Marketplace Release Notes: April 12, 2011

[Brooke Linden]

Today’s deployment includes the following changes:

• Set default maturity correctly for users whose maturity preference is not explicitly set in the Viewer
• Listing enhancements are not auto-renewed if the item is unlisted or there is no inventory
• CSV download now works for non-Engilsh locales
• Search button visible with all browser font sizes
• Updated help links now point to the new community platform

On Monday, our ad server fixed the SSL issue.

Please let us know if you see any issues with the above.

Thank you!
Brooke

[Maxxi Short]

It says "CSV download now works for non-English locales". However, it now seems to assume that we're all Americans!

My CSV download for transactions used to output the date and time of the transaction as dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm, so I could just open this in Excel and copy to my master spreadsheet.

Now, however, it outputs the date in US format only - so column A of my spreadsheet reads mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm, which won't sort on date in Excel (since my regional setting are for standard date format, not US date format).

This is actually a real pain, because there doesn't seem to be an easy way of getting round this - I'm having to insert columns, put a formula in to treat the date as a string, split it by "/" signs and re-arrange the month and date. It had been working just perfectly until now.

Any chance of fixing this so it worked like it used to?

 

Maxxi.

[Argus Collingwood]

I can format that cell to numerous date types incuding EURO/UK. Wonder why it is not working for you?

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Maxxi Short wrote:

It says "CSV download now works for non-English locales". However, it now seems to assume that we're all Americans!

My CSV download for transactions used to output the date and time of the transaction as dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm, so I could just open this in Excel and copy to my master spreadsheet.

Now, however, it outputs the date in US format only - so column A of my spreadsheet reads mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm, which won't sort on date in Excel (since my regional setting are for standard date format, not US date format).

This is actually a real pain, because there doesn't seem to be an easy way of getting round this - I'm having to insert columns, put a formula in to treat the date as a string, split it by "/" signs and re-arrange the month and date. It had been working just perfectly until now.

Any chance of fixing this so it worked like it used to?

 

Maxxi.

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[Shayne Hesten]

Query posted here for Brooke to reply to as per Dakota's request.

There appears to be conflicting opinions in the forums on certain aspects of the Marketplace search and rankings.

Some state that any edits made to a Marketplace entry, whether it be in price, description, heading, then that item goes to the bottom once more of the search rankings as if it were a new item.

Would you please confirm for us here whether making amendments to a listed item, such as changing display pictures, related items, price or even paying for advertising (or taking it off) affects that item's position in the search rankings and places it back to the bottom, or if any edits made do not affect that item's position in the search rankings at all once the Update button is pressed.

[miakasm Davi]

ah, i really upset, why the manager of the marketplace they didnt check if the boxes of the marketplace are totally and really same like the objets of the advertisment? yesterday i saw one foto with a nice model, i thinking oh yeah, the perfect avi, and when i buy, i open my box, and the shapes and skin its all for beginner, the most bad of this is that i was pay for it...i hate, why they let the people say pay me for a beginner skin and shape? it should be freebie!

[Blackdog Ashbourne]

I have the same problem with dates as Maxxi (mm/dd/yyyy instead of dd/mm/yyyy) and would similarly like to see this behaviour reverted.  ISO format dates would be even better.

[Maxxi Short]

Blackdog, I totally agree - ISO format would be great, *and* consistent - because that's what SL already uses in its transaction logs for inworld purchases. A standard format for both Marketplace and in-world would be excellent.

I do have an old version of Excel (2003), but I can't see an option to format a cell in data I've downloaded as "Euro". I can change my locale for a group of cells between US and UK, but the downloaded data is in the form mm/dd/yyyy hh:nn which doesn't seem to correspond to any of the known "date" formats in Excel (presumably because it's a date and time combined), although when it's in dd/mm/yyyy hh:nn format, it sorts perfectly.

I can half get round it now by changing the locale for those cells to US format, then sorting - and it sorts them fine. But the dates are still displayed in mm/dd/yyyy format, and I can't get Excel to display those as dd/mm/yyyy. It seems as though once it's downloaded, Excel thinks it's text. Unless I'm missing some totally obvious Excel function that will do this?

 

But as Blackdog says, ISO format would work for everyone - and would be compatible with the in-world transaction log format.

[Maxxi Short]

I have a (messy) solution to my problem now. Since others outside the US are having the same issue, I thought I'd post this workaround. If anyone has an easier solution, I'd be grateful!

I'm using Excel 2003, which is an old version, I know - it may be easier in later versions.

1. Download the CSV file from Marketplace and open in Excel. This will give you columns A to L (Date, Order #, SKU, Item, Order Item ID,Buyer, Recipient, Price, State, Commission, Distributions, Net amount). Column A has the date in the format 05/22/2011 17:50

2. Select the date/times in column A, and tell Excel this is US format by clicking on Format then Cells, go to Special, go to Custom, and enter mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm in the format box (it's not one of the available options if your locale is set to anything other than US, so you have to enter it manually).

3. We're going to create two new columns, M and N, which will have a date and a time in. To do this, select the block of date/times in column A, click on Data, then Text to Columns.

4. This brings up a window showing the data and asking if it's delimited or fixed width. Choose delimited, then click Next.

5. Now you're asked for delimiters. Tick "space". The display then shows a line separating your dates and times. Click Next.

6. The first column is highlighed in this window - and that column now just shows a date in US format, and the column data format radio button has "General" highlighted. Select "date" instead, and choose "MDY" from the drop-down box to tell it that it's currently in that format.

7. The box labelled "Destination" currently says $A$2. Change this to $M$2, then click Finish.

8. You now have two extra columns, M and N. M is the date (now in non-US format), N is the time. Excel actually holds these as numbers internally, M being a largeish integer (the number of days since a certain date), and N being a float less than 1 (0.5 means 12:00, for instance). So to merge these two columns back into a date/time field, we add them together. Go to cell A2 (since row 1 is the header row with descriptions rather than data) and type in the formula =M2+N2

9. You'll see it change straight back to something like 05/22/2011 17:50 again (just as it was in the first place) but with a subtle difference - it's right justified rather than left justified. Yup, Excel now knows it's a date/time and NOT a piece of text. Copy this formula down to the other cells (I just select the cell and drag the bottom right hand corner down over all the entries in column A).

10. Now we've converted everything in column A to a proper date, just select all the entries in column A, and click on Format and Cells again, choose custom as before, and this time select the date format as dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm, and all your dates will change to non-US format.

11. Finally - although this spreadsheet *looks* OK, column A contains formulae, not data - so fix that by selecting everything in column A, then Edit and Copy, then choose Paste Special, and select "values" to paste just the values and not the formulae back into column A.

12. Now you can safely delete columns M and N, to make your spreadsheet look just like it did in the good old days before this release when you downloaded your transactions