eBay BBCode Version 2.0.2

[Eclipse16V]

Link to the Mod

eBay BBCode Version 2.0.2
Free Version

Homepage: SID Giessen - Author: Eclipse16V - Support: Support Site - Mods: Mod List

Compatible
Compatible with the following versions:

• SMF 1.1.7
• SMF 1.1.8
• SMF 1.1.9
• SMF 1.1.10
• SMF 1.1.11
• SMF 1.1.12
• SMF 1.1.13
• SMF 1.1.14
• SMF 1.1.15
• SMF 1.1.16
• SMF 1.1.17
• SMF 1.1.18
• SMF 2.0 Beta 3 Public
• SMF 2.0 Beta 3.1 Public
• SMF 2.0 Beta 4
• SMF 2.0 RC1
• SMF 2.0 RC1-1
• SMF 2.0 RC1.2
• SMF 2.0 RC2
• SMF 2.0 RC3
• SMF 2.0 RC4
• SMF 2.0 RC5
• SMF 2.0
• SMF 2.0.1
• SMF 2.0.2
• SMF 2.0.3
• SMF 2.0.4

Modification Information
A simple Mod who add a BBCode for eBay on your Board.
This eBay BBCode Version 2.0.2 is the FREE VERSION of the Mod. The PRO VERSION you can find on SID Giessen.

Languages supported
For this mod already following translations are included in this package:
English, German
All languages are also included in the UTF-8.
New translations are gratefully welcomed.

Changelog

Free Version		Pro Version
Version 2.0.2 - 17.12.2012 Now runs with SMF 2.0.3 and SMF 1.1.17 Version 2.0.1 - 28.09.2011 Now runs with SMF 2.0 - 2.0.99 Now runs with SMF 1.1.7 - 1.1.99 Version 2.0 - 05.07.2011 Now runs with SMF 2.0 RC4 Now runs with SMF 2.0 RC5 Now runs with SMF 2.0 Gold (Final Version) Now runs with SMF 2.0 RC3 Now runs with SMF 1.1.7 - 1.1.14 Version 1.2 - 24.03.2010 Now runs with SMF 2.0 RC3 Lang File Version 1.1 - 09.07.2009 Now runs with SMF 2.0 RC2 Spanish Language Version 1.0 - 07.07.2009 Released		Version 3.0.3 - 17.12.2012 Now runs with SMF 2.0.3 and SMF 1.1.17 Version 3.0.2 - 13.01.2012 Now runs with SMF 2.0.2 and SMF 1.1.16 Version 3.0.1 - 21.09.2011 Now runs with SMF 2.0.1 and SMF 1.1.15 Version 3.0 - 13.06.2011 Now runs with SMF 2.0 Gold (Final Version) 28 new languages added Version 2.1.3 - 11.03.2011 Small edits Version 2.1.2 - 16.02.2011 Now runs with SMF 2.0 RC5 Version 2.1.1 - 11.02.2011 Now runs with SMF 1.1.12 Version 2.1 - 08.02.2011 Add a auction preview on the post Version 2.0 - 28.12.2010 First Paid Version Now runs with SMF 2.0 RC4

[minos]

in spanish

// eBay BBCode MOD
$txt['ebay_auction'] = 'eBay Subasta';

[ecmrf]

I have installed this on RC 1.2 but it works backwards.

When pressing the Ebay button it gives this

[/ebay][ebay]


When it should be
[ebay][/ebay]

Can you fix please .......................

Regards
Doug

[Eclipse16V]

There is no Error in the Mod.

Attach here your Subs-Editor.php and Subs.php please.

[Trevor Hale]

Hi,

I Love this Mod and so do my users..  However, upgrading from 2.0 RC1.2 worked in my default theme, however My default Theme doesn't work 100% right in 2.0 RC2.

I am running the "Core Theme" in 2.0 RC2 which is the old Default SMF Theme.  This Mod however doesn't seem to like the Core theme.  Is there any way you could have a look to see if you can make it work with the 2.0 RC2 Core theme?  (NOT CURVE)

Thanks,

Trev

[Trevor Hale]

Hi,

Further to my little issue, The Ebay Mod Looked like it installed in the themes this time perfectly, but my existing  [ebay]xxxx[/ebay] links stayed the same and the editor does not have the BBC Button in the bar anymore.

