Craigslist Peek is a Google Chrome and Firefox Extension for Craigslist, kijiji (US), eBay Classifieds, 58 同城 and Facebook Marketplace listings page. Craigslist Peek shows Post and Image Preview.
Download:
Google Chrome Extension / Web Store https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/knpehhedikdgkbmhgagpcpcbclaidlmf (new features and issue-fixes first come here in Chrome and then in Firefox after month or so)
Firefox Addon : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/162070/ 
Safari Extension version coming soon. Both Firefox and Google Chrome versions works in Mac, use them for the time being.
I created this from my other Craigslist extension for cars section. And hence Suggestions feature in the cars and motorcycle section.
Features:
- Short description under listing
- Images under listing
- multiple cities listing. Widens your search area to include neighboring cities.
- Photo gallery
- Suggestions in cars & motorcycle section
- Minimum model Year filter cars & motorcycle section
- Auto refresh. Shows new posts on top. New post counter.
- Expands messages in craigslist Discussion forums (beta)
- Filter craigslist search results (beta)
- Fold / expand listing (chrome only)
- User can customize looks of it to their taste
I removed some features to keep it simple and practical. Later on I might add some features for particular categories of Craigslist.
Seems new changes in Facebook Marketplace are identical to how I was changing Facebook Marketplace with this extension, so now disabled other stuff and only doing image preview in this.
It looks like some sites (Google News : http://news.google.com and others) have now adopted similar concept to what I been doing in Craigslist Peek and Forum Preview. In these when a person clicks on a Post, it opens in a new-browser-tab. This saves you from clicking Back and re-loading the listing after viewing Post.
Usage Tips:
- Enable / disable multiple cities or auto-refresh in Settings according to your need.
Requirement:
Fast computer with fast internet connection.
Screenshots:
showing preview in gallery and list mode
showing list mode with ad excerpts, thumbnails and suggestions
craigslist peek extension - multiple cities listing selection
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- showing list mode with ad excerpts, thumbnails and suggestions
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- showing list mode with ad excerpts and thumbnails in real estate section
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- showing ad excerpt in listing
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- showing ad excerpt in listing
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- showing craigslist ad excerpt, thumbnail and suggestions.
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- showing image preview in gallery mode
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- showing preview in gallery and list mode
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- Settings – craigslist peek extension
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- craigslist peek extension showing preview on Kijiji listing
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- craigslist peek cars and motorcycle ad suggestion
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- Settings of craigslist-peek extension. Lets you configure preview image and text.
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- Settings of craigslist-peek extension. Lets you configure preview image and text.
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- craigslist peek multiple cities listing
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- craigslist peek multiple cities listing
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- craigslist peek multiple cities and new posts indicator
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- craigslist filter exclude search keywords
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- 58 同城 Image Preview with Craigslist Peek Extension
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- Facebook-Marketplace Image Preview with Craigslist Peek Extension
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- Craigslist Peek Extension Car Minimum model Year Filter
Updates:
[date 2010-04-09] Version 0.329
* New posts counter on top.
* Improved adding multiple cities for listing
* Support for eBay’s Kijiji to eBayClassifieds change.
[date 2010-04-04] Version 0.305
* Restructured code a bit.
* Now it allows to show multiple cities listing.
* Added auto refresh of listing every few minutes.
* few new options in Settings screen.
[date 2010-03-01] Version 0.165
* Restructured code a bit.
* Fixed one odd case where it wasn’t working.
[date 2010-02-14] Version 0.150
* Added Suggestions (for Cars/motorcycle section only) feature to Gallery mode also. It adds red border around images of ad that the buyer might want to be extra careful about.
* Fixed couple of bugs regarding default settings and image spacing in gallery mode.
* Just checked some similar ff extensions and found that there Settings screen is almost similar to mine.
[date 2010-02-09] Version 0.140
* Fixed couple of bugs regarding click in gallery mode.
[date 2010-02-06] Version 0.135
* Now image preview works on Kijiji listings also.
