Yes beginning with it ;)

Archived from the Web Auction Discussion forum.

styx — Mon May 21, 2007 1:36 pm

Ok I did begin with auction today : monday 21 mai 2007
I wonder are ther templates for it ?
And maybe a translation in dutch ?
otherwise I will translate it , and send it to you when needed.
You will hear from me
greetings Paul

styx — Mon May 21, 2007 1:59 pm

Note : strange , I be the only one ? and I know so many that search for a good “user only”auction.
I was searching for a year now !
And here’s one who searched a lot , and even made a page for it

http://scott.yang.id.au/2003/01/seeking-open-source-auction-software/

Cheers Paul

shannah — Mon May 21, 2007 2:58 pm

Hi Paul,

Thanks for posting in the forum.ÃŠ I’m glad you are finding the auction sofware useful.ÃŠ This is the first public release so undoubtedly there are features that you’ll identify that you’ll want added.ÃŠ I’m happy to receive feature requests, and will consider them.ÃŠ Most features can be added very quickly, so even if you need a feature that I’m not able to get to in the general course of things, I have a team of developers who can make customizations for reasonable rates.

As for your questions:

Templates:

The auction is extremely flexible for templates, and can have its entire look and feel changed by creating a single HTML page.ÃŠ (See the SFU auction for an example of a different look: http://fas.sfu.ca/fas/sites/plantsale).ÃŠ Currently there aren’t any themes available, however, I’ll be writing a tutorial this week on how to create themes in Dataface (which is the same as for web auction) so you’ll be able to create themes pretty easily.

The process for creating a theme will roughly involve:

Find a template you like.ÃŠ Either make your own or download one from a site like http://www.oswd.org or http://templatemonster.com.
Copy some Smarty tags into the template and place it in a certain directory
Add 1 line to the conf.ini file.

The documentation I will create will be more in depth.
Alternatively, if you want us to convert a template for you, we can take an existing template (e.g. from oswd.org or templatemonster.com) and convert it to a dataface theme usually for around $50 to $100 - depending on the complexity of the template.
Please keep me updated with your progress and don’t hesitate to post questions.
Best regards
Steve

shannah — Mon May 21, 2007 5:45 pm

Forgot to address the Dutch translation question.

The Dataface framework is all dialed in for internationalization but there is no Dutch translation yet.ÃŠ In addition, the web auction application hasn’t been written to use the internationalization features of Dataface yet.ÃŠ Look for this in versionÃŠ 0.2.

When this internationalization is built in, translating it into a new language such as Dutch will be as simple as translating a single text file.

-Steve

styx — Mon May 21, 2007 8:40 pm

Hi again.
And ooh boy , if it gets to technical than I begin to stare at things I do not understand
I’am from 1949 you know …but still 20 years in computing
html that will work.
php I begin to learn a little
My website ( dutch sorry) http://www.coldmountain.nl
I am in health benefit , and that is not a lot of money…
So I became my brand new pc I have now , for making a webshop for a trading centre.
( http://shop.ljtrading.nl )
I use for my website e107 , and easy’er you cannot get.
For this ljtrading I was making a auction with e107 , but the writer of the auctionscript
has no time or has stopped since I do not hear from him.
( example of this test I run : http://www.ljtrading.nl/site login: gast pw: gast )
I really do not understand dataface , its big , and did take 1 hour and a half to upload to the server.
The auction was there in 5 minutes.

About webauction : The new member is instantly member after signing in.
bidding with a fake email adres is possible….
better is : signing up , and then the auction should send a confirmation to the new member , with a link
to the website , where the membership wil than be activated.

There is no way I can find out to make a change in the layout….
And the big disclaimer or credentials ( forgive my english )
on the bottom of the program , I cant find where to make them smaller.

For me it is now 6 in the morning , I always have problems with sleeping
But I thank you for your nice letter , and I hope you can help me a bit with al my small problems

btw , the web auction is test running on : http://www.ljtrading.nl/veiling

Thank you Cheers Paul

styx — Tue May 22, 2007 6:01 am

Hello
I have the following problems.
translating the en.ini inside dataface , makes no difference inside auction.
Where do I translate auction ?
( like the sentence : “you are here” inside auction , is nowhere inside dataface)
Than , Where do I change the $ (dollar) sign into ? (euro)
I hope you make some changes , and as you told in your letter that there will be changes
It looks very promissing , I like’d it from the start.
Only , if there would be a simple images folder , with header and footer and side bars and banner
Than I could make the site looking good .
Now I have no clue how to make a colored header and colored left side.
The site you mentioned looks very nice.
Hope I learn.

greetings Paul

shannah — Wed May 23, 2007 1:41 am

OK.. there are a lot of issues here, but I’ll try to go through them:

