Keeping your listings up to date can be a real headache which is why having a listing tool such as Auction Nudge that automatically updates and displays your current eBay listings on your website can be a real time saver.

The listings below are generated by pasting one line of code into the HTML of your web page (Note: I am not affiliated with this eBay member in any way.) :

This is generated by the following code :

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.auctionnudge.com/0.5/build.php?ebayID=soundswholesale&type=user&site=uk&cols=2&limit=4&theme=4"></script><div id="auctionNudge"></div>

To get Auction Nudge working on your site you can either copy the above code, changing your eBay ID as necessary and pasting it onto your web page or by visiting Auction Nudge to enter your display settings and get your listing code. There is no registration required and you can view a demo of how your listings will look by just entering your eBay username!

I created my campaign and didn’t mind the fact that that they wanted billing information before they could activate my account – but then I noticed that there was a ‘activaion fee’ of £5 in my case that I needed to ay in order to activate my account. I took another look at the ad – yup “Try it for free – £50.00* FREE advertising. No risk. No obligation” and then I looked at the small print – “A £5 account activation fee or equivalent credit deduction required”.

That sounds neither ‘Free’ or ‘No obligation’ to me.

Perhaps the ad is targeting existing AdWords users where they have already payed their fee? Nope – “The promotional code can only be used for AdWords accounts less than 14 days old”.

It might not have annoyed me if it was aimed at being ‘Free’ to existing members who have already paid their fee, but the fact they are targeting new customers with the promise of ‘No Obligation’ which is a down right lie. You may think that £5 isn’t worth getting worked up over – but I feel this kind of advert is deceiving.

Needless to say I did’t bother continuing my account creation. So all this advert did was waste my time, annoy me and give me yet another reason to dislike the big G.

Rant over.

Well now I know why no one used Nochex. It’s rubbish. It’s the only thing that would make me recommend Paypal (and I hate Paypal) to anyone but at least their service does what it is supposed to with minimum fuss.

OsCommerce was working fine and accepted my Nochex account but Nochex wouldn’t accept my address, so I was unable to put a card straight through (as a user without an existing Nochex account might). So I gave up on that as the client offers their own credit card gateway.

So I thought that was that – but when you add a credit/debit card to Nochex they debit a ‘small’ amount from your card to help with their verification process. They didn’t go out of their way to tell you this when you register and they certainly don’t make it clear enough that this is non-refundable!

So there I was waiting for my couple of quid to get refunded only to discover it has been stolen. And for what? … other one for ‘the list’

The method I came up with to solve this is very simple and can be easily added to form elements with little extra code. The error checking is done by checking input against regular expressions.

See the demo and demo source code.

Code Explaination

One function is used to create both forms of error checking:

<?php
$jsChecks = ""; //holds JS error checks
$errorFound = false;	//PHP error flag
 
//Creates both JS and PHP error checks
function errorCheck($elementName, $regExp, $errMsg) {
	global $jsChecks;
	global $errorFound;
	//Create Javascript error checking
	$check = '
	var ' . $elementName . 'Filter = ' . $regExp . '; 
	if (!' . $elementName . 'Filter.test(theForm.' . $elementName . '.value)) { 
		errorMessage += "\n  * ' . $errMsg . '";
		errorFound = true;
	}' . "\n";
	$jsChecks .= $check;
 
	//PHP error checking and return input class
	if(isset($_POST["formSubmitted"])) {	//if form submitted
		if(!preg_match($regExp, $_POST[$elementName])) {
			$errorFound = true;
			return "error"; //css error class
		}
	}
	return "";	//no class if no error detected
}

Error checking is created for the form elements specifying which element (by name), a regular expression to be checked against and a custom error message:

//Create error checking
$nameError = errorCheck("name", "/([a-z0-9]{3}[a-z0-9]?)/", "Name is too short");	//Must be 3 chars or over
$emailError = errorCheck("email", "/^[a-z0-9]+([_\\.-][a-z0-9]+)*@([a-z0-9]+([\.-][a-z0-9]+)*)+\\.[a-z]{2,}$/i", "Invalid Email Address");	//must be valid email address

If no error is found then process the data.

//If no error found
if(!$errorFound) {
	//Process form data...
}
?>

In our head tags we add the following Javascript and CSS rules. The Javascipt checks we created for each element are included here by the PHP ehco:

 
<style type="text/css">
input {
	border: 1px solid #DDD;
}
.error {
	border: 1px dashed #F00;
}
</style>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function validateForm(theForm) {
	var errorFound = false;
	var errorMessage = "Please correct the following errors:\n";
	<?php echo $jsChecks ?>
	if(errorFound) {
		alert(errorMessage);
	}
	return !errorFound;
}
//-->
</script>

The form is really simple with code to display a CSS class depending on whether a error is detected (for the PHP error checking) and to set the value of the field:

 
<form method="post" onSubmit="return validateForm(this)">
	<label for="name"><strong>Name</strong> (must be 3 characters or over)</label><br />
	<input type="text" name="name" id="name" size="30" class="<?php echo $nameError ?>" value="<?php echo @ $_POST['name'] ?>" /><br />
	<label for="email"><strong>Email Address</strong> (must be a valid email address)</label><br />
	<input type="text" name="email" id="email" size="30" class="<?php echo $emailError ?>" value="<?php echo @ $_POST['email'] ?>" />
	<br />
	<input type="hidden" name="formSubmitted" id="formSubmitted" value="true" />
	<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

There you are, both Javascript and PHP error checking! See the complete source code here.

(I have expanded upon these lists which I found useful)

• Php|architect’s Guide to E-Commerce Programming with Magento
• Designer’s Guide to Magento – The most solid of Magento’s documentation, though it might take a few reads before things become clear! (pdf version)
• The Magento API
• Magento Screencasts
• Designing for Magento Webinar – worth watching the wmv file as much better quality
• Magento Wiki – out dated but some handy concepts
• Ohminu forum post – the lead designer breaks things down for newbies
• Magento Folder Structure
• Changing Text – using the Locale File
• Builing Blocks – more handy hints from the lead designer
• Screencast on creating themes – a very brief introduction to creating a new theme
• Video’s and other resources from php | architect