[date 2010-01-04] Version 0.105
© 2010 tech4computer
Wonderful add-on you have here, But in recent version I have a really annoying problem. Now all the thumbnails will display. It does not matter if I use Gallery mode or not. I only get about 20 – 30 images at most then just blank fillers. This happens on CL, and I am on a super fast 20Mb Cable connection. Not knocking your stuff here but other plugins work fine to do the same thing, perhaps there is a time out option in the code that can be tweaked? Or maybe a refinement to the UI to allow a end user in cress the time out./?
Justin,
Thx for feedback. I was not able to re-create the issue. At most I get some photos not loading but those were external hosted ‘photobucket’ or similar service ones that has bandwidth exceed label on them. I don’t have any timeout set in the extension.
Can you again test and see how its working, maybe in the Settings panel reduce the number of pics to 4 and see if that affects the loading.
Also can you tell me below information:
- Craigslist site & section (e.g. seattle.craigslist.org cars&trucks) you are using.
- version of Google Chrome
- any other extensions (ad block like?) you might be using.
- is your computer cpu+ram fast (recent years).
Hi there!
Looks like a great extension, but when I downloaded/installed in on my Google Chrome, it doesn’t work! It doesn’t recognize that it’s on a CL site, so the little peace sign never appears in the address bar, so I can’t change the settings, either. Help??
Thanks!
Hi, Thanks for feedback. It could be that you might be using Google Chrome in Incognito (private) mode. Extensions are disabled in Incognito mode by default. If this is the case then you can enable it by going to the Extensions tab (wrench icon->Extensions. In newer chrome wrench icon->tools->extensions). In Extensions tab tick the checkbox next to Craigslist Peek that says ‘Allow in incognito”.
Let me know if this is not the case.
I’ve not been able to get the little peace sign in the address bar for some time now (few months). I’ve tried Chrome and Chromium, resetting the preferences for my browsers, uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin, but it just won’t work. I LOVED this extension when it worked. Do you have any additional suggestions to get it working again, besides the Incognito one? I can get every other Craigslist extension to work, but I just want this one.
I’m just tested it (Craigslist Peek version 0.590) again on Google Chrome 6.0.495.0 dev, Google Chrome 7.0.503.0 canary build running on Windows Vista. It works fine for me.
Are you using it on Mac or Linux?
Does it shows as installed in Extensions tab (Wrench icon -> Tools -> Extensions)?
Wrench icon -> About Google Chrome, will show the version of Google Chrome you are using.
Can you also check if there are any errors in Console indicating failure. You can view console by Wrench icon (top right corner) -> Tools -> Javascript Console. This pops up a box and there should be a ‘Console’ (rightmost) tab in it.
Also can you test if my other extension works in your browser. Please try installing Forum Preview and visit advrider forum to see if it shows the peace icon in address bar. Also try Craigslist Car Research extension and visit Cars section of craigslist, try couple of postings to see if it does anything.
It could be that some other plugin or extension in your browser might be interfering with this extension. Maybe you can test with temporarily ‘disabling’ other extensions and plugins, just to make sure that they are not interfering with it.
There is also a Firefox version of Craigslist Peek extension available though the Chrome version is better.
I just now tested it remotely on friends machine (my own computer is a Windows Vista) running Mac Leopard/Snow-Leopard in virtual machine. There seems to be a big issue there on Mac. I would try to troubleshoot it.
No issues in Windows but if you have installed my extension Craigslist Peek (or Forum Preview) in Google Chrome running on Mac then there is a memory leak. On Google Chrome menu View -> Developer -> Task Manager and see how much memory the extensions are eating. On my Windows it shows normal about 5000k to 7000k range but on Mac it was showing about 550MB, which is huge and was choking it.
So for now if you are using Mac then use these extension in Firefox as they run fine in Firefox on Mac. Uninstall the extensions from Chrome.
Thanks for looking into it. I am on a Mac running the latest version of Snow Leopard and using the latest builds of Chrome 6 and 7. Chrome 6 doesn’t seem to have a leak, but yes, Chrome 7 eats a ton of memory. I’ll just use Firefox for now.
