The following list of questions is a general list of common pre-sale questions that I receive. It is by no means complete, but it may have the answer you are looking for.
| Q: How do Auction Templates work? |
A: Auction Templates are HTML files that you insert your auction information into prior to listing. I leave little road-signs in the HTML so that you can use the search function in a basic text editor to quickly find the area you need to edit. The edited HTML is then added to the "description" field of the listing editor.
Some listing services allow you to install custom templates to their service. I am happy to do template customization for Auctiva, Seller Sourcebook & Inkfrog. For information about customization for other selling platforms, please contact me.
You do not have to download any additional software or have any special programs in order to use my templates, as almost all computers come equipped with a basic text editor.
Outside Image hosting is recommended, however. Go to Top |
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| Q: Do I need to know HTML to use your templates? |
| A: No, for working on the majority of my templates you don't need to know HTML. However, knowing some of the basics or having a willingness to learn will help if you want to do anything more advanced than typing or pasting in wording. Templates that do require additional knowledge in html will say so clearly in the description. Go to Top |
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| Q: Can I use eBay Picture Service with your templates? |
A: Yes, you can. However, the picture will show up underneath the template, not inside of the template. If you want the picture to appear inside of the template, you will need to use an outside photo hosting site.
The exception to this is if you use eBay's subscription based photo hosting service. That will work fine with my templates as a hosting solution, simply upload the images to Photo Manager prior to listing and use the feature that allows you to retrieve the links. Go to Top |
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| Q: What is a good picture hosting site to use? |
A: There are quite a few great image hosting services available, but I most highly recommend the following:
Photobucket.com - Offers a free account and reasonable premium service.
Datazap.net - Offers two weeks free and reasonable premium service.
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| Q: What is a text editor? |
| A: A text editor is a basic editing program for text-based documents. If you are a Windows user, the Notepad program should already be installed on your computer, and it is ideal to use for editing my templates because it easily saves into a plain text format. Go to Top |
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| Q: What programs can I use to edit this template? |
A: I highly recommend a plain text editor such as Notepad (which comes free with every Windows installation.) Other editors for plain text are also recommended, such as Textpad (which offers tag coloring and advanced formatting options.) I also offer an online WYSIWYG template editor to purchasers as part of my help section. Most HTML editors will probably work okay.
I do not recommend specific WYSIWYG editors because I do not own any programs and cannot offer product-specific help for those programs. I have had reports of succes from my customers using the following programs: Dreamweaver, Trellian Webpage, Frontpage. Your success with those programs may be largely determined by your familiarity with them.
I strongly recommend that you do not use the following program to edit html: Microsoft Word. Go to Top |
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| Q: Why can't I use Word to edit the template? |
| A: Word is great for word processing, but is really, really horrible for editing html. Word inserts lots of unnecessary code that produces extremely bloated (huge) html. Aside from that, it often reformats and completely breaks existing code. Go to Top |
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| Q: Do you do custom work? |
| A: Yes, I do custom work. You can view my Services page for pricing. If you'd like to have an obligation-free quote made for you, please see visit my Contact page and fill in the Custom Work question form. Go to Top |
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| Q: Do you do eCommerce design/setup? |
| A: I currently do eCommerce design for the following sites: Merchant Moms & Pappashop. I can also create graphics for your e-commerce site including backgrounds, banners, logos and more. Go to Top |
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| Q: Do you accept requests for specific template styles? |
| A: Yes, I accept requests, but there is no guarantee that I will ever create a specified request, due to workload, inspiration etc. I do give weight to requests however, and try to do them as time permits. Go to Top |
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| Q: What programs and tools do you use to create your designs? |
| A: For illustration work, I generally use a combination of traditional and digital media. For digital graphics work, I use Photoshop CS and a Wacom Graphire tablet. I use Textpad to write all of my code from scratch.
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