Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Craigslist Auto Poster

If you have used macro type programs in the past this is basically the same thing, in fact it has the option to record your mouse and keyboard but I've found that's a not very reliable or consistent way of making any type of "bot" or macro.
So on to how to use it. I won't be going over every single step as some are pretty simple as I'd rather not write a book here. But I will cover some of the more important points.
First is the "Wait" category, unless you have a lighting fast PC and connection this category is the key to making it all work. You will want to test and see what your average load time is for all the Craigslist pages and add a second or 2 so the macro doesn't get ahead of itself.
Use "Wait for Window" to pull up the window you want to use in "Wait for Window" NOT "Focus Window" in the "Windows" category. Myself I never use anything in the "Windows" category. Also always make sure you check the "Focus Window after it opens" box in the advanced tab. When choosing your "Window Title" I always use wildcards (*) so the poster won't get stuck if cl happens to change the spacing, wording, etc of a page. For example my title would be * – Mozilla Firefox . I use IE to post with and firefox for the captcha solving page to keep things separate and have less chance of error.
I'm sure everyone can figure out the mouse and keyboard category so I'm gonna skip that one and just say set the "Delay between keystrokes" to something humanly possible. Even with Tabs slow it down so their is a slight pause between tabs or it isn't 100% consistent. Another tip is with having the mouse click on things always maximize the window so whatever your clicking on "should" be in the same place every time.
Now on to the good stuff variables. Here is where it can look less like a bot and more like a person. Anything you can copy and paste can now be set in a variable and typed, for example usernames and passwords. Make a variable for each thing you want typed, yes you possibly could use just one for everything but that obviously has a higher chance of error plus it makes editing the macro easier if you can spot things like variable names to help you know where you are in the operation.
Setting the variable from the clipboard is easy just find the "clipboard" category and drag and drop "get clipboard text" it will then ask you what variable you want the text stored in.
Now how do you make it type the text stored in the variable? Pull up a "Send Keys" box and enter %variablename% the %'s are what tells it to look for a variable and not just type normally.
Incase your thinking that all sounds great but where does it get all the info for the variables etc as seen in the video I use a spread sheet. Most of you will use excel I'm guessing but I use old Works spreadsheet as it's what I've used for the last 10yrs for accounting and whatnot. Try to set things in the spread sheet in order so you don't have to do a ton of moving back and forth, like mine does, so again you have less chance of error. Sure it's not like a ready made poster where you load content and accounts once and your done but even for a run of 250 ads it takes me maybe 20mins to load the sheet for the day. You can always automate that too once you learn how to use the program.
How does all that blah blah blah make a poster you may ask? Just those tips alone doesn't but once you play with winautomation a bit and work step by step through each and every screen/window it will slowly become a poster. The main things are try to use mouse clicks as little as possible and remember slower is better. The poster is alot better if it takes 3mins to post an ad and does it 24/7 then if it can post in 2mins but screws up all the time.

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