AuctionSieve

General

Usage

Windows issues

Mac issues

Linux issues


General

"Why haven't you replied to my email/feedback?"

Probably because I'm swamped! I have a full-time job, a wife and 3 kids. AuctionSieve is currently a side-project for me. I'm hoping to get to the stage where I can work on it full-time. The best way you can help me is to post your questions on the forum - there are many people who will be happy to help!

"Does AuctionSieve support eBay UK or other eBay sites?"

Yes, AuctionSieve supports the following international eBay sites

  • eBay US - ebay.com
  • eBay UK - ebay.co.uk
  • eBay Australia - ebay.com.au
  • eBay Austria - ebay.at
  • eBay Belgium - ebay.be
  • eBay Canada - ebay.ca
  • eBay France - ebay.fr
  • eBay Germany - ebay.de
  • eBay Ireland - ebay.ie
  • eBay Italy - ebay.it
  • eBay Netherlands - ebay.nl
  • eBay Spain - ebay.es
  • eBay Switzerland - ebay.ch

"Why are you giving away AuctionSieve for free?"

I'm part of the eBay Partner Network, so I get a small amount of money from eBay if people view an auction through my program, place a bid and then win the auction. I'm not yet making enough to live off but the more people who use AuctionSieve, the more money I make. If I start making enough, I'll be able to work on it full-time and finally get around to that extensive list of feature requests ya'll have!

You can find out more about the eBay Partner Network here

"I'd like to include AuctionSieve on a magazine cover cd. Can I?"

Sure - I'd love you to! All I ask is that you send me a copy of the magazine if possible.

"My question/problem isn't listed here."

Take a look on the forums - there may be an answer to your question there. If not, feel free to post a question yourself! Or you can always email me but you're likely to get a quicker response on the forums.


Usage

"When I try to Get Auctions I just get errors!"

First, have you just installed AuctionSieve? When you first install AuctionSieve, it will try to download the latest updates to ensure it can talk to eBay. By default, AuctionSieve checks for updates when you run it but if this is turned off, you can simply run AuctionSieve and select Tools->Check for updates.

If you have the latest version of AuctionSieve and you still get the problem, it may just be an intermittent network problem. Try not to Get Auctions for too many sieves at once.

Failing that, eBay may have changed their pages and AuctionSieve is having trouble interpreting them. Post on the forum or email to let me know!

"I don't want to see the auctions from when I ran my sieve yesterday. Can I make AuctionSieve remove them from the results?"

Yes. In the Filters panel on the right, tick 'Ignore auctions already seen'.

"Can I search in all categories?"

Yes! With version 1.2.0 and above you can perform regular eBay searches. You can also combine search results and limit your searches to a list of specific subcategories.

"How do I delete a sieve?"

There are two ways. The easiest is to right-click on the sieve tab and select Delete. You can also go to "File->Manage Sieves...", click on the sieve you want to delete and click the Delete button.

"Can you add support for sniping?"

No. I'm part of the eBay Partner Network and they specifically disallow sniping.

"Can AuctionSieve do xxx?"

Ask on the forums. There's also a special place where you can request a new feature - there's already quite an extensive list!

"Can I become a beta tester?"

Yes! It's easy. In AuctionSieve, select Tools->Check for beta updates.

You can also automate this. When you run AuctionSieve, it always checks for updates but this is just standard updates. You can make it check for beta updates by going to Tools->Options...->Updates tab and select "Check for beta updates on startup"

"I tried getting *lots* of auctions and AuctionSieve froze. What's up with that?"

AuctionSieve will run out of memory if you try to download too much information. There are a couple of ways too alleviate this:
- specify more specific search criteria to decrease the number of pages of search results
- only run a single sieve at a time
- when you are finished with a sieve, click on Get Auctions and then Cancel it straight away - this will clear the results and free up memory
- turn off image downloads - go to Tools->Options...->Sieve Actions tab->Download auction images

"Can I run AuctionSieve from a USB thumbdrive?"

Yes! Install AuctionSieve to a location on the USB drive. Then, when you run it, select Tools->Options...->Advanced tab->Store sieves and settings in program folder

You'll now be able to run it directly from the USB drive on any computer/laptop you like.

"How can I find category ids?"

Unfortunately the category chooser no longer works. This will be fixed in the future.

In the meantime, you can find category ids from these ebay pages

Also,the category id can be found in the url, for example :
http://dvd.shop.ebay.com/DVD-HD-DVD-Blu-ray-/617/i.html
is category id 617

For other countries, in some cases when you enter a value in AuctionSieve, you'll need to use the 2 character country code. For example, for this German category :
http://filme.shop.ebay.de/DVD-/83733/i.html
in AuctionSieve you would enter de83733

"Can I do one search that searches all eBay sites - ie the whole world?"

Yes! Next to the Get Auctions button, click on Options. In the panel that drops down, select "Only show items" "Located in" "Any Country".

"Can I use advanced eBay search terms like wildcards?"

Yes! You can use all the wildcard and other symbols that you can use on eBay. Ie all the search operators described on this page :
http://pages.ebay.com/help/search/advanced-search.html

"Can AuctionSieve display the shipping information in the price column?"

No, not yet but it's a highly requested feature which I plan on implementing. I first need to integrate with the eBay API.

"Can I search for completed auctions?"

No, same as above.


