eBay Hacks

Generate a Custom Gallery

Insert a list of your running auctions, with photos, into your auction descriptions.

One of the ways to advertise your other auctions in any given auction description is to use a gallery — a scrolling viewport with thumbnail photos of all your running auctions — as described in [Hack #47]. Aside from the commercial versions, there’s a way to create a custom gallery using the eBay API.

First, include this code in your description:

<iframe src="http://www.ebayhacks.com/cgi-bin/gallery.pl" 
                             style="width:100%;margin:0;border:0;">

The URL referenced in this iframe (see [Hack #51]) should point to your own server and cgi-bin directory. See the Using CGI Scripts sidebar if you’re not sure how to do this.

Using CGI Scripts

Every web server has a dedicated folder (directory) in which scripts or programs are placed. Instead of displaying the contents of the scripts, as would happen with ordinary HTML files, the web server software runs the scripts and displays their output instead. This special script directory is typically called cgi-bin, wherein CGI stands for “common gateway interface.” Refer to your web server software’s documentation for details on setting up a cgi-bin directory, or contact your administrator (ISP) if you’re renting space on someone else’s web server.

Now, copying the Perl scripts discussed throughout this book into your cgi-bin directory is easy enough; the hard part can be making them work.

Provided that the scripts are in the correct location, ...