New member registration issue:ÃŠ
ÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠ Agreed this needs to be worked on.ÃŠ For our Plantsale auction we used CAS (Central Authentication Service) so we didn’t have to worry about registration.. I added the registration action to make it available for the public.ÃŠ The next release (0.2) will have an email registration option so that people will be sent an email to confirm their registration.ÃŠ There are workarounds right now.. but they would require a bit of Dataface savvyness.
Long upload time for Dataface.
ÃŠÃŠÃŠ If you only have FTP access to your server this can take a long time.ÃŠ For people with SSH access it usually only takes 30 seconds - because they can upload it as a .tar.gz file, then extract the files on the server.ÃŠ I am working on a dataface installer that will allow you to also do this on FTP only hosts… that will be ready in the next few days.ÃŠ I am also contemplating coming out with “Lite” versions of Dataface that don’t include as many modules (e.g. TinyMCE is an optional editor that is bundled with Dataface but isn’t used by most… lite versions may leave this out).
Changing the Layout:

ÃŠÃŠ Copy the Dataface/templates/Dataface_Main_Template.html file into the web auction’s ‘templates’ directory, and make whatever changes you please.ÃŠ This will override the default template.

Translations:
ÃŠÃŠ Some strings come from Dataface, some are specific to web auction.ÃŠ To make a dutch translation for Dataface, copy the en.ini file in the dataface/lang directory to a file named nl.iniÃŠ (i think nl is the language code for Dutch), and translate the strings.ÃŠ To make the application work in multiple languages (or just to tell it to use your Dutch language file), you need to add some stuff to the web auction’s conf.ini file.ÃŠ See this post (http://framework.weblite.ca/forum/dataface-users/123/#950394383) or this how-to (http://framework.weblite.ca/documentation/how-to/use-translations) for some info on how to do this.ÃŠ Unfortunately, I haven’t extracted all of the strings out of web auction to be translated (i.e. I haven’t created an en.ini file for it yet) so you won’t be able to fully translate the application yet.ÃŠ Look for this in version 0.2 (in a couple of weeks).
Dollar sign to euro.ÃŠ Will tie this into the internationalization improvements in version 0.2.
Making a simple images directory for header/footer/sidebars:ÃŠ Dataface has a much more flexible and powerful system for customizing the look and feel.ÃŠ Most of the visual information is made in templates (located in the dataface/Dataface/templates) directory.ÃŠ You can override any of these templates by adding a template with the same name into the web auction’s templates directory.ÃŠ You should be able to change just about anything you need to change by just overriding the Dataface_Main_Template.html template and making changes.

Best regards

Steve

styx — Wed May 23, 2007 5:23 am

Hi Steve

And thank you , now I can begin to work a little.
I will wait for version 0.2 thou
for the euro sign is something I need.
And for many dutch it would be nice If I can make the whole look into dutch.

It makes me feel good , the easyness you seem to have about such ( to me ) difficult things.
I says to me You are a real webmaster with a lot of knowledge

Cheers Paul

Wed May 23, 2007 6:46 am

Hi Paul,

To change $ your desired currency you need to edit AUCTIONS/TABLES/PRODUCTS/Products.php

(I have changed to Â£ for GBP)

HERE *
function high_bid_amount__display(&$record){
$amt = $record->val(‘high_bid_amount’);
$out = ‘Â£’.number_format(unserialize(serialize($amt)), 2);
return $out;
}

HERE *

function current_high_bid__display(&$record){
return ‘Â£’.number_format($record->val(‘current_high_bid’),2);

}

function minimum_bid__display(&$record){
return ‘Â£’.number_format($record->val(‘minimum_bid’),2);
}

Hope this helps you.

Ashley

styx — Wed May 23, 2007 10:04 am

Hi Steve , and thank you Ashley

I did what you was writing Steve
Did put the main html into templates
Changed the color.
But whatever I do ( even did put it back inside dataface)
No changing did happen.
I changed the layout with microsoft frontpage.
( I never did see a layout so full of text )
The color is red.
Then I saw frontpage did make a css also.
so I did put the css inside dataface , and called it plone.css.
Now the website has its color.
But the login became invisible.
Made the login color different , but it stays invisible.
And now I messed it up , get a error : Fatal error: Smarty error: [in Dataface_Main_Template.html line 140]: syntax error: unrecognized tag: $APP-%3Eurl(‘-action=login’) (Smarty_Compiler.class.php, line 436) in e:\easyphp1-8\www\dataface\dataface-0.7.1\lib\Smarty\Smarty.class.php on line 1088

I begin to wonder how this program is made ….never saw so many different things inside html or php…..