Regardless, I tried to uninstall it, and I get all these errors..  (I don't want to muck anything up, so Hopefully someone can help)

Trev

[c23_Mike]

Hi there !

Had a wonderful effect, I am not sure what is going wrong.

At my site www.c23.at is SMF RC2 with simpleportal 2.3.1 installed, this portal has three columns. When i install this ebay BBC Mod, the right column is no longer displayed ... I have never seen an effect like this!
Deinstall reverse the effect, could you explain this?

Ok, this mod is not the reason for it ... now also without the mod the right pane is not displayed.
Sorry for bothering.

[GazOutEast]

Sorry for being thick, but what is the point of this mod?

What does it do that simply copying and pasting an eBay URL to the auction wouldn't do?

Does it have an ePN affiliate system in the admin or something?

[hartiberlin]

Hi,
can it automatically include the Ebay Partnernetwork link
to a Ebay Auction.

This is a link like:
rover.ebay...

Would be cool,
if all links inside a forum to Ebay auctions would be automatically
converted to Ebay Partnernetwork links...
Is this somehow possible or with another Mod ?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

No one did yet an affiliate link mod to convert Ebay auctions links to ebay affiliate links
to work with EbayPartnerNetwork to earn cash from Ebay ?

[Eclipse16V]

Yes it works

I wirte you a PM

[GazOutEast]

Eclipse - I think Stefan might be asking for something like the KB Linker Mod over at WordPress ....

Basically it works like this -

From an admin panel page, you insert a flat text string (manually type or copy and paste) with one link pair per line in the text file.
Each line has a format such as -
ebay.com->http://rover.ebay.com/affiliate-campaignID-link _blank
ebay.co.uk->http://rover.ebay.com/affiliate-campaignID-link _blank

and so on.

What it does is it intercepts each page load and tests for the text string before the -> and wraps it with the anchor tag that is shown after the ->

The KB Linker WordPress mod only does it for the first instance of the string on the page - if it's already within a linked string (e.g. a title) then tough, you don't get the affiliate link inserted.  Also, bad coding but, if the text string is within the title=" " or alt=" " of an image link, it will insert it there and mess up your image display.  It really needs rewritten to address these problems but I think the mod has been abandoned.

The beauty of the system is that for a fairly static content like a blog, it works great to provide affiliated text links (rather than banners) but it might stress the server on a busy forum, and rather than being dynamic, it would really need a method to permanently rewrite the post at posting save or edit, and cause the link to become a static insert.

Whether that would sit nicely with a bb button tool for all users is a matter of debate, but it could be workable as a way for members to choose exactly where the link appeared in their post.  Perhaps use a check to see if the bb button has been used for that post, and if not, then insert a default affiliate link on any text string (or first instance per post) that matches as per the KB Linker method?

Gaz

[GazOutEast]

Disappointing

Still no-one can tell me if this works with the eBay Partner Network - surely someone that's using it can answer that question?

A simple yes or no is all that's required

Please?

[Eclipse16V]

Sorry however my homepages are rejected again and again by the new eBay partner network and thus cannot not see which code of this I eBay partner network used.

translate by Babel Fish

[hartiberlin]

Same with me.
Does anyone sell Ebay Partner Network accounts ?

Well, Also I would need a PHP Script that scans my whole
forum and converts all old links to Ebay with the Rover link
of the Ebay Affiliate program from EPN.

Did anybody already program such a script ?

I hate it, when people just post interesting Ebay auctions
and insert their own affiliate code into the link in my forum
and thus stealing affiliate commisions...
What can one do about this ?

I just need such a script I could run several times per week to reset
the links to my own affiliate links.

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[GazOutEast]

Eclipse and Stefan

if you go to the blog at ebaypartnernetwork.com and look for the posts around April 2008, you'll see there's one there that gives all the structure for the new ePN link structuring - they've also got a few other posts where they explain additional parameters to give extra customisable details, and posts that give you all the codes needed to identify each eBay site correctly (for mapping ccTLDs to ePN site IDs).

