posted on March 19, 2003 11:18:48 AM new
Hi. Since my original thread with Christopher on this and the recent threads with Sonya on similar things, I have an idea for this problem:
Given that AW Gallery images appear any time the attach image feature can be engaged, my unique double bind situation is that I want to use both my AW Store Template and an embedded layout. With the store template and an embedded layout there is no way to attach images, and with the blank template there are no store banner graphics plus all the images get dumped to the bottom.
Since the blank template is truly blank of graphics, is there any way I can obtain from AW the html AW uses to create the Storefront Template? What if I made that a part of my embedded layout for the blank template? The Store template graphics and my image would all be there together as part of an embedded layout, but since it is all technically there within a blank template the attach image feature should work. I would just have an extra thumbnail copy of the image down at the bottom.
It would mean I would have to both write the html for the image import and hit the attach image function for the same picture sitting in imagehosting. Therefore, there would have to be nothing in the use of the attach image function that would preclude my embedded html from also pulling the image from imagehosting as an independent html command demand. (As an advantage, I could also deactivate my AW banner logo so I can go back to my gallery text-icon without being in violation of ebay rules with 2 gallery links.)
If engineering sees no obvious fatal flaws with that, does anyone there have any objections for me seeing if I can try to make it work on my end?
Is there a specific reason you are using the embedded template? If you used the blank template, you could attach the image to your listings -- of course it would appear at the bottom but that would solve the problems you are having using the embedded template. Even though the other layouts give you the option to attach images, you don't have to if you don't want to. You can continue to use the HTML in your listings as you have been.
Regards,
Sonya
[ edited by SonyaAW on Mar 19, 2003 11:31 AM ]
posted on March 19, 2003 04:23:24 PM new
Hi Sonja. Obviously so, or I wouldn't go to all the trouble. Among many reasons, the blank template mandatorily bumps not just one or a few, but all of the pics out of the upper listing space (unacceptable), and none of your offered layouts give me the opportunity to do lots of things I need to do, especially to wrap text with pics (the store does not offer that either). I definitely don't want my auction listings to look like my store listings.
Besides, I also eliminated all my database sync, image upload sync, and batch upload sync problems instantly by going to embedded layouts. It's worth it for that alone-- it instantly turned my life into a routine, fairly efficient listing experience instead of hour upon hour of anger and frustration without success or ability to list because of crazy error messages, funny image numbers in the image names so I couldn't find them, rejection of my import data for the whole batch just because of one indescipherable error messsage,etc. etc. etc.
AW apparently has had repetitive serious sync and integration problems among its components and programs for a long time, as evidenced by scanning the repeat types of Community help requests. Since I joined AW a full 50% or more of my questions are met with the responses it will be forwarded to product development, or to engineering, or it was never designed to work/sync/display etc etc. I am amazed at the frequency AW has to explain that their programs were never designed to interface, as if that is to be considered standard. There are obviously still huge gaps between the impressions AW marketers give and what AW can actually provide.
That does not at all decrease my delight for all the things AW is currently able to do. I am very appreciative for many many things. I just want to be a responsible customer--not always yelling at my computer and writing customer service over and over about the same questions. I will do anything it takes to fix my own problems if I can at all manage it-- embedded layouts also make that a bit more feasible.
The reason we urge you to try the blank template is because you don't have to attach images using that template. It seems that you are under the impression that the only way you can get images in that listing is if you use the Attach Image format, when that is not so -- you can use it exactly the same way as you would the embedded template.
In the beginning when you first asked about the embedded layouts, we explained what they were meant for and what the constraints were. Unfortuantely there are no workarounds at this time for the problems you have been writing about. We have done our best to explain how the embedded layout will work for you and potentially cause you problems since in order to get a preview image to show in your AW store, you need to attach an image through Create Listing, which you cannot do with the embedded layout as that specifically does not allow image attachments. The embedded layout is there for those auctions created elsewhere that are imported into the system, as it allows those items to be relisted without conflicting with the template system. You're welcome to use it but please remember that there are constraints with it.
posted on March 21, 2003 11:40:02 AM new
Sonja: I find your last 2 thread's lectures to me as if I am some sort of idiot that cannot understand what you are telling me and needs to be chastised in print with little emphatic italics on words such as "only", "unless", "not", etc. to be very obnoxious, condescending, and quite offensive.
