Craigslist Search Utility (1 Viewer)

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I wrote a little search utility to make my life easier when I was searching for my 80, shopping for lenses, etc. on Craigslist. I posted this some time ago on the 80 tech page. I waited until I finally got the initiative to get a domain name and get it linked with my server to make the announcement here. And I added a third search field. Anyway, here is the link:

States

There is a writeup on the 80s tech page on how to use it here:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/243020-craigslist-search.html

Basically, I got tired of searching "Denver" for "Land Cruiser" and then "Landcruiser" and then "LX450" and then going and doing the same miserable thing for "Boulder" and then "Ft Collins" and then, well you get the idea.

This app lets you say what you want to look for and dispatches the queries and writes them back in one response. You can limit it so you don't have to see 56 when there are only a couple new ones per day. It also condenses the output with smaller font and packs the links a little which I like.

It will also let you search other categories other than cars, just look at the pulldown.

If there are any errors like some city doesn't work or Craigs has added a city since I last updated, go ahead and PM me and I'll fix it. Craigs has also changed the category variables from time to time so I have to tweak it every 6 mos or so.

Paul
 
Click to expand...
this is now on my favorites...

i also showed it to my brother he said, and i quote "my life is now complete." its on the favorites.:grinpimp:

:cheers:
 
Nice tool!

A suggestion: can you put the search terms in the URL of the results somehow? So we can bookmark the full search and go straight to the results the next day?

Now, if you could add a filter to remove scammers and morons, I would pay to use it and you would be rich!
 
Something's up??? Love this thing, have been using it since the get go, but can't get it going right now? Hope to god it is fixable, don't think I could ever go back to the way it was. Thanks Paul, you have saved numeorus hours, much appreciated
 
I came down here just now to print something and one of my kids had powered off the server. I give them so much grief for leaving things on and now they just brought down the server.

Sorry 'bout that. At least it got a reboot ...
 
pmccumber said:
I wrote a little search utility to make my life easier when I was searching for my 80, shopping for lenses, etc. on Craigslist. I posted this some time ago on the 80 tech page. I waited until I finally got the initiative to get a domain name and get it linked with my server to make the announcement here. And I added a third search field. Anyway, here is the link:

States

There is a writeup on the 80s tech page on how to use it here:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/243020-craigslist-search.html

Basically, I got tired of searching "Denver" for "Land Cruiser" and then "Landcruiser" and then "LX450" and then going and doing the same miserable thing for "Boulder" and then "Ft Collins" and then, well you get the idea.

This app lets you say what you want to look for and dispatches the queries and writes them back in one response. You can limit it so you don't have to see 56 when there are only a couple new ones per day. It also condenses the output with smaller font and packs the links a little which I like.

It will also let you search other categories other than cars, just look at the pulldown.

If there are any errors like some city doesn't work or Craigs has added a city since I last updated, go ahead and PM me and I'll fix it. Craigs has also changed the category variables from time to time so I have to tweak it every 6 mos or so.

Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help with the programming, it is very useful as I am on the hunt for a used UZJ100, but the Midwest is terrible for finding a used LC. There are hardly any when compared to Colorado, or any western U.S. states. Boring state that Illinois is! Have you thought about a search by region? ie; Midwest, West, East etc... I would love to search Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan at once.

Thanks Again.
 
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From Wired this week: Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess

Many have suggested I ad advertising or expand the capability to nationwide or regional. I'm just really scared Craig would banish me as this little story relates:

Buckmaster's dispassionate protest reflects his cast of mind. Emotional appeals are more likely to provoke his skepticism than his sympathy, and when the complaints come from aspiring Internet entrepreneurs he is especially prone to sarcasm. He hears many such complaints, because one of the most curious things about craigslist is that a company designed and run entirely by programmers is so hostile to outsiders who want to pull neat technical tricks to improve the site. A few years ago, independent programmer Jeff Atwood created a service that would allow people to search multiple cities at once or even search craigslist globally. Buckmaster arranged some technical interference to kill it off. Another programmer named Ryan Sit created a service called Listpic, which scraped images from craigslist and dumped them into an interface for browsing: You could scan through all the photos from the apartment listings or see pictures of all the dogs up for adoption. Buckmaster banished Listpic, too.

He had specific objections to both. Listpic ran ads, it put a high burden on craigslist servers, and when he looked at traffic records he noticed that Listpic was being used mainly to enhance enjoyment of the sexy images people posted in their erotic-services ads. Universal search subverts craigslist's mission to enable local, face-to-face transactions; it increases the risk of scams and can be exploited to snatch up bargains, giving technically sophisticated users an advantage over casual browsers. But the very surfeit of these practical objections—many of which probably have technical solutions—hints that the real explanation lies elsewhere, and with a minimum of pressure Buckmaster will state it plainly. It is the same reason that craigslist has never done any of the things that would win approval among Web entrepreneurs, the same reason he has never updated its 1999-era Web design. The reason is that craigslist's users are not asking for such changes.

Paul
 
well hopefully your site will stay up! cause I love it!!!
 
just tried the link. I have used it ALOT since your inception. Now link does not work:mad:
 
search engine wonky?

Man,

This has been a great tool - Thank you!

Just today, something strange started happening. The search results are showing up in micro-font. It's a real eye test. I tried it in IE and Chrome, same result in both browsers. Is Craigslist doing something to fight you?? Or is this just some wierd glitch in my system?
 
Yep it is wonky for me too. Each subsequent item in the result list is in a smaller font than the last. It makes all but the first few returned results unreadable.
 
Craigs started putting the city on a line in a smaller font with "-1" syntax and then using the tag <small> as well for the some of the other info. Since I am stripping out the relevant information and they had added this in there, I was picking up these two tags and it had the effect of dropping the font size after each search line rendered.

I think it is fixed now.

It was actually a bit of a pain to find it and fix it.

Paul
 
Just joined and wanted the url for the Craigslist search

Hi,
I just joined and was reading the posts for the Craigslist search. It sounds great but didn't see anywhere what the URL was. Any help would be appreciated. It sounds great. Thanks, Bob
 
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