After gathering that info, I'd guess what's needed is a two-stage mod - the first part being a link converter that sits in the backend with your ePN campaign IDs etc and converts base URLs to ePN rover URLs (ebay.com to rover/blahblah etc), and a front end mod that reports (redirects) clicked or posted eBay links to the backend mod for translating into rover links.

It all sounds easy when you say it like that, but there would need to be a heck of a programming job to build it I'd guess .... yet, the four year old KB Linker plugin for WordPress still works seamlessly with the latest WP releases and still manages to replace every link it's set up to replace, every time a page loads.  The problem with porting it to SMF, would be (I reckon) the sheer number of links in signatures and sidebars, let alone posts, on every page

As for buying an ePN account - never heard of it happening, but wouldn't be surprised if it was possible, however remember what they did to AuctionAds/ShoppingAds (part of MediaWhizz) who had an above board and long standing business providing eBay affiliate links to third parties.

Gaz

[hartiberlin]

Well, if could also be a PHP script run via a cronjob once daily,
that scans the whole SMF database
and replaces all normal EBay links to my
Ebay Rover Affiliate link.

Did anybody write already such a script ?

Would also be okay, if it could be manually started
by me each day from my PC by just calling this PHP script
via my browser.

Many thanks.

P.S: In some blackhat forums I have seen some people have sold
EPN accounts, but I don´t know, if these would not get shut down
pretty fastly, when Ebay sees the traffic will come from a different domain,
than they were registered on... okay, there is a method to double
meta tag redirect to hide the referer, but I don´t know, how EPN handles this traffic,
where they can not see, where it is coming from and then maybe
shuts your bought EPN account also down ??

[Eclipse16V]

Update for 2.0RC3

[GazOutEast]

Hi Stefan

I think you're looking for a script that will " rewrite " the links (that is - edit the posts), rather than parse and redirect them without changing the original - is that correct?

My guess would be that such a mod could cause major problems to newbies and heavily used sites - in terms of the load on the server during the initial rewriting after install.  It would need some sort of "batch" staging, perhaps limiting it to X number of topics per run, or X number of posts in the database, and using scheduled tasks in the admin to have it run every X minutes.

What might be an overall lower burden on the server, and here we come back to extending the eBay bbCode mod, is to have a script that scans and updates the database (looking in the post content fields of the post content table) for [ url ] bbcode tags that contain eBay addresses.  When it finds one, it then calls the "translator" module, which in turn makes the url into a rover link with the correct site detail's codes etc, and writes that into the database.

An alternative, and more dynamic, solution that would allow for "repairing" or "updating" rover links as eBay tweak and twiddle with the ePN programs (including adding or deleting new territories - they just chopped India out of it for example), would be to have a special sitewide function using for example an [ ebayurl ] bbcode.  This then keeps the original url as typed by the user, but redirects the link to the translator for rewriting to a rover link "on the fly" - this method would allow updating or ammending ePN campaign codes etc as required (for example if a feature was built-in to have different campaign codes per forum category or per board and so on.  The database updater could then be much simpler and less heavy with the server - it would simply look for [ url ] tags that contaned any ebay address and rewrite the tags to be [ ebayurl ] tags - the translator then takes over the job of parsing and changing those on the fly when a user clicks them.

Also, by creating an [ ebayurl ] bbcode, it could be included in the users post writing page as a bb button with a search function, much like the Amazon bb buttons currently do - the user wraps a search phrase or work with the bbcode and the mod converts it to an affiliate link that takes the reader to a search results page.

I'm starting to think that maybe I'll have to have a go at writing this myself (or rather making a mash-up from other mods, then writing the glue to hold it all together) - I can see lots of possibilities for this too, not just for eBay Partner Network.  Unfortunately, I've got over half a dozen new sites to build on the job list, so it would be at least mid summer before I could even make a start on it.

Gaz

[hartiberlin]

As I said,
the best thing and easiest thing would be a PHP script, that scans
the whole database for Ebay links and modifies them to an afiliate code link
which could be set in the PHP script.

Did anybody write such a script yet ?