I have already demonstrated in print I very well understand the content of your above post, and that I understood it as well as you are explaining it, or better, before you wrote it.
I am not creating problems for myself--I have actually solved a multitude of problems AW could not and would not and is not fixing except one, which obviously does have a solution if engineering gets time to work on it, and if not I have just proposed a great potential solution for consideration-- more than anyone there yet has been able to do for me. If there is no way for AW to assist me to do that, than it is entirely up to me whether I decide to run my gallery without pics, change templates, or take other measures. Contrary to what you have implied, changing to the blank template does not solve the problems. It makes it worse-- it substitutes a major disadvantage for only a minor one.
You have done nothing to answer or even addressed the question of my original post. I asked for instructions on how to incorporate the storefront template html into my embedded layout for use with the blank template.
The original post on this topic was with Christopher. Please refer my post in this thread back to him. He will tell me what can be done and why or why not, and I will take it from there. I appreciate the many times previously when your assistance has been very respectful and very helpful. Unfortunately, this is not one of those and I would prefer to deal with someone else for this topic. I will continue to appreciate your assistance on future different topics, but please refrain from irrelevant information, lectures, and demeaning italics. Thank you.
posted on March 21, 2003 11:56:41 AM new
passedtopresent: I am an idiot in all of this and have learned alot from your posts. Is it possible to get the source code for the html you are looking for by using the View, Source on a page that uses the storefront, etc. on it? Also, have you discovered a way to reduce the synch image time when opening Ampro on the computer? Good luck and thanks for all the help (that you did not know you were giving).
posted on March 21, 2003 12:57:08 PM new
Hi Passedtothepresent,
I apologize if the tone of my posts seemed offensive -- that was not my intention in any way. I just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page.
I understand that you have your reasons for not wanting to use the blank template. If you want to try obtaining the store template HTML, you may use the view/source method that Baylor45 suggested. It isn't the way the system was designed to be used, but you are welcome to experiment with it and see if you can find a method that works best for you.
Regards,
Sonya
[ edited by SonyaAW on Mar 21, 2003 01:48 PM ]
posted on March 23, 2003 12:33:14 PM new
Hi Sonja. I just saw these this morning. So sorry to take so long to get back with you on this. My husband came home with food poisoning Thursday evening, and with the recent stuff out on the Iraq war we have a nephew in the infantry whose job it is to drive the Army patriot missle trucks, and we have been scrambling around trying to find out if and where he has been deployed, or where and when he will be deployed.
Apology accepted and more. You are definitely not an idiot either-- you are very conscientious. Sorry I got so incredibly aggravated that felt I had to say what I did. Normally I would prefer to do those things privately, but with no phone support, email turnaround 2-4 days, and you plastering it all over the community board it didn't seem like I had much choice.
I am very aware of copyright concerns and interference among html commands, so didn't want to mess with AW stuff without AW's permission. I had already found that I could potentially access the AW template html with a couple of methods other than the "View" command you mentioned before I wrote (or I wouldn't have written). I thought AW might have some technical warnings or tips or provide a more direct way or access, and possibly even require permission. I will definitely get working on this, if for no other reason than personal curiosity and personal challange just to see if I can make it work. If not, being able to use the store template plus the advantages of an embedded listing far outweigh not having pics in my Gallery.