Thanks again for making a great extension; Craigslist is usable now!
I have updated Craigslist Peek to 0.602. Can you check if it fixes the issue on Mac.
It’s back, baby! Thanks!
I’m using Craigslist Peek v0.042 on FireFox v3.6.8 and it really makes browsing Craigslist easier!
The only improvement I need is to be able to make the text smaller. I’ve clicked the “Text Size” minus (-) button a million times and it seems to only go down to a certain size and it is still just a little too large for me.
Otherwise, I think you’ve done a GREAT job!!!!
Thanks!
Thanks for pointing me to a bug. Looks like I broke the Text Size adjustment functionality in newer releases. This one will take me some time to fix. Text size (-/+) is a crucial feature of this extension. While I fix this maybe you can use Chrome browser version of it. This will work on variants of Chrome : Chromium (mini_installer) , Google Chrome or Canary
Which OS you are using it on (windows / linux/mac)?
This bug is only in Firefox 3.6.x, it works fine if you are using Firefox beta 4.0b.
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Seems broken on Firefox 4 (beta 4).
Can you try the Craigslist Peek version 0.110 . See if it works fine for you. I tested it on Firefox 4b5pre (nightly build). Also there is a fix in it for newer design of Craigslist about sites page.
If you enjoy this extension then please give rating on Addons page.
Thank you for the quick response. I updated to 0.110 as you suggested, but it isn’t working with 4.04b properly. I can’t add any cities or adjust the font/photo size/type. Additionally the right click menu doesn’t have a background. Perhaps they made a change from B4 to B5pre that affects your plugin behavior.
I just installed 20100818 Firefox/4.0b4 and like you said it doesn’t work in this version. From firefox 3.6.x version to firefox 4.0.x version, mozilla is doing lot of changes to browser Preferences handling, Add-on Manager, html5, regular expression (pattern matching overhaul) ..so one of these changes broke the extension. Its really hard to find out what exact change broke it. The extension started working again in recent version of Firefox 4.0b5pre nightly. I hope mozilla pushes out Firefox 4.0b5pre as Firefox 4.0b5 soon.
For time being if you can’t use Firefox nightly then maybe try the Chrome browser (Google Chrome or Chromium or SRW Iron) port of craigslist peek.
Thank you, I did upgrade to the latest nightly build and everything seems to be working again. The only issue is, the “menu” if you right click on the icon for settings has no background. I don’t know if this is something they are going to be resolving or if requires an update on you part.
TY!!
Mozilla deprecated the ‘menu’ part of the API and made it transparent. I have fixed it and it shouldn’t be transparent in next update.
Great extension! Other plugins I tried for Craigslist previews didn’t work with the auto-pager extension – it only loaded images on the first page. This one does it all. Thanks!
Hmmm… didn’t find any place to report it, but it seems that your extension is causing Firefox 3.6.9 to “forget” all toolbar settings every time I restart. As soon as I disable your extension everything started to work normally again.
I already submitted the fix. Its awaiting mozilla editor review for public release. Can you try the latest version (from show All Versions) to see if it fixed the problem for you.
Thanks for reporting it.
Yep, the latest version did fix the issue. Thanks a lot! Btw, what’s the best place to report issues/suggestions?
This blog is the good place to make suggestions and issues. I get notification of comment in email.
I love your extension and use it in Chrome all the time; it reinterprets the entire craigslist experience in such a streamlined manner. I know you’ve mentioned in past posts that a version of the extension for Safari is in the works but I haven’t seen any updates on the topic lately. Just curious if there’s still any potential of a release in the near future. Thanks,
Peter
Thanks for feedback. Its (craigslist peek) not ready yet. I got side tracked fixing some bugs, adding new features. Did finished porting one (craigslist phone search, simple extension) of my extension to safari. But then faced the issue of where to host it. Apple just links to the developer extension and doesn’t host it on there own servers unlike google.
There are some other things that I need to sort out before publishing a safari version of extensions, hopefully in this month.