The same would be great for Amazon links.

I could call then the script just via my browser and it would
modify all the relevant postings.

This way also old postings could still be modified.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards, Stefan.

[GazOutEast]

Hi Stefan
The problem is that there is no such thing as a universal rover link for using eBay affiliate links.

EBay has 28 sites in different countries and each site is treated as an individual "client" by eBay Partner Network.  Not all of them are included in the ePN and there is a regular joining and withdrawing of their inclusion - this year for example, Germany and Austria moved off Commission Junction and onto ePN, while the ePN program for India and Singapore was withdrawn.  Any hard coding link replacement / insertion tool needs to be run regularly and because it has to search the entire message base (and user signatures etc) could either hammer the server, or damage the database due to overuse (especially on busy forums).

Another problem here is that there are several situations to think of -

1.  Existing links to eBay (the site) as opposed to eBay listings - these should be static, but eBay likes to move things around in it's own server spaces and web taxonomy - links that worked two years ago might be non-existent today (help and policy pages are very prone to this).  These types of links should be a great source of affiliate link opportunity, but their URLs are just too dammed unstable (always changing).  Therefore any script to insert affiliate links to these types of pages needs an auto-verify feature to report http:404 errors at regular intervals.

2.  Existing and new links to eBay products - these are probably not a good idea to leave as permalinks.  eBay only retains closed auction listing content for 90 days after the auction closes, after that, although eBay nicely provides an "oops not here" page rather than causing another layer of 404 errors, it's not great for your user's experience.
    Existing and new links to eBay store and long-run Buy Now items - not even eBay has any say in how long these listings stay live - it's all up to the buyers and sellers, and how much inventory the seller can get their hands on, whether that inventory is replaceable continuously, or was a once-off supply.  This causes the issue that a store or long-run BIN item could actually only be live for a day or two (e.g. front page featured "Deal of the Day" items) or could be there for years with no change other than the top up of quantity (e.g. the wholesale Thai silk scarves we used to sell on eBay).  Again, any link substitution system needs an automated target verifier to manage the retention of those links.

3.  Returning to the point about the unique country identifiers, any auto link inserter also needs capability of knowing which product category table to use for which site - they are not identical between eBay countries - but in theory, this should be taken care of by the forum user initially submitting the link, as they will probably have copy and pasted from the item they're linking to.  However, if providing a keyword-substitution affiliate-link system, then the category hierarchy differences per site do need to be provided for (and those are massive spreadsheets for each eBay country). 

One alternative is to do it the same way as the WordBay plugin for WordPress has done it - where you as the forum owner inputs the relevant category number per country for the highest level of category you want to display links for - this can be all categories (code -1 on all sites) or a top level cat (e.g. home and garden), or a sub-cat (e.g. Patio and BBQ), or a sub-sub cat (e.g. BBQ equipment) and so on.  The problem to this approach is it works fine on a blog where you have a high degree of control over original content, but is not so ideal on a forum where you have zero control (other than as a moderating editor) over the original content in each post.

Another option from the WordPress camp is to use a similar system to the Pretty Links plugin.  Pretty Links (PL) uses a cli.gs / bit.ly type URL shortener for internally created links, then creates an admin editable and manageable table of those links and their partner (the original full URL).  The good point about this approach is that it would allow a cron-based periodic run of link validations, with an admin-side link visual list and editor for site admins/mods to knock out dead links.  It is also perfect for masking URL targets from "mouse hoverers" as well as obviously for shortening the links for tweeting them and so on.  Right now there are two editions of Pretty Links - the free one uses manual link conversion and management, and the premium one ($99 for unlimited sites) which does have the option for auto-replacement of keywords (as per KB Linker discussed previously) as well as auto-tweeting, and a host of other good stuff - but it is only available for WordPress at this point.