Incidentally--there is another problem it creates with the store: When the SmPro only half-loads into online inventory (title only) that picture-less title then gets randomly selected from the store inventory to appear with the other featured thumbnails on the home page. I really am trying to keep my store and auction businesses separate, so that is not an advantage, even if there were pics. If none of the quantity data syncs and none of the auction numbers sync and can be tracked post auction anyway, there is no point to leaving them there--I will just have to remember to go in after every auction batch upload and delete those partial-sync'd items out of my online inventory. I have left the one listing in there ("40s/50s Toddlers Dress patterns--Duckies! p2tp", SKU M878Sz2&Mc2206Sz1)in case engineering needs that reference trying to find the difference in html that got that one to upload the image into the gallery versus those that never did, and I'll leave it there for awhile til I hear back from Christopher and engineering on that. If I delete it engineering won't have anything to compare if they get time to take a look.
I very much appreciate ALL of you at customer sevice. AW is able to offer things other programs still can't, especially a broad choice of layouts and a fabulous array of gorgeous templates--the Store Template is a brilliant idea just by itself. No other program can compete with it. That is what caused me to drop another auction management program and head for AW to do my store. Still, let me give you an idea of what it feels like to be out here as an AW customer:
Although it is not at all customer service's fault, apparently AW does not do much beta testing of its software before it is marketed. Also there really is a big discrepancy between what the marketing and tutorials seem to offer and what is practically workable after we opt in. For instance, there is nothing in the FAQs that indicate some layouts cannot be used with any template. There is no assistance readily apparent on how to use the blank template or embedded layout options--they are there on the screen like all the rest with great promise and potential ready for the selecting. We just have to try to figure it out by trial and error, or hope someone on the community board is asking those kinds of questions at the time we need to know. Obviously I am not the first poster on this board to be taken by surprise and dismayed that the pics in the blank template dissapear off the bottom of the listing. In fact, the first time that happened to me they were so far down that I missed them completely and wrote customer service asking what had happened to my images.
There is also no indication til we are already opted in that SMBE cannot list to the store ( except without an incredibly complex 8-10 item formula of steps from engineering), or that SmPro was never designed to sync with online functions like inventory, or that Customer Management and the Store are not integrated for customer email sign up. We sort of find that out later when we spend hours trying to work the stuff before writing you guys and finally have to because can't make it work.
It does not reap consumer brownie points when we get a response that things were never designed to work, especially when it is delivered with an attitude that we are silly to expect it to work in the first place, and are causing all our own troubles by doing so. Consider customer service responses like: "...remember, SmPro was not designed to sync with Online (whatever)..." or "... Customer Manager cannot import the customer's data beyond email address into your database, you have to fill everything out yourself..." or "No, there isn't any reporting download capability with your customer database..." These are absolutely crazymaking on the receiving end, because we were specifically marketed by AW for the supposed cability to streamline our work with bulk upload tools instead of doing everything online and manage a first rate integrated customer database.
It is especially a hardship with Customer Manager because AW requires we change all our email accounts at the major sites so all our personal alternative systems we have been working with are also gone. Then when we arrive after opting in, there are enough defects in the program integrations that it is more work to use your softwear than it was to run our own emails and databases--at least we could get our stuff in and out of our own databases when we had to. Ebay requires 30 day wait to change a primary email back, and even then we risk losing all our prior feedback and appearing like a new seller if we feel we have to opt out of Customer Manager because we found out there are still too many defects with it for us to run our business with it.
With regards to larger basic program issues, I wasted weeks with SMBE trying to start my store before I was notified by customer service that SMBE couldn't do that. There was no store price data category to match because it was never desiogned to upload to the store. I've also worked weeks in SmPro with customer service on how to do embedded listings (many of those repetitive emails to you over months, as I recall) without ever being told to expect any problems with my AW gallery or any template choice. I tried everything imaginable to get images into my embedded layouts before someone finally sent me the rather lengthy AW code that has to preceed the image name for the html to pull it from imagehosting. No average user could possibly guess the content of such a code, and at the time it was nowhere to be found. It took many pleas to customer service that I couldn't get my images to work before someone sent me the special code that arrived with sort of an attitude... oh, by the way, didn't you know that?
