Any Mac web broswer that actually works well with eBay?

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Everytime I want to sell an item on eBay, I have to go use my girlfriends PC, because both Mac browsers I've used do not render eBay properly (the selling part).

Normally with Internet Explorer on PC's, when writing the item description, I have tons of text edit options above the text box--bold, italics, underline, alignment, font size/color/name, bullets/numbering, etc. However, with both Mac browsers (Camino and Safari), I don't have any of those options. I remember some PC users complaining that Firefox didn't have these features also.

These things are essential. Why aren't they availble with these Mac browsers? Do any Mac browsers have them?

In addition, Camino at least, doesn't render auctions perfectly either. For example, I have some bulleted items that are centered in the middle of the text box. However, in Camino the bullets are flush left and the supposed-to-be bulleted words are centered.


What's going on?
 
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I have never had any issues with eBay and Safari. I have sold a few things over the years and it always went off without a hitch. I format my auctions with HTML.
atomheartmother said:
These things are essential. Why aren't they availble with these Mac browsers?
Reading that, I am assuming you are trying to use the online editor. That editor is "optimized" (lol) for IE on Windows. In other words, unless you are using a Windows machine and using IE you are going to likely see odd results on occassion. I agree, rather short-sighted on eBay's part.
I would suggest using HTML to format your auctions. Otherwise, you can contact eBay and see if they will update their site editor, (though I highly doubt they will).

:black:
 
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Yeah...I doubt that I'm going to bother learning to use HTML to edit my auctions. I'd might as well take the extra 2 minutes to start up my girlfriends PC and use that than type in all that HTML (not to mention the learning curve).

So no Mac broswer will allow the auction text editor thing?

Bummer.
 

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I have never had an issue on Ebay with Safari. If there is a problem with the editor, it's like DevilBoy stated, it's EBays fault for making that part not confirm to the HTML standards. You say Firefox has the same problem on the PC. That means that every other browser besides IE probably does the same thing. Ebay should fix that as less and less people use IE now a days.
 
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I have never sold on ebay but I have no problem with Opera at the ebay site. Come to think of it - never had a problem with either Safari or Camino.
 
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Remember, it's not that no Mac browser will allow you to see the controls. It's that ebay was so short sighted that they will not allow non-IE browsers to use them. It's entirely ebay's fault. Register a complaint and see what they say.
 
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sursuciofla said:
I have used Safari and Firefox to do auctions so no problems for me!


Do you get the little toolbar above the description editor window that allows you to do the functions I listed in the original post?

Check out this auction I made. On the computer that I'm using (a PC at work), it looks fine. But at home on my iBook using Camino, the bullets are all messed up (flush left) and some of the text near the bottom creeps up next to the box thing. That's the rendering problem I'm talking about.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130026972112&sspagename=ADME:B:AAQ:US:1

However, my big problem isn't how auctions render, but rather the text editing part. I don't see why one browser can have the tool bar, but not another. Why can't the Mac browsers (Safari, Camino, etc.) allow for the toolbar? Can't they make some adjustments?

Has anyone had experience with selling items on eBay using that offline auction designer thing that eBay offers (I can't recall the name). It allows you to design the auctions in some program and then upload them. Do you get the toolbar with that?

As a side note, some PC users were able to figure out how to get the toolbar with Firefox. There was supposedly some special way of selling it or something.
 
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atomheartmother said:
However, my big problem isn't how auctions render, but rather the text editing part. I don't see why one browser can have the tool bar, but not another. Why can't the Mac browsers (Safari, Camino, etc.) allow for the toolbar? Can't they make some adjustments?

It's not the mac browsers can't do it, it's because the software ebay uses happens to only work with Internet Explorer. IE does a lot of things other browsers don't, not because it is better, but because MS invented their own way rather than following the standard. The software ebay uses is one that is limited only to IE. Ebay could certainly alter the system to support more browsers if they wanted, but at the heart of it, it's not the browser's fault, it's ebay's.
 
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cazabam said:
It's not the mac browsers can't do it, it's because the software ebay uses happens to only work with Internet Explorer. IE does a lot of things other browsers don't, not because it is better, but because MS invented their own way rather than following the standard. The software ebay uses is one that is limited only to IE. Ebay could certainly alter the system to support more browsers if they wanted, but at the heart of it, it's not the browser's fault, it's ebay's.

I guess I don't know much about HTML or code or anything technical like that. But couldn't Camino, et al make small adjustments? I guess it's no big deal; I can always use a PC for selling items on eBay...although, I'd MUCH prefer to use my Mac as I like it so much more.


Also, can you run IE on Macs? I seem to recall using it on Macs before. If you can, would the eBay thing work right (i.e. the text edit toolbar)?
 

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Even more annoying for me is that eBay can't be bothered doing a version of their Turbo Lister software for the Mac - it's the ONLY reason I have Parallels desktop on my iMac. Everything else I need runs fine on OS X. :(
 
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atomheartmother said:
But couldn't Camino, et al make small adjustments? I guess it's no big deal;

The short answer is no. It is a big deal, because it is NOT a "small adjustment", and there are already web standards that allow for what that toolbar does, but Microsoft chose to ignore them. Whoever wrote the software that ebay uses to display that toolbar chose the non-standard microsoft route. To add that functionality to other browsers, one of two things must happen:

1) The standards must alter to suit Microsoft's whims, thus requiring development work to EVERY browser product that is not IE.
2) Ebay must change the software the produces the toolbar

Out of the two of them, only number 2 has a) a chance of actually happening, and b) a simple, cost effective, single solution.

Let me put it another way. Say you're watching TV and one channel starts to broadcast a picture that's too big for a standard TV screen. Which would be easier, to change every TV in the country, or to get that one channel to stop broadcasting a non-standard signal? The same applies here.

It is very irritating when companies do this, and when they are blind to the fact that an increasing number are losing functionality through their bad choices.
 
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I use iSale. I swear by it! Buy it and then tell me you can't get bold and everything else to work!
 

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I just tried your page on a XP Pro PC with SP2 in perfect shape. Only IE displayed your page totally the way you want it. Firefox was way off with the bullets off to the side and the text in the middle. The only browser that was even close ON WINDOWS besides IE was Opera 9.1. So it's not OSX or Safari's fault. Try Opera on your Mac, it gets the bullets right and might work with the editor. I have no item to sell to try it.
 

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IronMac said:
Consider it an investment.

I found Turbo Lister to be a big headache and I never trusted why it always had to update itself so often...and took so long to do it....

GarageSale looks promising....
 

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Agreed, turbo lister was a headache, the newer one wasn't bad but still far too many updates for its own good. I used to list DVDs (genuine!) but eBay took such a huge cut it simply wasn't viable any more. Hence my reluctance to spend any more money on tools to do the listing.

I'll give garagesale a go this weekend as I've got an Intel iMac 512MB memory module to list....
 
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Jem said:
Agreed, turbo lister was a headache, the newer one wasn't bad but still far too many updates for its own good. I used to list DVDs (genuine!) but eBay took such a huge cut it simply wasn't viable any more. Hence my reluctance to spend any more money on tools to do the listing.

I'll give garagesale a go this weekend as I've got an Intel iMac 512MB memory module to list....


Jem, I'd be really keen to hear your experiences with gb...
 

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