As I said in previous posts, I'm not a programmer, just a copy and paste hatchet thrower but I hope there's enough info in my posts to give a mod author some (GPL) source ideas for beefing up a mod like the eBay BBL button to give us all a truly useful plugin from which we can all make money.  If the plugin author works smart, they'll encode an affiliate ID replacement (ePN campaign ID) system for x% of impressions and clicks, as in the long run it'll yield greater adoption of their plugin, and therefore greater revenue, than a straightforward pay-to-use model.  PLus it'll provide residual income, rather than a one-off receipt - I like residual income - it grows with time

I know it doesn't answer your immediate request Stefan, but I hope you can see that a plugin for ePN is a lot more complex than most other affiliate programs, and why a straight hard-coding link replacer for ePN links is not a good idea?

Regards
Gaz

p.s. - I forgot to add - eBay is also continuously changing the category ID numbers on every site.  They used to (3 years ago) say that this was to bring the category structure for all countries onto the same table and organisation.  Lately that has been obviously not true.  There is a lot of category divergence between the sites seen this last year, and what was once a program to have every site on the same call sheet, now appears to be going the opposite way - that is going to be an increasing problem under the current eBay management team.

[hartiberlin]

Okay, I hope somebody will write a script for it.
I would be willing to pay for it.

Also what about other affiliate programs like
Amazon.com
or
overstock.com

?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

So no taker on this ?

What about a script that changes all  Amazon links inside the forum to the admin´s  Amazon affiliate link ?

Don´t  all the admins of forums want to make some affiliate money ?

[GazOutEast]

Harti - sorry I didn't get back to you on this

I have some ideas on how this can be achieved, but I'm completely swamped right now with client jobs for website new-builds and script-migrations (including a new job that arrived yesterday for a Joomla to WordPress migration - yuch!  I don't like working with Joomla).

It's possible I'll be able to do something with the ePN and other network link masking/replacement some time in mid summer, but if incoming jobs don't slow down, it might be the autumn before I can.

If you send me a PM through the forums here with your email address, then i can leave it in my inbox to contact you as soon as I get a time slot free to work on it.

Regards
Gaz

[hartiberlin]

Too bad,
nobody else got any time to code something like this now ?

Many thanks.

[Running Wild]

Greetings, I just installed this mod on my forum, my suggestion is, is there a way to give the link a custom name like the name of the auction?

[Eclipse16V]

No at present not.

[hartiberlin]

Any news on this ?
What about a code only for Ebay Germany ?

Can I use this tool to use a generic link to the products
from Ebay Germany with this Mod to get my affiliate link
submitted ?

[Eclipse16V]

Hi,
leider wollen sie mich immer noch nicht bei sich im Partnerprogramm von eBay haben.
Somit weiß ich auch nicht wie das dort so aufgebaut ist.

[hartiberlin]

Ja schade,
mich haben Sie wieder aufgenommen.
Du musst am besten mit einem Ebay Account Dich anmelden,
den Du schon lange hast und der 100% positive Bewertungen
hat und auch am besten gewerblich ist,
dann lassen sie Dich rein, denn dann kennen Sie Dich schon
und wissen, dass Du ein Guter Ebayer bist...

Versuch es mal so.

Viel Erfolg !

Gruss, Stefan.

[Eclipse16V]

:-)
Werde es noch mal anders Versuchen.
Melde jetzt aber kein Gewerbe an nur um da rein zu kommen.
Der Verein da meint eh das er der beste ist. Mittlerweile hasse ich den Laden dort.

Ich gebe Bescheid wenn ich News habe.

[hartiberlin]

Hi,
can somebody please program a plugin like this for SMF ?

http://www.zintext.com/

They offer keyword links to EBay offers,
but the problem I see is, that they might just
use all of THEIR affiliate IDs for the
products and you can not see, if they really
only use 10 % of all the clicked links...

So I would like to have something like this for
SMF 2.0RC3 and the upcoming new versions.

Also it would be great, if the Amazon affiliate programs
would also be integrated.



So who is going to take the challenge to program something like this ?

I might also sponsor the development of such a MOD for all admins to use
this then.

We just finally need to get SMF to be able to do some business for us Admins.

It is a shame, that there are Tons of Wordpress plugins, that can
do great affiliate things, but SMF lacks so many things in this area...

Many thanks in advance.

Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

Any news about the above questions or any new version of this MOD
for RC4 ?

