The serious eBay buyer's browser
The options window allows you to customize various Auction Chief features. The options window is divided into three sections, options related to auctions, options related to sniping and miscellaneous options.
Before you can use the Auction Chief to snipe auctions, you must select the snipe setting and if you want to use Auction Chief running on your computer to snipe, you must set your eBay User Name and Password.
| Completed auctions grace period - This controls how many days Auction Chief remembers auctions that you were watching after they've finished. You can see these auctions by selecting the menu option Auctions - Show finished watched auctions. |
| Maximum attempts to read an URL - This is how many times Auction Chief tries to read an eBay web page before giving up. Normally, if Auction Chief can't read a web page, it's because eBay's servers are down. |
| Auctions per search URL limit - Using this option you can artificially limit the maximum number of auction returned by a particular search. This is useful if your searches return thousands of auctions. |
| Concurrent eBay search updates - This controls how many different eBay searches Auction Chief processes at once. By processing more than one search at a time, Auction Chief is able to decrease the time it takes to update from eBay. For slow Internet connections, 4 is recommended. For fast Internet connections, 32 is recommended. How much this option helps your eBay search update speed is controlled by your Internet connection, your computer's processor speed and how many different auction searches you have. |
| Snipe Setting - This controls how Auction Chief manages sniping. |
| Snipe Using Auction Chief Running on Your Computer - If you use this option, Auction Chief running on your computer will place a bid on your behalf near the end of an auction. You must be running Auction Chief and be connected to the internet. |
| Snipe Online Using AuctionStealer - Whenever you set a snipe in Auction Chief, it's set up with AuctionStealer. AuctionStealer's servers bid on your behalf. Your computer isn't involved in the snipe and doesn't need to be connected to the Internet or even turned on. |
| Snipe Using Both Auction Chief on Your Computer and AuctionStealer - Whenever you set a snipe in Auction Chief, it's also set up with AuctionStealer. At the time of the snipe both Auction Chief running on your computer and AuctionStealer's servers will bid on your behalf. eBay will receive two last minute bids for the same amount. This redundancy is so that if anything should go wrong with either Auction Chief running on your computer or AuctionStealer's servers, the other one will still place a bid. |
| Options for Sniping When Using Auction Chief Running on Your Computer -When you use Auction Chief running on your computer to snipe an auction, your eBay user name and password are sent to eBay with the snipe's bid information. If you don't plan to use the sniping feature or if you plan to use AuctionStealer exclusively, you can leave these blank. |
| Name - Your eBay user name. |
| Password - Your eBay password. |
| Begin snipe mode when there's x minutes left in an auction - This controls when Auction Chief goes into snipe mode and gets ready to bid on an auction for you. This number can be between 3 minutes and 58 minutes. |
| Snipe an auction when there's x seconds left in an auction - This tells Auction Chief when to bid on a sniped auction. This time has to be long enough for Auction Chief to read the auction page from eBay and send the bid to eBay. With a fast Internet connection, 10 seconds is plenty of time. With a slower connection you may need 15 seconds or more. You may have to experiment to find how many seconds is appropriate for your Internet connection. |
| AuctionStealer Options - These are optional options for AuctionStealer. If you set your AuctionStealer email address and password, Auction Chief will automatically log you in to AuctionStealer whenever you set up a snipe. |
| Email Address - Your AuctionStealer user name which is your email address. |
| Password - Your AuctionStealer password. |
Auction Ending Options - These options control
how Auction Chief prints the ending time of auctions. You can also use the
Ends button on the toolbar 
to toggle these options. |
| Time Left - Auctions display the time left. |
| Ending Date - Auctions display their ending date. |
| Daily Update - You can have Auction Chief update it's auction information from eBay at a particular time. This is useful if search a lot of auctions and have a slow Internet connection. For this feature to work, Auction Chief must be running on your computer at the time you desire the update to start. |
| Enabled - Check this to enable daily updates. |
| Hour - The hour you want the update to start. The Hour can be 0 to 23 where 0 is Midnight, 12 is noon and 23 is 11:00 PM. |
| Minute - The minute you want the update to start. This can be from 0 to 59. |
|
Automatic Update - You can have Auction Chief automatically update your auctions from eBay at a regular interval. |
| Enabled - Check this to enable automatic updates. |
| Hour - The hour part of how often you want to automatically update. The Hour can be 0 to 23 where 0 is Midnight, 12 is noon and 23 is 11:00 PM. |
| Minute - The minute part of how often you want to automatically update. This can be from 10 to 59. |
| Text Size - This controls how large text is printed on the Main Screen. It can be between 8 and 30. |
| Key to Switch Between Main and Browse Screens - You can use either the tab key or F1 to switch between the Main and Browse Screens. |
| Reset Column Widths - This buttons sets the column widths on the Main Screen back to their defaults. |