eBay Watcher Help
The information below is designed to help you use this widget, you will find information on how to register, how to watch an auction, details on International eBay stores and how the widget works with them, plus information on what all the preference do and how they work for you. |
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How To Register
1) In order to register, we will require part of your Mac's serial number(s), this is displayed on the back of this eBay Watcher widget in the green box under the 'Register' tab, make a note of it before starting the registration process. 2) Once you begin the registration you will be given a box to send a short message, (See screenshot on website), remember to include your Name, E-mail address and the Serial number(s) (see step 1) in your short message. 3) Once you have made your payment, we will e-mail you your registration code(s) shortly. Once received, just type the code into the supplied box under the 'Register' tab on the back of the widget and hit return. That's it! PLEASE NOTE: Print out your e-mail containing your serial number (or write it down) for future reference. All updates to eBay Watcher in the future, will be free to registered users. Non registered owners can also download the updates from the downloads section on the website, but you will be limited to the demos settings. |
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Using secure eBay Tokens
eBay watcher now supports the eBay token system, allowing us to accurately retrieve information from the eBay API more efficiently. This also helps to keep the widget functioning correctly even when eBay tinker with their systems. So all you need to do is get yourself an eBay Token and your are ready to start using the widget.
How do I get an eBay Token?
We have tried to make getting an eBay token as simple as possible for you the user. Here is a quick step guide to creating your eBay token. 1) Download the eBay Watcher widget and flip to the back side and click the Token preference link at the top. 2) You will see two steps to follow. For a quick 'how to' refresh click the Step Instruction buttons for a recap. Click the Authorise button and this will load up eBay and ask you to sign in. 3) Sign in and the Hawk consent agreement screen will load. Press the 'Agree and Continue' button to continue. eBay will display a thank you page to confirm your token has been made. PLEASE NOTE: Do not close the Thank You page yet, leave it open and return to the eBay Watcher Widget. 4) Having left the thank you page open in the background, return to the widget and continue with Step 2. Press the "Step 2 instructions" button for a quick recap. 5) Enter your eBay User name in the box provided and click the 'Get Token'. eBay watcher will now retrieve your token for you. 6) When the token has been obtained, you will see the expiration date in the green box at the bottom of the eBay Watcher widget. That's it, you are done. You can now use the widget and close the thank you page you left open.
PLEASE NOTE: eBay Watcher uses the Developer Tools allocated by eBay. eBay Watcher Widget does not store your eBay
account information. Your eBay Token is stored in your Keychain so you can remove it at any time. Depending on how
busy eBay is, it can take a few minutes to retrieve the token so please be patient.
Copy Token to My eBay on your iPhone?
We have tried to make it simplier for you to move your secure eBay Token to My ebay on your iPhone while we wait for the official iPhone SDK. In the mean time the best way to get your unique eBay Token to your iPhone is to simply press the 'Copy Token To My eBay' button (located next to the reset button on the Token tab) and follow the onscreen instructions. You will of course need to retrieve your eBay token first using the steps provided (see above). |
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My eBay
The widget has the ability to track items currently in your My eBay account. Currently you can view items you are watching, bidding, items won, items not won, sold, unsold and items you are selling. The selling tab will also show you the amount of bids your item has received. Please note: You can only view 4 My eBay categories at any one time, you can choose which ones to display on the reverse of the widget. Simply click the My eBay tab and tick the categories you want to display on the front. Then flip the widget back to the front and click the My eBay tab, your choosen categories will be displayed and clicking each title heading will show you the list of auctions for that My eBay section. The check boxes next to each item in your My eBay lists allows you to load that auction into a free Auction Tab for more details or auction watching. To do so, simply tick the check box next to the item you want to add to an Auction Tab (You can select up to 4), and press the Green plus button top right of the menu, The status message will display "Loaded" when you item(s) have been added. Note: This feature will only work if you have a free auction tab, it will not load over an existing auction you are already watching. If you are unable to see any of your items under the My eBay tab, please make sure that you have completed the eBay Token Authroization process above and that you have a token expiry date in the green box, bottom left of the Token tab on the back of the widget. If there is no Expiry date in the green box, it is likely that the Authorization process has not been completed or the Token date has expired. Please note: If you have no items in your watching, bidding or items won sections of your My eBay account, the widget will display no information. |
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Search
As of version 4, you can now search an eBay store and have all the results displayed in the widget. Simply type your search word(s) into the search field and hit return. You can configure your search by clicking the Search Options button in the menu bar. In the Search Options pop-up window you can choose the eBay Store to search, the amount of results to display, the category and if you want to search under both the title and description. The ebay Search results will display the Auction title (which is a link to the auction online), the Auction image (if there is one), the current price, a Buy It Now price if there is one and the auctions end time and date. |
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Using Growl
Growl is a global notification system for applications that run on your Mac, it's a free, open source utility that communicates with applications with Growl support to give you on screen notification of any new information without you having to switch from the application you're already in. To use growl, click the Preference tab on the reverse of this widget. If your Mac has Growl installed, you will see a button to set up the "Growl settings". If you don't have Growl installed, you will see a button to download it, click this button and you will be taken to the Growl website so you can download and install the FREE Growl application. Once Growl is installed, or if you already have Growl installed, click the "Growl settings" button and this will launch System Preferences and activate the Growl Preference tab. In Growl Preferences under the General Tab, tick the checkbox for "Start at Login". Next Click the Applications tab and you will see a list of all the applications using Growl in the top field, and in the bottom field you will see what notifications are available for each application. Make sure you tick "ebaywatcherGrowl" in top field, and in the bottom field, make sure you tick "Auction Ending, Price Changed, Auction Ended". Now all you need to do is set the display alert you want for each notification. Under the display row, click the word "Default" and select a notification type from the list. Repeat this for all 3 eBay Watcher notifications. What do the notifications look like? To see a preview of a notification type, click the "Display Options" tab at the top. Under the Display Options tab, highlight any of the display types in the left hand window and click "Preview" in the bottom right corner of the same window. This will display a demo of the notification. Each notification type has it's own settings, like on screen duration and opacity. Feel free to change these settings to your likeness and once you have finished, quit System Preferences. eBay Watcher will now use Growl to display an alert if the Auction Price changes, Auction is ending (2 minute warning) and if the Auction has ended. |
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How do I watch an Auction?
