Re changes to auction description width

**Rednosty** · 30th April 2008, 06:04 PM

Originally Posted by BLOXBOOKS

Well after 614 was first introduced I spent 100s of mind numbing hours altering listings- then started adding Google Checkout when that was introduced (still got more to update) and now I'm adding the additional countries- I feel dread when changes are introduced, it mostly means 100s of hours revising listings instad of doing what I came here to do, thats list, a bit of a relief to see this change just impacts on the aesthetics without a need for me to spend more time editing things, I do get a feeling i just met myself at about the place I started....

ABSOLUTLY SPOT ON!

I am still changing some Auctions (When relisting) to Tick the boxes for the New countries! In my time on EBid these changes are TOO OFTEN Just about get things right from one change and another comes along.

**3drom** · 30th April 2008, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by johnwash1

Actually auction sites don't care one way or the other -- if html/head/body tags are in the auction listing they just strip them out. Including them therefore isn't wrong, and neither are they expected (in the sense of required).

I should have worded that better, when I said 'expected' it sounded like I meant 'required', I should have said 'are prepared for' or something like that, i.e. the auction sites can accept either, as you say.

But they don't strip out the html/head/body tags, here's some source HTML from one of my Ebay auction pages:

<div id="EBdescription">  <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>3DROM</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.3drom.com/auction/auctions.css" type="text/css" media="all, screen">

</head>

<body>
<a name="top"></a>

<div id="wrapper">

etc.

It all goes into the final Ebay/Ebid webpage. If you're using CSS then you'll need your <head> tags to put the link to your CSS in.

**johnwash1** · 30th April 2008, 06:14 PM

Originally Posted by 3drom

Originally Posted by johnwash1

I'm very interested in your comments about CSS. I was under the impression that it's not possible to use CSS on auction sites, because your listing is only a small part of the whole page. Are you actually doing this? More detail please?

Sure, you just use CSS in the normal way, like:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.3drom.com/auction/auctions.css" type="text/css" media="all, screen">

and it works. I use it on Ebay too, but unfortunately Ebay's site displays parts of my auctions incorrectly in Internet Explorer, and as you would expect, when I try to contact support, they ignore what I write and just send me a stock answer that doesn't help at all...

When I've uploaded my auctions you can see how it all works, that should be this weekend hopefully.

Many thanks, 3drom. I'm under the impression it's not standards compliant to put the link in the body. It can go in the head, it can even go in the http header (useful if you're running your own server) but not in the body.

However, it sounds from what you say as if most/all modern browsers honour it in the body. And hey, whatever works!

**3drom** · 30th April 2008, 06:55 PM

I have to admit I have no idea how it works. (Having two lots of CSS, HTML pages, etc. in one page.) But thank God it does, otherwise we'd all be living back in the dark ages of HTML auctions with font tags aplenty...

**kedo** · 30th April 2008, 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by 3drom

I would suggest creating a <div> that is 600px wide, using CSS, like this:

#wrapper {
width: 600px;
margin: 0 auto;
}

(The margin centres it horizontally.)
Open Notepad, copy that code into it, save it as 'auction.css', and then insert this code after your </title> tag in your auction description:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/auctions.css" type="text/css" media="all, screen">

Then you'll need to upload the CSS file to your webspace, and change the 'yourwebsite.com' bit above to show where this is.

Then put this at the start of your auction description, after the opening <body> tag;

<div id="wrapper">

Insert your auction description here

</div>

</body>
</html>

Try that first and then if it's what you wanted, I can then show you how to add the colours.

You what? Webspace, what? Haven't got time. I'm here to sell not learn about IT. I want to be moving foreward again in half an hour, not days. Thanks for taking the trouble anyway.

Almost finished rigging up something using tables, would appreciate the codes for the colours. How do I find them, view source or something I seem to remember?

**3drom** · 30th April 2008, 09:05 PM

Download ColorPic, a free program that allows you to view the colour of any pixel on your screen, then use it to find out the background colours you want, then insert those hex codes (such as #FFFFFF for white, #000000 for black, etc.) into your code.

Can you show me the basic template you use and I'll show you where to put the colours?

**kedo** · 30th April 2008, 09:33 PM

Still playing around with the auction I gave a link to back at #45.

You will find two versions of my 'template' on the second link at the moment.

**kengillam** · 30th April 2008, 09:53 PM

Whilst we all want to concentrate on selling acquiring some HTML knowledge to fulfil that task better should not be ignored. What is it Sir Alan looks for "a broad range of skills!" always seek to improve your knowledge wherever you can.

**johnwash1** · 30th April 2008, 10:16 PM

Nice one, Ken!

I still don't get what the fuss is about though. Dockerills, I've just had a look at that auction of yours. There are the following important points:

* The price is 12 quid
* The postage is less than a couple of quid
* There's a really good photo
* There's some good chat about it and some terms and condits.

That's what I make a decision on, not whether it's wide narrow or even written on the back of a cornflakes packet.

Learning a bit of html is no bad thing, but tarting up a perfectly good auction is just a waste of time, surely?

**kedo** · 30th April 2008, 10:24 PM

Scrap the request for colour codes, Gothicina just sent them to me. Thanks.

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