Besides striking fear in the hearts of men, it can sure mess with your sales on eBay! Below is a script you can include in your listings which will help by providing a fall back to a second image host if your first one fails. It was written by baconbuttie, a regular on eBay and a wiz (if I do say so myself!) with JavaScript. It is compact and easy to use.
You will need to use two image hosts, with a complete set of pictures on each host, so that if the first one fails there is a full set of images available on the second one.
Next, you will need to name each of your images in the <img...> tag in your listing, using the 'name' attribute, like this:
<img src="http://pri_server/folder/image1.gif" border="0" name="bbImg1">
<img src="http://pri_server/folder/image2.gif" border="0" name="bbImg2">
Be sure to use the 'bbImg#' as in the example and give each image file a unique number. You can use whatever actual filename you want for the files, the image1.gif, etc., is just an example.
Here is the JavaScript code you will need to put at the very end of your description section:
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
It's always the right time to use good code!
What can I do if my image host goes down?
You may be using a fee picture host, paying for professional service, using your ISP web space or even hosting images on your own home computer, but whatever method you choose, you are sure to run into a time when your image server goes down and you are left with nothing but the infamous box with the red x, like this:
<img src="http://pri_server/folder/image3.gif" border="0" name="bbImg3">
<!--//
// script to create image redundancy
// simply change the next line to your "alternate" image host.
var altPath="http://alt_server/folder/";
// remember to name your all images with a "bbImg" prefix as shown above,
// and upload the images to your alternate host with the same filenames.
// DO NOT SPECIFY IMAGE WIDTH for any image you want redundancy for.
// works in IE, NS, Firebird, Opera
// baconbuttie November 2003
for(i=1;i<=(document.images.length);i++){
if(document.images[i-1].name.indexOf("bbImg")!=-1){if(document.images[i-1].width<40){
document.images[i-1].src=(altPath+(document.images[i-1].src.substr((document.images[i-1].src.lastIndexOf("/"))+1)));}}}
//--></script>