But I will keep on trying.
( gonna first install it again on my pc , I run test on easyPhP . )

Greetings Paul

shannah — Wed May 23, 2007 10:36 am

Hi Paul,

I would probably stay away from FrontPage for editing the templates.ÃŠ It has a tendency to muck with things that it doesn’t understand.ÃŠ The template is actually a smarty template (the tags inside the curly braces ‘{ }’ are smarty tags.ÃŠ For information about smarty you can check out http://smarty.php.net.
If you want to add your own css file, you can add a css link in the main template right after the plone.css include.
e.g.

In this case you would place the styles.css file inside your web auction directory.
You’ll find that most changes to the look can be made using only stylesheets - without changing any of the HTML in the template.
However, you can change the HTML too if you like.
I commend you on your efforts to dig in to this.ÃŠ If you are curious about how this program is made, or how the templating system works, you may want to read some of the documentation on Dataface’s templating system:
http://framework.weblite.ca/documentation/tutorial/getting_started/changing-look-and-feel
or
http://framework.weblite.ca/documentation/tutorial/customizing-the-dataface-look-and-feel
Once you figure out how it works, it’s quite easy… but as with anything in software development, it is best to work in baby steps.
Another tip.ÃŠ You shouldn’t need to make any changes to anything in the Dataface directory.ÃŠ Everything can be overridden in the web_auction directory.ÃŠ If you change the Dataface directory it will make it more difficult for you to upgrade in the future.
Best regards
Steve

styx — Wed May 23, 2007 11:08 am

Hi again

Thanks for your answer , I will surely look in to it.

Now I have another (small ? ) problem.
For the language I did do like you gave a example for
I did put in the conf.ini :

[languages]
en=”english”
nl=”nederlands”

But now with login I get an error :
Fatal error: Illegal mix of collations (latin1_swedish_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation ‘=’ in e:\easyphp1-8\www\dataface\dataface-0.7.1\Dataface\AuthenticationTool.php on line 184

If I remove the languages again inside conf.ini , al is ok again.

Can you advice me ?

styx — Wed May 23, 2007 11:15 am

Sorry for bothering ……(?)

But the error seem to come from easyPhP
I did try it on my webserver , and now all works fine

PS. A possebility for editing what I write or wrote here would be nice.
Since it would be less posts on this forum

greeting you

Paul

shannah — Wed May 23, 2007 11:32 am

Hi Paul,

I kind of prefer having multiple posts rather than editing posts, because it allows users to follow the thread later on.ÃŠ I (as an admin) have access to change posts, but never do, because it might confuse people later on.
Best regards
Steve

styx — Thu May 24, 2007 6:26 am

Hi Steve

I have a small problem.
I do not know in wich code de site is made , but with the euro sign there is a problem
Inside windows explorer it shows as a square.
So I had to change the sign from ? to eur.
If I set windows explorer to west european code , it shows the euro sign.
but if I go to another page the sign is a square again.
The explorer is standard set to unicode (utf8) ( like it would be for all here in europe)

Do you know a way around that ?

And a Favour I ask you , can you send me a email when the new version is ready ?
otherwise I will visit this site , to see if it comes available.

Have a nice day

Greetings Paul

shannah — Wed May 23, 2007 10:36 am

Hi Paul,

styx — Wed May 23, 2007 11:08 am

Hi again

Thanks for your answer , I will surely look in to it.

Now I have another (small ? ) problem.
For the language I did do like you gave a example for
I did put in the conf.ini :

[languages]
en=”english”
nl=”nederlands”

If I remove the languages again inside conf.ini , al is ok again.

Can you advice me ?

styx — Wed May 23, 2007 11:15 am

Sorry for bothering ……(?)

But the error seem to come from easyPhP
I did try it on my webserver , and now all works fine

PS. A possebility for editing what I write or wrote here would be nice.
Since it would be less posts on this forum

greeting you

Paul

shannah — Wed May 23, 2007 11:32 am

Hi Paul,

styx — Thu May 24, 2007 6:26 am

Hi Steve

Do you know a way around that ?

And a Favour I ask you , can you send me a email when the new version is ready ?
otherwise I will visit this site , to see if it comes available.

Have a nice day

Greetings Paul

shannah — Thu May 24, 2007 12:33 pm

Hi Paul,

This is an encoding issue.ÃŠ The PHP file is encoded with some other encoding.ÃŠ Dataface is outputing UTF-8 to the browser though, so the browser doesn’t understand it.ÃŠ There are 2 solutions:

Use the HTML entity for the euro sign (

€

(http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/entities.html)
This will be displayed correctly in the web browser, but may not look right over email.

