All of this is done without re-loading the page each time, so browsing should be a bit quicker than normal. Please note that due to this style of delivering the content, your normal "back button" will not work. You must use the icons to jump between listings and return to the Launch Pad start page.

This is the BETA version of Launch Pad, so there may be some kinks and bugs involved. We plan on developing it further, refining it, and offering more options as time goes on. Join the disucssion to <b>leave us some feedback / make suggestions to improve it's functionality</B>.

Enjoy!

<b><a href="http://www.tfw2005.com/ebay">Transformers Ebay Launch Pad</a></b>

 

!!! This is awesome! The icons on top are a great idea!

 

As this disucssion carries on over time, anyone just posting for first time....

On a scale of 1-10, how likely would you be to use this to look for TF on ebay as opposed to going there and doing what you normally do. Then - why.

 

Nice, glad to see another TF site using AJAX for content delivery.

You might want to put some security checks on your server side though to check the requester, at the moment anyone could hijack it to return the formatted list by just going to a url such as http://www.tfw2005.com/ebay/..... The qksrv links won't protect it either, as a simple string replace function could strip them. Should be easy to fix.

But other than that, a very nice implementation  

 

On a scale from 1 - 10, I'd give it a solid 8.

It goes beyond a basic scripted list with its ability to generate previews simply by hovering over the listings. The sheer depth of the listings and categories can be extremely helpful. Plus the ability to get the last 100 items by clicking the category gives you more options on the areas you like the most.

The reason I give it an 8 is it's a really good and useful tool for those that hunt for auctions, but doesn't do much for people who don't use ebay. My "10's" in addition to the site over the years would be the Blogs, the Boombox page and (and this goes back a bit) the MP3 player we had on the site at one point.

Oh, and the icons are great.  

 

Man this was a great idea. I like it because I don't have to do a search for Transformers and get the Track Transformer packs for trains and stuff. Yea, I know I could just type in a specific type of Transformers such as Optimus or Megatron, but sometimes I like to look at everything for sell and see what catches my eye.

Edit: Joe, that is one freaky ass avitar.

 

I give it a 9, it's a great idea. I like how everything is divided up by category.

I will definitely use this when searching for TFs on e-bay.

 

9. Beautiful idea, its quicker than loading up ebay and typing in the sreach terms myself...

JOE YOU'RE AVATAR SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF ME...

 

9/10. Brilliant idea and just in time as I've my collection of MIB G1 MEGA PVC figures going up on auction soon!

Actually - that leads to a question... Will it also list items from ebay.co.uk? Will they have to be listed to ship internationally?

Steve.

 

Currently, this is only pulling information from ebay.com. If your listings show up there, then it would present them here, but if it's strictly on ebay.co.uk or other country specific ebay sites, then it will not.

 

This is a cool concept, but most of the time I'm looking for one specific figure (G1 Springer for example) and I don't see how this would help. But if you want to browse a whole genre and see something you like then it's great.

 

Hey, just wanted to point out that you have some bugs in your JS that is causing rendering issues in some browsers (I see it sometimes). This is one of the examples.

Code:

function ajax_showLoadingMessage(divId)
{
   document.getElementById(divId).innerHTML = '<p><center><img src="http://www.tfw2005.com/ebay/ebayimages/loader.gif"</center></p>';

}

 

Hmm, weird, not getting that here on IE6 or FF 1.5. What Browser are you running?

 

Using FF 1.5. Basically when it renders on this box (I have uber high resolution) it's not centered. But you shouldn't be using the center tag anyways - deprecated. All you're missing is a closing bracket though.

Also, your ready state complete should ideally read like this:

Code:

self.responseStatus[0] = self.xmlhttp.status;
self.responseStatus[1] = self.xmlhttp.statusText;
if (self.responseStatus[0] == "200") {
self.response = self.xmlhttp.responseText;
self.responseXML = self.xmlhttp.responseXML;
if (self.execute) {
	self.runResponse();
}

if (self.elementObj) {
	elemNodeName = self.elementObj.nodeName;
	elemNodeName.toLowerCase();
	if (elemNodeName == "input"
	|| elemNodeName == "select"
	|| elemNodeName == "option"
	|| elemNodeName == "textarea") {
		self.elementObj.value = self.response;
	} else {
		self.elementObj.innerHTML = self.response;
	}
}
	self.onCompletion();
} else {
	self.onError();
}

self.URLString = "";
break;

Basically, if you attempt to run some of the other functions (i'm assuming these to be black boxes, independent of the complete status) it could throw errors back to the browser about undefined objects/methods.

But overall this tool looks fun. It's a nice implementation of ajax methodology too.

Edit #2: Just realized, don't know if it's the expected result, but I can't move my mouse into the little box that pops up - the box disappears too fast.

 

AJAX has some problems on Mac browers and IE browsers with Active X disabled. IE7 will have native support for httpXMLRequest though. Its funny Mozilla support it more than MS even though MS created it

 

what do you mean by "ms created it"? Microsoft created ajax, as in the concept or microsoft created the xmlhttprequest object that is native to ECMA Script?

 

This is really cool as is, but if you welcome suggestions, I think it should have it's own section for mixed lot auctions, and it's own section for store exclusives. This is definitely a great feature though. I'm sure I can get a lot of use out of it.

 

sweet!