Windows issues

"I have Windows and clicking the 'View' link doesn't work"

Version 1.2.0 fixed this for most people's setups. If you are still having problems, please email me your operating system and browser details.

"Can I make AuctionSieve use a different browser like Firefox?"

Yes. When you click View, AuctionSieve launches your default browser. To change your default browser in Windows XP go to Start->Set Program Access and Defaults select Custom and click on the dropdown and choose Firefox (or Opera or whatever) as your default web browser.

If that doesn't work, then your Windows may have an incorrect file association. Try finding an html file on your hard drive and double click it to open it. It should launch your browser. If not, you need to view the properties of the file and change the "Opens with".

"How can I backup my AuctionSieve Data?"

Here are the locations where all your AuctionSieve data is stored if you want to add them to a backup regime.

Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\AuctionSieve

Windows Vista & 7:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\AuctionSieve

Copy the following files from that folder to another location for safekeeping:
all .sieve files
auctionsieve.properties
watchlist.txt
pricehistory.txt

Note that on versions prior to 2.1.0, this data was stored in the directory where you installed AuctionSieve, usually C:\Program Files\AuctionSieve. They will also be in the installation directory if you have chosen the option Tools->Options...->Advanced tab->Store sieves and settings in program folder.


Mac issues

"I just upgraded to 1.8.7 (ie reinstalled). Where'd my data go???"

Please look at the special note on the download page.

"I have a Mac and get an error when I try to install. Why?"

This should no longer happen with the latest version. For historical purposes (versions prior to 1.8.7), read on ...

This is a permissions problem. First of all, make sure you're placing AuctionSieve in the Applications folder. If that doesn't help, then the easiest way to get around this is to run the installer as the user 'root' (root is an all-powerful user). Some people have also been able to install it as long as they have Admin rights.

You can find instructions on how to create a root user account here : http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/Root_User_Creation/index.ws

Once installed, you can log out of the root account, log in to your regular account and use AuctionSieve.

"I'm still having problems running AuctionSieve on Mac OS X 10.3.9. Can you help?"

Mac OS X versions prior to 10.4 are no longer supported as AuctionSieve requires Java 1.5.

"I have Mac OS X and clicking the 'View' link doesn't do anything. How do I make it work?"

Go into Tools->Options and turn off the option "Force creation of new browser window when clicking View".

"Can I make AuctionSieve use a different browser like Firefox?"

Yes. When you click View, AuctionSieve launches your default browser. To change your default browser in Mac OS X
- Start Safari (the standard browser).
- From the Safari menu, choose Preferences...
- In the General tab, find the Default web browser pop-up menu and make your selection from the list.

"I get a NoSuchMethodError. What can I do?"

Download the latest version of AuctionSieve from here. Note that AuctionSieve requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) with java 1.5.

"I use Mac OS X and it froze or I got a Java heap space OutOfMemoryError. How do I give AuctionSieve more memory?"

First, make sure you have the latest full version downloaded from here. Note that the auto-update is not always sufficient. You'll know you have the latest version if you have the new icon.
If you still have memory problems, you can increase the memory that Mac OS X gives to AuctionSieve :
- in Finder, go to the folder where you installed AuctionSieve
- control-click on the AuctionSieve app file and select "Show Package Contents"
- in that folder, find the file Info.plist and open it in a text editor
- search for a value like -Xmx1024m and increase the number (in megabytes for AuctionSieve to use, where 1024 = 1 Gigabyte)
- save the file and run AuctionSieve again

"How can I backup my AuctionSieve Data?"

On a Mac, all your AuctionSieve data is stored in /Users/username/Library/Application Support/AuctionSieve.

Copy the following files from that folder to another location for safekeeping:
all .sieve files
auctionsieve.properties
watchlist.txt
pricehistory.txt

Note that on versions prior to 2.1.0, this data was stored in the application icon itself. To get to the files :
Open up the folder where you installed AuctionSieve
- Control click the AuctionSieve icon and select "Show Package Contents" from the pop-up menu
- Navigate to the Contents->Resources->Java folder
They will also be at this location if you have chosen the option Tools->Options...->Advanced tab->Store sieves and settings in program folder.


Linux issues

"I have Linux and clicking the 'View' link doesn't do anything. How do I make it work?"

AuctionSieve contains support for specifying your browser by specifying the -DBROWSER=<browser> parameter
where <browser> is the executable to launch your browser. This value can be set according to the *nix standard - ie any occurrence of %s will be replaced with the url. If there is no %s, then a space and the url is appended to form the command. Example -DBROWSER="/usr/bin/mozilla %s"

How you specify the parameter is up to you at the moment - but I'll probably include a .sh file in future versions.

Here is an example shell script (tested to work on Ubuntu - thanks to Keith!) :

#!/bin/sh
#Location To AuctionSieve JAR
cd bin/auctionsieve/
#AuctionSieve Launch Parameters
java -DBROWSER="firefox %s" -jar auctionsieve.jar
    

Thanks to Dave Arndt for this suggestion!

"How can I backup my AuctionSieve Data?"

On Linux, all your AuctionSieve data is stored in ~/.AuctionSieve.

Copy the following files from that directory to another location for safekeeping:
all .sieve files
auctionsieve.properties
watchlist.txt
pricehistory.txt

Note that on versions prior to 2.1.0, this data was stored in the directory where you installed AuctionSieve. They will also be in the installation directory if you have chosen the option Tools->Options...->Advanced tab->Store sieves and settings in program folder.