1. Archiving Descriptions
These two filters are available only in the bulk Active Content Editor. Normally, when a scan is run, the tool will archive the originals
of the descriptions that it revises, and does not archive any unchanged descriptions.
These options are available to force descriptions to be saved, even if they have not been modified by the tool.
Both can be selected, if your need requires.
Save Originals
"Save Originals" will save all of your original descriptions for zipping, and will not collect, or affect, any revisions that may have occurred
when using revision filters.
Use this method if you don't need to fix any listings and want to turn off all the other scan filters.
Collect your zips from the "originals" (left) window in the resulting zip panel.
This method can be used in conjunction with filters that will revise descriptions, and those revisions will still occur and can be collected as zip files in the
the "revisions" (right) window in the resulting zip panel.
Force Archive
"Force Archive" will select all of your revised descriptions for zipping, and will add to that list any originals that required no revision.
Use this method if you need to fix some, or all, of your descriptions before saving, but want a single record of all of those listing descriptions.
Collect your zips from the "revisions" (right) window in the resulting zip panel.
2. Mobile Tags
These filters will add the eBay-recommended tags to the beginning of the description to address mobile devices.
Existing duplicate tags will be removed.
Because these filters add to the description,
every scanned description will be modified when these filters are chosen
within the Active Content Editor.
Add Mobile Viewport
This tag tells the mobile browser that your description has already been made flexible
and the page should not be shrunken to fit.
Instead, the browser will expect the page to reflow and change shape.
If it does not reflow correctly, there will be scrollbars.
Adding this tag will replace existing duplicates.
If your description is not yet mobile friendly and you want to remove all copies of the
viewport meta tag so that your description will shrink, leave this option unchecked and
paste this code in a "starts with" field of a custom text filter row, and leave the remaining 2 slots empty.
Add Image Style tag
Adds a short style block that will rescale images within the description text.
Has no effect if you have no embedded images. Adding this tag removes duplicates of the same tag.
If you have your own stylesheet and want to remove all copies
of this special style block that was added by eBay or this tool,
leave this option unchecked and paste this code in a "starts with" field of a custom text filter row,
and leave the remaining 2 slots empty.
3. eBay Mandates - Active Content
These filters address eBay mandates for active content and security:
Remove Active Content
Active content is removed by singling out individual tag attributes, objects, or disallowed scripts.
Description content is usually not found in the mix unless embedded or created by the scripts and objects.
This filter removes: form.action, events(onclick, onmouseover, etc), applet, embed, object, script, javascript:, vbscript, .swf.
Remove Non-eBay Links
Links to non-eBay pages or pages not on eBay's allowed list will be gutted.
Also removed are links that open a phone, email client, or similar application.
The empty link tags are allowed to remain. Will not affect eBay links or basic anchor tags.
Repair Link Targets
Valid links that have a missing or invalid target attribute will have the attribute
added or corrected so that links open in a new page.
This feature will not be added to tags used to address relative page elements
(where there is no http or https protocol),
so it is safe to use when custom photo galleries or promo galleries are present
that rely on links to manipulate inpage content.
Change HTTP to HTTPS
Resources embedded in the page (images, stylesheets, videos) using the http protocol
will be converted to the https protocol.
This filter does not modify links away from the page, since those do not need to be secure.
Thus links remain unchanged by this filter.
If you have eBay-allowed links in your page that you want to convert from http: to https:,
and that you know will work over the secure protocol,
use a custom text filter to make the substitution.
Add to a "starts with" field, leave the "ends with" slot empty,
and add to the "replacement" slot.
4. Widget Artifacts
Violating content in these widgets will automatically be removed by the main compliance filters above,
but often, credit links and junk code can remain behind.
These filters help clean up that left-over content.
These filters look for the start and end markers in third party widgets
and will remove everything between those markers.
If either the start or end is not found, the filter will not be applied.
On very rare occasions, a seller might type description information inside the widget markers,
which could result in the description being removed by the filter.
Currency Converter
Datacaciques
Forms - like search box
Froo Gallery
Inkfrog Gallery
MyStoreMaps
MyStoreRewards
<noscript>
OneHourTranslation
Sellebrity
Sellathon
SellerSourceBk
Vendio Gallery
Webstore
Xsellx Gallery
5. Credits & Images
These simple credits or objects will be removed if a match is found. If no match is found, the filter has no effect,
except for the File Exchange filter, which adds code to every scanned listing.
eBay Dated Adder
The Dated Adder is a date line that eBay includes when new content is appended to the bottom of a listing.
It will be removed if a match can be found.
File Exchange
The File Exchange logo is added by File Exchange every time it processes a descripton revision,
unless the logo is already found in the description.
So the logo is actually added by this tool and then hidden from view.
If duplicates already exist in the description, the duplicates will be removed.
Use this filter only if you plan to run your revision file through File Exchange.
Because this filter adds to the description,
all scanned descriptions will be modified when this filter is chosen.