Sometime back the chrome extension wasn’t working properly on Mac. I have fixed that issue and it should be working fine.
If you want I can inform you when it gets available.
Is Safari your main browser? Are you using Chrome only because of these extensions?
I love this extension in Chrome but I like to use safari as my main browser. In fact, anytime I search c-list I go to chrome. I would love it if you could get this working for safari.
Cheers,
Tim
Hi, love your new extension!!! Really a Godsend for avid Craigslist users.
I’m using Craigslist Peek on Firefox 3.6.11 on a Mac. Everything’s flawless except the multi-city search. Is this still in beta? I can see the cities that are search-able and the + & – signs, but can’t click on them to add or remove. Anything I might be missing? Thanks so much for this great new addition!
Hi, Thanks for reporting a possible issue. I don’t have a Mac with me right now to test it. I tested it on Firefox 3.6.11 in Windows Vista and seemed to be working ok. Clicking on ‘+’ highlights the city name next to it. And when I browsed listing on craigslist, it showed me aggregate list of the two cities I have selected. Can you click on the Craigslist Peek iconn -> Settings and see if Mulitiple Cities checkbox is ticked. Also was this feature working for you before? After clicking ‘+’ on 2-3 city names reload (F5) the page and check on top part of page to see if its showing your selected cities. Also if it still doesn’t work then can you try Google Chrome port of Craigslist Peek to see if the issue is in both browsers.
I tested it on Mac Snow Leopard + Firefox 3.6.11, it seemed to be working fine.
Wonderful ..this extension. But I can not figure out how to use it. Tutorials are in silent mode – NO SOUND! And I do not understand the visual shown. Too small. Blurred sometimes. Heck, I can not figure out how to bring the dang thing up to use it.
Would you please put some spoken words with what you show? So I can follow along.
Thank you
Hi, Thanks. Which browser (Firefox or Google Chrome) are you using for this? On the right-bottom corner of the video there is a fullscreen button (nothing is written on it though, just 4 tiny lines). Click on it to make the video to expand to full screen. You can Pause & Play video anytime by clicking anywhere on the video.
This was my first attempt at youtube video. I guess I need to make a new one.
Hi, tech4….
Thanks for answering. I know about full screen. That does not solve my problem. Because all my questions before come from viewing in full screen.
I NEED SOUND WITH THE VIDEO. To tell me: why you highlight what you show? And why do you show what you show? I find my self saying: “So what? Why is he highlighting that?” I have no answer.
I use Chrome mostly; firefox a little. No problem there. Installing is not my problem. Once installed, how do I get it to come up? I can not find anything in preferences. I can not find anything in my browser. Clicking on your icon only brings up preferences. How do I bring it up so I can do a search on what I want to search on? That is my BIGGEST question.
Yes, please make another video WITH SOUND. Everyone gets better the more they use something. And getting better with YouTube will get you a ton more customers.
Thanks for writing me.
hi. great extension. i’m using it in chrome on Ubuntu 10.10 on a Dell E1505 notebook – fantastic…!
this is better than some of the others i’ve found, more adjustable – except for 1 thing: there are no dates or times (as are normally shown when you list CL posts).
the only way to see when it was posted is to open the post, like in a new tab.
that’s my only complaint about a really nice extension.
thanks, jon
Thanks Jon, I haven’t thought about the dates before. Are you using particular sections or search criteria where time of the post is critical? I just checked the ‘Computers’ sales/section of Craigslist and noticed that there is no date prefix to listing header. But when I search for ‘laptop’ under Computers then it shows ‘Jan 20′ date, no time info though.
My thinking about the text+image preview was to cleanly show enough information so that the reader can make a decision within a second or two to skip the ad or click on it to see full page.
Will see if I can display the time information easily, but this will take time as at the moment I’m working on Forum Preview extension.
Great extension!
One suggestion though: include the time the item was posted on CL. Especially with the free stuff this is relevant information as it’s usually pointless to respond if the ad is already a couple of hours old.
