Postage Calculator/Auction Text Builder / News: Recent posts

- Royal Mail (UK) changed their prices on 1st April. I've taken this opportunity to add in a few of the postage rates that weren't previously included (i.e. International Printer Paper).
- Added a splash screen that includes a "version check" that will allow me to update people when a new version is released without clogging up peoples Inboxes!
- Enhanced how parameters work, instead of presenting each parameter on it's own dialog the user is now presented with a single dialog that shows all the parameters... read more

With this new release you can configure certain lines in the HTML code generated by the application to disappear based on either postage values or values from parameters (new example included).

Rather than using sourceforge to host the website it's now available on http://auctiontextgen.googlepages.com/ (via Google). It's easier for me to maintain and develop there. you can also now e-mail me at auctiontextgen@googlemail.com.

Comments?

I've made a few changes to make it clear what the Text Generator part of the application is doing. When you run the software you'll see a new "Auction Text" tab and all the existing controls have moved to a "Settings" tab. When you click "Calculate" you will now see the actual text copied into the "Auction Text" tab.

I have also added a way to disable the automatic copy-to-clipboard when you click "Calculate", and there is also a way to view the generated text in your web browser - at the moment this defaults to Internet Explorer, Firefox users (of which I am one!) need to edit the "auctiontextgen.ini" file and insert their browsers settings. If you know how I can automate this please let me know!... read more

I've added a Postage Editing dialog. Unfortunatly it's not 100% stable (but it does create backups prior to making any changes).

I've also made a few performance improvements so things should be a lot better for everyone now.

Please visit the "Feature Requests" tracker to add any enhancements you'd like to see ... At the moment I'm the only person adding anything so if you're happy with my suggestions that's fine! There must be something out there that would be useful ??!!

** Includes Postal Prices updated for the Royal Mail Size Changes on 21st August 2006 **

Hopefully this will be the final beta! Lots of thanks to my wife Petra who has done a lot of the beta testing and who has watched on with an increasing amount of patience as I tear my tear my hair out trying to make this work ...

Changes:
- Priority. You can now have several postage files with the same Code in and determine the one to use by setting a new key (CodePriority). First Class and Second Class (the example UK postage types) use this so if you want you can copy yours from there.
- Master postage types are no longer supported. If you add a SurchargePrice to a postage type it is added to the total (based on weight) rather than being added to the total of the postage type specified by "Master". This was done to allow the new "Priority" system to function in a more logical way.
- Massive performance improvement. Instead of stepping up in 1's until it finds the weight to use it now steps in a variable amount configured in each postage file using the "WeightStepSize" key. If this key isn't present then 50 is used as the default.... read more

A second Beta, I've added an "Image" functionality (an example is included) that instead of generating HTML generates an image. It will be easier to update these after upload.

I've also fixed a couple of bugs, and added a dialog the first time you run the application to tell you that the text it's generated is on the clipboard ... Bit of an ommission that one!

*Finally* an Beta test version release. It includes only UK postage files (but the format is so simple I'm sure you can modify it for everywhere else, the application itself is flexible enough).

Comments??!!

No, it's not. I've just been really busy at the moment and suffered a hard-drive failure that has wiped the source code out for my project.

I know. I should have backed up, but I didn't. The "new" version is under development (required by Royal Mails recent price change) and will be putting in an appearance towards the end of NEXT month.

I'm also switching Jobs with a weeks break between so I will have the time and motivation to actually do something.... read more

"So what exactly is holding things up?" you may well have been thinking. Well two things really, the first is that the version which produced the screen shots is written using Delphi 7 and contains hard-coded values for UK postage that Royal Mail holds the copyright too. To "fix" Issue 1 I decided to re-write the application to make it use configuration files rather than hard-coding the values. This will make it much more flexible. Sadly at the same time I decided to migrate from Delphi to Lazarus. Lazarus is basically a "free" delphi, but it's not at Version 1 yet and ... unbelievable as it may sound ... all those warnings about not using "Beta" software turn out to be true. At the moment things are a bit of a mess, I'll sort them out eventually but it will take time. This project is not dead, it is just moving really really slowly ...

At the moment I'm still waiting for a response from Royal Mail regarding using their postal prices/ names in this application.

Who would have thought that "First Class" was a trademark?

I've created a mailing list "auctiontextgen-release_ntfy" this will be used when I have the first release.

As you can see from the screenshots this is a completed (working) application that just needs some clearances before it gets checked in.

A first version of the application is done, and is ready to upload. At the moment I'm waiting for Royal Mail to get back to me regarding their postal prices (i.e. as they own the (c) I need a "permission to use"), and I need to migrate the source from Delphi 7 Professional to Delphi 7 Personal (will not be an issue ... hopefully!)

At the very least I'll be uploading a few screenshots over the weekend.