This is very simple, just go to your eBay site and search for something you want to keep an eye on or select one from your My eBay Watching list. Visit the Auction page and highlight and copy, or make a note of, the auction number. Go into Dashboard and activate the eBay watcher widget. Select an auction tab either 1, 2 or 3 and paste or type in the auction number in the search field in the orange bar at the top of the white area. Once your have put in your auction number, press enter/return on your keyboard and eBay Watcher will go and fetch and display the auction details. You can watch 3 separate auctions at a time using all 3 auction tabs. |
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How do I clear an auction tab?
Clearing an auction tab is easy. Simply click the grey, circled cross to the right of the search box in the orange search bar row near the top on each auction tab. Hovering your mouse over the cross will display the text 'Clear Auction'. |
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What do the options on the Preference tab do and mean?
Refresh Time
This sets the amount of time between each check of the auction details. So if you set the refresh time to 5
minutes, eBay Watcher will check every 5 minutes for changes to the auction(s) you are watching and update any changes
if there are any. The red dots at the top of the widget's front, indicate how many times the widget has checked your
auction(s) for changes. You can also switch off the refresh timer. Also you can use the manual refresh button any time
to do a manual update. This button is located next to the Clear Auction button on the seach bar of each auction tab and
looks like a round arrow.
Dynamic Refresh Time
The dynamic refresh time works the same as above, but it automatically changes the refresh time depending on how
long your auction has left. See below for details:End time less than or equal to 1 day:
Refresh every hour
End time less than or equal to 2 hours:
Refresh every 20 min
End time less than or equal to 10 mins:
Refresh every 1 minute
End time less than or equal to 2 mins:
Refresh every 30 seconds
End time less than or equal to 1 min:
Refresh every 10 seconds
End time less than or equal to 30 secs:
Refresh every 5 seconds
eBay Store
Select the eBay store for your country so the widget knows how and where to look for auction details.
Sound
Ticking the sound button gives you the option to be alerted by a sound if the auction price changes even when you
aren't in Dashboard.
Growl
Ticking Growl allows you to set up on screen notification alerts for Auction Ending, Price Change and Auction
Ended. To set up Growl, please see the instructions above in this help file.
Update
Ticking the update check box will instruct the widget to search for widget updates. If an Update to the widget is
available and button will be displayed, click this button to be taken to the website to download the latest update. If
your widget is up to date a message will appear which says "Up to Date".
Load on Startup
Ticking this box will instruct the eBay Watcher widget to reload the auctions you were watching after a restart
or a shut down. Always remember to go into Dashboard after a restart or shutdown to activate all your widgets
again.
World Clock
Ticking this box will display a digital clock on the front of the widget. You can select your Mac's current time,
or you can chose the time of any eBay International store by using the drop down list supplied. You are also given an
optional check box to tick if you are currently observing Daylight Saving Hours (DST). |
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International eBay Stores
The eBay watcher widget labels do support localisation for many countries, these include: Spanish, German, French, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. The auction data currently displays in English, but we are hoping at some point in the future to include localisation for the auction data. Currently the data is only taken from the US, UK, Australian and Canadian eBay Stores, all other international eBay stores are defaulted to the US eBay Store. However, clicking an auctions title link of an item you are watching will take you to the correct international eBay store. |
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Error Messages
eBay Watcher has some built in error messages to give you some feedback on what's going on. Here are the errors and their respective definitions.
Invalid Item Number
if you see this message, it means the item number you entered is incorrect. Please go back to the auction and
check it again and re-enter it into eBay Watcher.
Try Again
This usually means the widget was unable to retrieve your eBay auction details. Click in the item number box
again and press return to try again.
No Connection
This means that eBay Watcher is unable to contact eBay to gather your auction information. It may simply be that
the eBay servers are busy or you internet line is down. Please check your line before trying again. After eBay Watcher
3 launched, a bug was found that caused a No Connection error message, please make sure you go to the website and
download the latest version 3.
Please Register!
If you are not using a registered versions of the widget you will see this message often as you are running in
Demo mode. To cure this, simply register at our site online. If you have registered, please check on the 'Register' tab
that you have entered your code correctly and that you can see the Smiley Face and Registered text. If you have a code
but it's not working, please contact us using the bug report button on the 'About Us' tab. Similarly if you see the
smiley face and registered text, but you keep getting the error message, please contact us using the bug report button.
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Known issues
a) Refreshing the widget using the Apple Key + R can stop the scroll thumb on the scroll bar from working in the 'How To' section. If this happens, close the widget and reopen it. |