Thanks, in Google Chrome added Option ‘Show Date’ in Settings. Its Off by default. It will take some time to add it to Firefox.
fantastic! i use this on Chrome & Firefox. it’s easy to adjust.
my only complaint is the date & time needs to be displayed, probably under the title.
it works on all of CL, i use it in community all the time.
dang it, should have read the last comments. thanks for adding the date!
I really enjoy your extension, it has changed my Craigslist experience from a frustrating waste of time to a convenient, efficient asset. There is one annoying feature that could be improved.
I use the gallery view, but this forces the search functions to the bottom of the page. As the images load, I often see that I want to change my search string, but the search box is continually migrating down the screen as the images continue to load. I know of no way to pause the loading of the images, and wouldn’t even need to do it if the search box would remain on top of the screen as it is in the typical Craigslist page.
Hopefully you could consider this change in any future versions of the extension.
Thanks
Thanks! Version 0.850 of Craigslist Peek on Chrome Web Store has gallery ‘on top’ (or bottom) option.
Hey Thomas | I like your extension & use it all the time. Question: is it possible to filter out post’s that don’t include a location in the add? The Mega-Spam sites keep getting worse posting sometimes 100 ad’s straight just pointing you to a website. Seeing 100 post’s in a row all with the same image is just annoying. Anyway, will you consider adding this in the next update?
Thanks’
Jeff
Thanks for suggestion. I have added it to my To-do list and will soon implement it.
I like the idea of your extension, but I had one very annoying problem with it. Every few minutes my browser would lock up for about 2-3 seconds, then be fine. Often I would have to wait. Once I disabled your extension, this problem went away.
This happened even while I was not on a CL page. Just wanted to give you a heads up for a potential problem.
Thanks Wired for the heads up. I believe this is only in Firefox. Fix is coming up in next update of Craigslist Peek on Firefox.
Also adding auto-refresh time in Settings.
Great extension! Definitely very useful with car research. I had one suggestion for an additional feature: a hide/close button next to each link to manually remove links I don’t want to see. I was able to add these to the page manually with javascript and it helps a lot in reducing clutter on pages where results are frequently updated.
Thanks for the feedback and useful suggestion. I have thought about this functionality and have another extension with filtering capability. It used to automatically remove the links that didn’t fall into certain criteria. Later Craigslist improved their listing page and add some of the missing features that my extension/script was providing. I have a Forums extension that one also uses expand/collapse feature similar to the ‘–’ button on right top corner of Craigslist Peek.
In Cars listing if you specify a Make year range then any post that doesn’t fall into criteria won’t be expanded. Initially I was just removing them, but later realized that some ads were genuine and were just poorly edited so they were falling out of criteria and user might miss out on them. I might add this hide/un – hide feature, maybe will have it off by default so that only advanced users can use it, as not all people are computer savy enough to intuitively figure out features.
Craigslist Peek is GREAT! Thanks for the excellant implementation.
# of Characters to show in description:
Is it possible to bump the 550 character limitation to 2000? The 550 character limitation truncates long-winded entries.
(I love Vancouver, B.C. … would not mind living there)
I will see if I can increase the limit in next update. Thanks for using it.
Thanks for this! Trying to use it to check multiple cities to see if my stolen bike shows up anywhere.
Feature requests (in order from highest to lowest priority):
1. When searching multiple cities, can the full results be sorted by date rather than just by city/date?
2. Is there a way to “select all” cities in a state?
3. Can’t figure out if there’s a way to get email updates every hour or so if there’s a new listing (within the multiple cities)…
Thank you!
Hi: I really like your extension for Craigslist. I have way too many dealer adds in my area. I was wondering if I can filter out dealer adds?
Thanks,
Dennis
Dennis, There are two links (“by-owner | by-dealer”) just above the Search box on Craigslist’s car listings page. Click on the “by-owner” and it will only show postings by private sellers. This is how it shows to me for most US and Canadian cities. If you don’t find the ‘by-owner’ link then please let me know what city you are searching in so I can test it out too. Also if you see that some (dealer) is using a particular/unique word in ad title then you can specify that in “don’t show/expand posts..” field. Hope this helps.