Does nobody want to make money from Ebay Partner Network with their forums ?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[Eclipse16V]

Hi,

sorry derzeit ist keine neue Version in Aussicht.
Habe immer noch das Pech das ich dort nicht angenommen werde und außerdem noch nicht zu RC4 gewechselt bin.
Mal sehen was das nächste Jahr bringt.

[dsantana]

I installed the pay version this morning, works great thanks.
At this point I would say the only need for improvement would be that it showed the price as well.
Starting - Buy It Now

[Eclipse16V]

Thanks. I set your improvement suggestion once on the ToDo list. Times see whether one that gets. Will become however difficult.

[dsantana]

Thanks a bunch!!

[Eclipse16V]

New Version!!!

[chadon]

Any news about the above questions or any new version of this MOD
for RC4 ?

Does nobody want to make money from Ebay Partner Network with their forums ?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

I have been following this topic hoping someone would offer such feature and finally made it myself. Well, it's not really a mod but it can be done by anyone without any code modification.


SMF offers a feature allowing us to replace any word by anything we want. So you can go in the admin panel of your forum under Forum >  Posts and Topics > Censored Words and you enter in the field on the left, the word to add to the list:

Code Select Expand

[url=http://cgi.ebay.com


On the field on the right you place the "word" to have it replaced with so in our case it's the affiliate link with the original domain from Ebay:

Code Select Expand

[url=http://rover.ebay.com/rover//1?ff3=4&pub=PERSONAL_ID&toolid=10001&campid=YOUR_CAMP_ID&customid=&mpre=http://cgi.ebay.com


Here si the result with a link automatically converted

http://www.mustangv8.com/fr/ebay-craiglist-leboncoin/mach-1-1969-peinture-d'origine-usa/


I think this will be a great complement to this Ebay BBC mod. 

[crustybum]

Can anyone in simple terms explain what this mod does?...have installed it and as far as i can see its just a link to an ebay item..

[_sebas_]

Is it possible to capture the metaname description content?   with the title of ítem ?

[Gryzor]

+1 for Sebtor's proposal.

Also, I've got a problem: the photo from the auctions does not appear, only a link to the auction... what should I check?

[Apllicmz]

nICE MOD
WHEN Update dont forget portuguese

Code Select Expand

<file name="$languagedir/Modifications.portuguese_brazilian-utf8.php" error="skip">
        <operation>
            <search position="end" />
            <add><![CDATA[
// eBay BBCode MOD by SID-Giessen
$txt['ebay_auction'] = 'Leil&otilde;es eBay';
]]></add>
        </operation>
    </file>
    <file name="$languagedir/Modifications.portuguese_pt-utf8.php" error="skip">
        <operation>
            <search position="end" />
            <add><![CDATA[
// eBay BBCode MOD by SID-Giessen
$txt['ebay_auction'] = 'Leil&otilde;es eBay';
]]></add>
        </operation>
    </file>

[Running Wild]

Question = Does anyone have the install file for version 1.2? I have a problem with updating the MOD, SMF somehow still believes that version 1.2 is installed, uninstalling gives me an error ("Unable to find package file!"). Looking around has shown that I might need the install package of version 1.2 (free version) to solve this. Also, the package manager keeps indicating that version 2.0.2 is an older version while it's not.

[Gryzor]

Just updated to 2.0.2. Still not working as shown.

Inserting just the auction number between the tags gives simply:
eBay auction: #xxxxxxxxx

And no photo.

Also, what is the difference between this and the paid version? Link is down, and I see not much support here...

[TheListener]

Gryzor you should be using 2.0.4 by now.

Were there any errors on install?

[Gryzor]

Er.... damn me. I meant 2.0.4, apologies

And no, no errors, everything went fine (or it would seem), just like with the previous versions... might try looking at the files by hand.

[Gryzor]

I'm now on 2.06 but the mod still doesn't work as intended; all I get is "eBay auction: #xxxxxxxxxxxx" and no photo or description...

Also, let me ask again - anyone can tell the difference between the free and Pro versions?

[AMWebby]

I suspect the paid version DID show images but I can find no link to download it anywhere. Anyone have a copy?

[Gryzor]

Still not working... And the link for the paid version is still down.