SellingManagerPro
The Selling Manager logo and link will be removed if it is has not been modified.
TurboLister
Turbo Lister adds table code, a logo, and a byline,
and all three are removed by the tool as three separate processes.
Thus, one process may succeed and another may fail,
depending on the matches that can be found.
PhotoBucket Photos
Photobucket photos are removed, along with the clickable link tags for that photo.
The most common usage has been clickable thumbnails, and this filter will remove the whole set.
To leave the image and remove only the violating links, use the "Remove Non-eBay Links" filter instead.
To remove all images from the description, from any hosting site,
add this code to the "starts with" box on a custom text filter row
,
and add this code to the "ends with" box
.
Leave the "Replacement" box empty.
6. Text formatting
These filters take a more complex look at the description text and could change elements
that were intended to have a specific appearance, so they should not be used without understanding their purpose.
Most are intended to improve mobile viewing.
Font tags (eBay)
This filter is designed to remove the Font tags that eBay adds through their online editor:
eBay's font tags can become quite deeply and iteratively nested, eventually causing the description
to disappear in Firefox browsers; thus removal may be necessary for some.
What makes this a complex problem is that the filter must remove eBay font tags, but not user-supplied font tags.
The tool can easily match tags if the code is in good order, but if blocks of code have been manually
added, removed, or replaced, causing a mismatch or jumbling of code, this filter may return undesirable results.
Because it only affects font tags, the results will only affect the size, color and font of the text;
but nonetheless, take care if using this filter and test first on any questionable descriptions.
Additionally, this filter takes longer to scan than the others and may time out
if the description source code is overly lengthy.
Font tags (all)
Removing all Font tags could eliminate text sizes, fonts, and colors if those were assigned in Font tags.
If this filter is chosen, it will override choosing the eBay Font filter and the Font Size filter.
Font size (6,7)
The Font Size filter improves mobile friendliness by decreasing the older size 6 and 7 fonts to size 5.
It will not affect sizes set with a newer CSS "style" attribute, so application could be spotty,
depending on the age of listings or editing tools.
HardSpace runs
HardSpace runs result from holding down the spacebar to push text over a bit.
The hard spaces (non-breaking-spaces, no-break-space, or " ") stick to their neighbors and
don't break or wrap at all,
so they can force scrollbars to appear and can cause the text to wrap in strange ways on mobile devices.
This filter will convert runs of 5 or more hard spaces into a single normal space.
NoBreak spaces
The NoBreakSpace filter looks at individual occurrences of hard spaces.
Because browsers normally ignore extra spaces,
web editors often add the special NoBreakSpace character when two (or more) contiguous spaces appear in the text,
as an attempt to match the typist's spacing intentions.
If NoBreak spaces attach to an attribute in a tag or to a CSS style,
they can cause problems in descriptions because they are characters, not real spaces.
This filter will convert each and every hard space into a normal space.
Any resultant large runs of normal spaces are ignored by the browser.
Using this filter will override the "HardSpace runs" filter.
Underscore runs
Underscore runs are usually an attempt to draw a line across the page,
but they are not mobile friendly because they don't wordwrap,
so this tool will convert a run of 10 or more underscores to the HTML code for a
"horizontal rule" or line (<hr>), setting it to 60% width, like this:
To set your own version of a line, leave this filter unchecked and create a custom text filter.
Paste this code into the "starts with" field of a custom edit row:
and change the [_] to whatever symbol
you are using to draw a line, like [~].
The threshold of finding 10 in a row can be raised or lowered.
Leave the "ends with" field empty,
and enter this code in the "replacement" field:
The 60% width can be changed to some other value up to 100%. It will scale with the page width.
Character runs
If you want to manually control your runs of characters, like hard spaces, underscores,
or other single character runs, you can create a custom text filter.
Here are some code samples to paste into the
"starts with" field of a custom edit row, leave the "ends with" field empty,
and enter a single space (or some other replacement) in the third field.
The number in "{5,}" sets the lower limit and the comma indicates there is no upper limit.
All contiguous symbols that exceed the lower limit
will be replaced as a group by whatever you have entered in the "replacement" slot.
NoBreakSpace:
Tilde:
Asterisk:
Remove most HTML
Remove most of the HTML code, but still preserve a small bit of formatting.
If a more stringent HTML removal is also selected, this option will be ignored.
Because HTML line-breaks will be supported, the text will appear to have a small amount of formatting.
This may be useful for removing complex templates, while maintaining minimal formatting for a better display.
This filter is applied after all the others, so you can use custom filters to eliminate boilerplate text prior to condensing to this minimal state.
Remove all HTML
Convert the description to a single block of plain text without any HTML codes and no formatting.
This may be useful when trying to preserve only the minimum description, or when porting your description to sites that do not allow any HTML at all.
This filter is applied after all the others, so you can use custom filters to eliminate boilerplate text prior to condensing to this minimal state.