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About Rob, FreeForm, FreeForm2, and EAPH Hosting
Yes, you can create attractive, effective, and
professional appearing eBay item descriptions...
About FreeForm2
freeform2.robshelp.com
Most eBay sellers have in common similar goals for their eBay templates, but not exactly the same as everyone else. FreeForm2 is a short cut to achieving your particular goals without having to search through thousands of cookie-cutter templates, then settling for something less than ideal.

FreeForm2's powerful and fun to use design tools provide for creating eBay template layouts that are unique to your selling effort and your business. What you create can be used over and over again very efficiently to produce individual item descriptions.

The design phase starts with loading a "shell" into the FreeForm2 template display area. At which point the Shell Editor tool becomes available to add sections, delete sections, and move them around. Use FreeForm2's other tools to enter text, apply different color schemes and textures, change fonts, adjust text size, and more.

Most of the tools keep the template visible with changes applied instantly. Very "visual".

An effective eBay template gives eBay shoppers what they expect to see - an informative display of photos and textual description. FreeForm2 provides for eBay template layouts divided into sections with headings to organize and draw attention to the information shoppers are looking for and the features you most want them to see.

Showing any particular item for sale with great photos is a top priority, and FreeForm2 makes available two sophisticated methods for displaying them: Enlarge in Place and Mouseover (rollover) Enlarge. Both methods keep eBay shoppers in the eBay selling page, where they belong.

The Enlarge in Place and Mouseover Enlarge interfaces preserve your settings so different photos go right in without a lot of fuss. If you elect to use EAPH.com Hosting then putting in different photos is all point and click, no copy and paste of URLs. For even greater efficiency with EAPH.com hosting an entire folder of photos can be selected and inserted all at once.

An example of FreeForm2's Enlarge in Place feature is shown to the right.  Flash Videos below demonstrate its usage.  More samples of the types of item presentations possible with FreeForm2 can be viewed from the home page:

FreeForm2
freeform2.robshelp.com
FreeForm2
Enlarge in Place Example














About EAPH Hosting
EAPH.com
Java applet for uploading images with choices to:
  • No Resize No Compress
  • Compress Only
  • Resize to maximum 560 wide/high
  • Resize to maximum 640 wide/high
  • Resize to maximum 750 wide/high
  • Resize to custom width and/or height
Resizing, when selected, occurs on the computer before files are transferred making for very speedy uploading. The applet automatically ignores anything but image files so, for example, an entire folder can be selected on the computer and only the image files within it will be uploaded.

Files/folders may be selected for uploading via either copy and paste, drag and drop, or browse.

Template Helper tool:

The heart of EAPH's unique Template Helper is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that adds the power to squeeze more flexibility from a pre-made template, such as you might acquire on the web or purchase from a designer on eBay, without having to learn or edit HTML source code directly. Not as powerful as using FreeForm but very handy for quick edits.
Enhanced Photo Albums:

EAPH includes the ability to create customized photo albums including a title, description, email address, web address, background wallpaper and colors to the page.  You may see an example of the Enhanced Photo Album in use with Sample Starter Template 47 created using FreeForm (opens in new window).

EasyLinks tool:

EasyLinks is the newest of many helpful tools included with EAPH hosting. Use it with templates, with eBay standard item descriptions, TurboLister, FreeForm, FreeForm2, everywhere you want to quickly and easily display a group of photos.

Features drag and drop sorting of the photo sequence, background color assignment, and CSS borders for each of the photos.
 
See an overview of most EAPH features in the EAPH Features Showcase page.
About FreeForm
robshelp.com
FreeForm has been used by eBay sellers for over 10 years.  The unique Builder serves both as an assembly tool and an editing tool. Assemble a layout including use of any backgrounds and graphics desired along with text and photo content. When finished save permanently within FreeForm itself (multiple saves are provided).

Load any particular save back into the Builder on future occasions to use again either exactly the same or with changes.  Unlike using stand-alone templates, you have the tools to make any changes required because you are in the Builder.

For text editing all the basics are provided; underlining, italics, bold, changing text color, etc. Along with that, fonts can be changed, bullet or numbered lists can be created, images inserted, and links created from either text or images.

Put photos where you want them, as many as you want, in whatever size desired.  Show text in between photos or to left or right of them.  You are not locked into prearranged space for content when using FreeForm.

Code Input Areas are available for flash content, videos, or HTML snippets.  Anything allowed on eBay can be presented with FreeForm.

Please view the Sample Starter Templates which can be used as starting points and inspiration for your layouts created using FreeForm.
About Rob
Way back in 1999 when eBay was just beginning to become a household word there wasn't a whole lot of support available for sellers to show more than one photo with their item descriptions.

Coincidentally, at that time I was also just beginning to hit my stride with web programming and decided to see what I could do to help.

The result was an on-line program I not so creatively called ''The Form'' that was, in fact, a form page into which text and photo URLs could be typed into pre-ordered slots and HTML was output for use on eBay. Within a year or so I added the ability to save work and to apply color to the text and background. Again not very creatively, I called it ''The Form With Color and Save''. That program, in turn, eventually developed into what ''FreeForm'' is today, finally a reasonably creative name reflecting the ability to re-arrange the form itself as well as providing many additional formatting capabilities.

All the while I was working on and improving FreeForm and its predecessors I wanted to also include hosting of the photos sellers used in their item descriptions to eliminate copy and pasting of URLs and many problems common to using hosting methods that aren't specifically intended for use with eBay. The problem was that I couldn't add the hosting for free (my costs would be prohibitive) and it was out of the question to begin charging for use of FreeForm. FreeForm is and I plan for it always to be a virtually free to use service.

The compromise was to create a separate paid hosting service Easy Auction Picture Hosting (EAPH) and include features in FreeForm very close to my original hope of the hosting being built in. Along with a point and click interface for displaying photos stored at EAPH, I was able to add unlimited saving and web page publishing directly from within FreeForm. All accomplished without getting in the way of those can not afford to use paid hosting. Perfect. For those who can afford it, the tools I have built into the separate EAPH service make it probably the most helpful and feature packed hosting service you will find for eBay sellers.

My latest creation "FreeForm2" is a hybrid of FreeForm and the Template Helper tool available with EAPH.com hosting.  FreeForm2 does a much better job of keeping design separate from editing and utilizes web technology that provides for much more visual and quicker performing interfaces than FreeForm.  There are no plans to replace FreeForm with FreeForm2.  FreeForm2 is just an alternative that many will find easier to learn and faster to use.  It, like FreeForm, is supported by voluntary donations.

I tend to use variations of ''I hope this helps'' and ''I wish you success'' as the closing for my emails. That is how I view the services I provide and my desire for those who use them. I am happy to help any way I can - please feel free to write!

Rob Bell
rob@robshelp.com
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Assembled using FreeForm2 Template Builder with EAPH.com Help and Hosting


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