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"eBay and the eBay Logo are trademarks of eBay Inc."
For Your Information
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The following is intended to get you set up and running fast.
First, click on the 'Download Demo' link on the left side of this page to install the free copy of BayLister.
After installing, click on the Start button, Programs, BayLister and click on the BayLister program icon. Skip all screens until you come to the "Common Values" screen. If you don't see it press the F7 key after BayLister starts.
Next, select and enter the requested data for each line below:
Here's an example of what you'll see.
Click the "Save" button when you are finished.
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Now press the F5 key. This is the Startup Options screen.
Select a Default picture directory that will contain any pictures you will be using.
Make sure that "Upload to eBay" is checked.
Finally, click on the Authorize button and follow the instructions to authorize BayLister to interact with the eBay site for you. Click on the 'Exit' button to return to the main BayLister screen.
Now you are ready to download the latest Categories and Item Specifics for your site. The download should be quick, but unpacking and building the database tables could take a few minutes depending on the speed of your computer.
That's it! You should be ready to go. Enjoy.
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Hopefully this will help you get started with a minimum of effort. It contains all of the instructions given above, as well as some additional details in case you were wondering what was going on and why.
After installing, click the Start button, Programs, BayLister and click the BayLister program icon. The first time you do this, it will pop up some light reading. You may elect to skip this for now and continue on. You can always come back and read it later by pressing the "F4" key. Also notice that you can press the F1 key at any screen, to get help. After the welcome screen, the program will initialize a database for your use (this is only done the first time and may extend the first startup time slightly).
Next, you need to enter some data to allow BayLister to upload correct information to eBay.
To do this, press the "F7" key and fill in some data as follows:
Here's an example of what you'll see.
Don't forget to "Save" before you close this window.
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Now open My computer or Windows Explorer and create 2 folders: (you can change these later)
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BayLister\Pics" and
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BayLister\HostPics".
Now press the F5 key. This is the Startup Options screen.
Enter the Default picture directory and Host directory as the 2 directories you created above. The above instructions are merely intended to show you how pictures may be handled in the default case. You may specify a different picture folder for each and every listing via the Current Screen, if you wish.
Finally, click on the Authorize button and follow the instructions to authorize BayLister to interact with the eBay site for you. Click on the 'Exit' button to return to the main BayLister screen.
Now you are ready to download the latest Categories and Item Specifics for your site. The download should be quick, but unpacking and building the database tables could take a few minutes depending on the speed of your computer. This is an asychronous task and you may explore help files or other areas while waiting.
That's it! You should be ready to go. Enjoy.
If you are using the Demo downloaded after August 20, 2007, there will be a sample listing in the Pending Group. Look at it to see how it is set up and then you can upload it to the eBay test category (it will cost $0.20 - on eBay US).
If you are on any other site, you will need to go to the Current screen and make sure that you have the proper TEST category selected first. Cost of a test listing on other sites may vary from what I've noted above.
If you have an older demo version, you may download the sample listing installer from our "Other Software" page. Merely run the self installer and then import the SampleListing.csv file into BayLister.
Some final notes:
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The way we handle pictures is fairly simple. You put your jpg's (or gif's) in a folder on your local (or networked) hard disk. When you select that folder for the "Disk" field on the Current screen, BayLister will use that folder for all it's picture related functions. Selecting Picture 1 will present a file selection window of all the pictures in the "Disk" folder for you to choose.
If you wish to have eBay host your picture (first 1 free), then merely click the EPS box and BayLister will upload the picture to eBay's site and let eBay know it goes with your listing. If you use eBay for all your pictures, you don't need to enter anything in the URL field. If you are hosting them yourself, leave the EPS box unchecked and make sure the URL field is filled in with the location at which your picture will be stored.
Notice that Picture1 is the main picture that eBay will show with your listing. It will also be the Gallery Picture if you've selected Gallery from the drop-down. We recommend using eBay hosting (EPS - Ebay Picture Services) for Gallery pictures because eBay actually grabs a copy of the picture and stores it on their servers for their use. If you upload your listing and they are unable to get the picture from your hosting site, you'll get charged for a Gallery but it probably won't show up, or will take quite awhile until it does show up. Just a suggestion tho.