Change the encoding of the File to UTF-8 in your text editor.ÃŠ (This may be risky because PHP doesn’t properly deal with UTF-8 in its source files).
When I internationalize the application, this symbol will be factored out into an INI file that will have the proper encoding so you won’t have to deal with this issue.
As far as keeping posted when there is an update on the forum, may I suggest using RSS?ÃŠ You’ll notice that there is an RSS link at the top of the forum.ÃŠ If you copy this link to your RSS reader, then you will be kept updated when posts are made to this forum.ÃŠ You can use an online RSS reader (e.g. Google:: http://www.google.com/reader) or download a desktop RSS reader (a list of popular ones found at http://blogspace.com/rss/readers).
Once you start using RSS you’ll never go back.ÃŠ I monitor about 50 sites and am updated automatically whenever any changes are made to any of them.
Best regards
Steve

styx — Thu May 24, 2007 1:29 pm

Hi Steve

And Thank you the symbol for html works !
And RSS , never knew what it was for , now I understand it , and I activate it on my website also , great !

Never to old to learn

Thanks

Paul

styx — Thu May 24, 2007 3:08 pm

Hi Steve

What can I do within main html to change the login word ?
it is to small , much to far to the right , I would like it a 5 cm to the left.
And with bigger fat letters , and a different color.
I open the html with wordpad.
html code seems not to work I did [b] but it only shows the b’s…..

help ?

greetings Paul

shannah — Thu May 24, 2007 4:29 pm

Hi Paul,

Probably easiest to do this with CSS.ÃŠ All you need to do is add a CSS file and include it in the head of the template.
e.g. If you named your file styles.css, then you would place the styles.css file in your web auction folder and add the following somewhere near the end of the section of the template:

You can reference the login text using the id user-status
e.g.
So your styles.css file would contain something like.
#user-status {
ÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠ font-size: 16px;
ÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠ font-weight: bold;
ÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠ padding-right: 2in;
ÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠÃŠ
}
Hope this helps.
-Steve

styx — Thu May 24, 2007 5:12 pm

Hi
Ok I gonna try this.
Another question :
If I get a template looking the way I want it , without changing the
positions on webauction ( login, or menubar and so on)
How do I make webauction see the template inside templates folder ?
do I have to point inside main html to templates ?
And please can you give me a example ?

with lets say , the head of the site being a color
and the left side the same color, but the links still there ?

or do I ask to much ?

And there might be something else to change inside auction.
even the blanc part besides a Item is click-able so if you are looking to the page and accidentally clikck somewhere ( and not on a link ) it opens a other part of the site…..
and now all is in a row , 1 row.
maybe make it possible to put 3 Items next to each other , and then
the next row of 3 and so on ?

I used netobject fusion to make html sides , I use e107 php websites
I use php designer 2007 for php adjustments.
So my knowledge is to change things , not to make things

Besides perl , this program is very difficult ( you call it easy since knowing it ) I struggle , but I’am holding on , I keep trying
( linux I tried for a hundered times , never succeeded since all who know linux , seem not be able to explain clearly , that is why it is not as big as it could be)

greetings Paul

styx — Thu May 24, 2007 5:51 pm

The website seems to wide , there is a scrollbar underneath and I can scroll 2 inches to the right …?
and the login works the way you “exampled”
except that padding-right it does absolutely nothing ?
Changed the number nothing changed
the login is bigger but stays in the far right corner….

shannah — Fri May 25, 2007 12:53 pm

that is probably the padding-right that is causing it to scroll right… sometimes you have to play with the CSS a little to get it looking right.

Perhaps try using relative positioning to move the login rather than padding.
e.g.
position: relative;
left: -2in;

deepak — Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:36 am

Sorry to disturb but i wanted to know if it was possible to fetch username and password from another database,so that existing members don’t have to register again ?

shannah — Mon Jun 04, 2007 8:51 am

Hi Deepak,

Dataface is extremely flexible in this respect.ÃŠ I have developed authentication modules that allow users to log in using CAS (Central authentication service), Facebook, and other services.ÃŠ You would need to develop an authentication module to accomplish this (you can check out the CAS module in the downloads section as an example authentication module and build from there).

Best regards

Steve

deepak — Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:22 pm

Thanks for the Info. Steve , I will check CAS module now…

styx — Thu May 24, 2007 5:51 pm

shannah — Fri May 25, 2007 12:53 pm

that is probably the padding-right that is causing it to scroll right… sometimes you have to play with the CSS a little to get it looking right.

Perhaps try using relative positioning to move the login rather than padding.
e.g.
position: relative;
left: -2in;

deepak — Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:36 am

Sorry to disturb but i wanted to know if it was possible to fetch username and password from another database,so that existing members don’t have to register again ?

shannah — Mon Jun 04, 2007 8:51 am

Hi Deepak,

Best regards

Steve

deepak — Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:22 pm

Thanks for the Info. Steve , I will check CAS module now…

bergmvd — Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:45 pm

Hi Paul,

Would you share your nl.ini with other dutch Dataface-users?

Regards,

Marcel