Suspending bids

[Snu]

I started using Gixen to let me bid at the last possible moment without being at the computer at that time. But I've found that its biggest benefit to me is that I can cancel a bid -- So long as the auction has yet to end, I can change my mind. eBay isn't nearly as nice about that.

So... I'd like if there were a way to improve my waffling. A "suspend bid" option would keep the record of the scheduled bid (including my bid price) at Gixen's website, but not make a bid at all -- unless, of course, I were to reinstate the bid. That would make it easy for me to reconsider a bid without fully cancelling it.

[mario]

I try to avoid providing any auction management tools in order to keep Gixen database as lean and small as possible. Why don't you just add items you are watching to "My eBay" watch list?

[Snu]

Yeah, it is a bit off the main purpose of Gixen. And there are lots of other ways to keep track of auctions. (When I think to do so, I tend to use plain old bookmarks for them.) I was just thinking about the convenience of it.

Now that I think about it, since I'm already using the API to place bids, I can just automatically create a local copy of the bid. That will take care of things for me just fine.

[mario]

Ah, that's interesting that you use API. I don't have many API users, so I am always curious about it. How do you use it, and why?

[Gixen]

[Snu]

I use a Windows automation/scripting program called QuickMacros (i.e., http://www.quickmacros.com/) to place bids. It's a simple script which just pulls out the key auction information from the current web page, then puts up a box for me to fill in a price. It's roughly similar to what the GreaseMonkey script does, but has some tweaks that I prefer. (It puts the name of the item in the bid window, shows the shipping charge, makes the default bid the lowest allowable amount instead of $0.99, and doesn't require me to keep the window open for a while to check for error messages.)