NOTE: Path names sometimes get too long if you bury your pictures too deep. Try and create picture directories with short folder names and with total length of less than 70-80 characters.
If you self-host your pictures, then make sure that you have a copy of the picture in your "Disk" folder and use a picture tag, in your description field, such as this:
<P align=center><IMG src="1.jpg" border=2></P>BayLister uses the "Disk" field to find the picture for the Preview screen and prefixes the "URL" to the file name when you upload to eBay.
Using the IMG tag for your pictures, allows you to add the picture directly to your descriptions via the Preview screen by clicking on the pic icon. You need to have a copy of the pic file on your local machine so it can be viewed in the Preview screen. The Host directory is a folder, that if specified (press F5 key to set), will accumulate a copy of any picture specified by an IMG tag, in your description html, so that you can go there and ftp the whole directory to your host site. (The picture is copied when you save the listing). The URL field is for the address of your pictures on the web. eg. If you self-host and you have an account with verizon, the url would be "http://mysite.verizon.net/<your_user_code>/<yourPics>/" and at that address would be your picture files, eg. abc.jpg, cde.gif, etc. Note: web based pictures usually require an exact, case-sensitive, spelling.
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We've included several html templates for your use. You may modify them, rename them, or add your own to the list via the "Get HTML" button on the Text View page. We have more information available on the Tutorial/Description and Tutorial/Templates pages. Also, there is additional info in the Help files associated with the Text View and Preview pages.
In May 2008, we added a new function to allow you to retrive pre-designed templates from our web site and store them in your database so they will show up in the drop-downs on both the Text View and Preview screens. The button to do this is located on the Preview screen but you must set the Template Maker option (located on the SetUp Options screen) to see it.
If you go to the Setup Options page (press the F5 key) you can enable some special functions to assist in making templates using our "built-in editing Tags". These are explained in the help files.
The Asked & Answered page has some additional discussion concerning templates.
(see About templates)
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On the Inventory screen, there is a new Group called Search. When that Group is selected,
the Search button will allow you to specify various parameters to search eBay for listings and will return data for those items that met your criteria. You can view each item, in your default browser, by selecting it and pressing Enter, or by double-clicking on the listing. The search is limited to 1000 listings per search.
You may also save searches by supplying a name and then executing the search, or recall a saved search using the same drop-down. No data is saved for eBay searches. It will all be erased on starting a new search or quitting BayLister.
The above function is available for all users, even for Demo users.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------You may also save searches by supplying a name and then executing the search, or recall a saved search using the same drop-down. No data is saved for eBay searches. It will all be erased on starting a new search or quitting BayLister.
The above function is available for all users, even for Demo users.
For those of you with your data in spreadsheets or other formats, check out our latest code for ways to import your data to BayLister. If you need help, or you have special circumstances, contact us.
Here's some information on what's required and how it all works.
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(This section is still being prepared. eta - October 24, 2008)
Contact us if you really can't wait.
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We use ActiveX technology to manage the Structured Query Language(SQL) database for maintaining all your eBay listing data. This allows us to use almost any SQL database you want, from the simplest (Microsoft Access 97) to more powerful databases (such as Microsoft SQL2000) capable of allowing rapid retrieval of data from items numbering in the 100's of thousands, or more.
In addition, you can access/modify this data via your own applications such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, and any application allowing SQL database access. Since this can be risky if you are not fully aware of the process, we advise you to be careful in doing this. We can supply data on assisting you in setting this up if you desire.
We use an Excel spreadsheet, directly linked to the BayLister database to both view selected data and to perform updates on large groups of listings, which can then be sent to eBay, via BayLister, to revise the active listings there. The same type of interface is capable of being set-up using Microsoft Access via it's inbuilt programming constructs, for those familiar with it.
In order to allow you full access to your data (after all it is your data), there are no security codes required to access your database. All security is your concern and may be added or maintained via the appropriate 3d party tools, such as Microsoft Access97 or 2000 or whatever the database manager is called for the type of database you choose to use.
If you want to use a different database, merely go to the Setup Options sceen and select from the list. Then quit BayLister and restart it. You will now have a new SQL database. Please note that the "MySQL" database template is not currently included with BayLister, even though we've included the name in the drop-down list. We just haven't had any requests for it yet.
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