I say all the above as not at all as complaints but as an opportunity to lend some feedback to y'all about what it can be like to be a customer out here. We understand that you all there work for AW. But evidentally over time you have come to see whatever AW can do and cannot do as the standard for program function. Hence if I stumble into problems the program can't handle, it is not an AW design defect, it is presented as me making problems for myself.
It must be very frustrating for customers to ask questions you can't fix--still we have a bigger problem out here than you do. If you don't address the question, or instead you just tell us whatever you want, ask info altready provided in our post, or fire back endless queries over what is the item number, where your inventory (because you only checked the numbers column), what is the error message etc etc,-- after you do that, you get to leave and go on to the next person's post. We are stuck with a plea to customer service for nothing. I realize that to know the difficulty you need the error defined, but some of these error messages in SmPro for sync errors are so long and so complicated (and attached to every failed item, sometimes each different) that it gets hard to believe none of you have any inkling of what kinds of error messages these uploads are putting out. And one error blocks the whole batch so nothing can be uploaded at all. We have to delete that one, pray we can figure out what is wrong with it someday, reset all the database field matches from the beginning and try again (rarely ever successful on subsequent tries eiter. There is always something wrong). I was literally never able to upload an auction batch of anything if I was trying to sync images, even with the blank template. I just kept rematching all the fields of my database over and over and retried over and over with no success. What ever problems embedded layouts cause, it's peanuts compared to that!!!
Actually, I don't see that I personally am causing the problems, and especially not for myself. What evidentally has happened is that I am one of the few that decided to use AW to primarily run a store, utilize your bulk upload tools for store and a few auctions, take advantage of your store template and avail myself of all the advantages of imbedded layouts. Rather than me as the primary culprit, the problem seems more to be that AW designers evidentally didn't think to either pre-check their template-layout combinations at initial product design, or beta test to have it show up before it arrived on my computer. And I evidentally accidentally have caught both engineering, hence customer service, unawares.
I still plan to do great things on the internet using AW if I can manage it, and since I am still relatively new I think I have by now stumbled into most of the problems my approach is going to generate.
As soon as I figure out a way to work around the 1 or 2 things--poof! No more queries to customer service!
Sorry guys--didn't stumble into problems on purpose!!!
posted on March 23, 2003 01:22:04 PM new
Hi baylor45.
Yes it is possible to get the html from the "View" right click menu. What I find to be even better is to import the blank template into Frontpage and click the html view. I asked AW because:
1) There are copyright and usage issues involved when proprietary software is appropriated for private or personal use, and I felt I needed AW's permission to using their template html in ways they didn't design it.
2) I thought AW might have some tips and cautions that might help me avoid already known glitches if I try that. Many programs have built in blocks to other html uses.
3) It gives engineering a way to rewrite their own html to solve the problem even if it turns out I can't pull it off--they might be able to springboard off that idea in ways "far above my pay grade".
I avoid all the image sync problems in SmPro because with embedded layouts I don't sync images with the listing. I upload them separately as images only and they get sucked right up as long as I keep them web optimized at 38-40 Kb or less (AW recommends 30Kb). At about 45-50Kb I get a stall and have to go back and upload the rest. I also don't attach images, I add (copy and paste) the embedded image code into my html onto the front of my image name and the html pulls the pic for view from imagehosting on demand. It is pulled anywhere it is demanded, and is pulled from AW imagehosting onto my computer or into AW or ebay screens for previewing or viewing.
I am exceedingly new to using SmPro for auction listings-- just a month or so. When I realized my embedded layouts bypassed the image sync problems I pursued that instead of trying to make that work. I'm sure many who are veterans with sync processes and html and AW make it work fine. I was just never able to make it work for me, and I could hardly understand the error messages, much less relate them intelligently to customer service.
I do use SmPro to attach images to my store items after the images are already uploaded and on the AW imagehosting service. That seems to work fine within the store software. There are other sync problems there even for the store, the quantities and folders don't upload at sync and have to be done manually after uploading, but after that minor aggravation that system seems to work okay.
