I'm looking for a plugin that will allow me to (easily) add a list of 5 or so books I'm currently reading, with their pictures, to my sidebar. So far the only Amazon-related plugins I've been able to track down only allow you to put images in posts. Is there anything like this out there?
Amazon images in the sidebar? (23 posts)
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Jinsan
Posted 4 years ago #this some crazy wind up? have you searched for any amazon plugins so far using the search function? I promise you there are solutions, but you need to start using the search, it's there for a reason.
if you any further problems don't hesitate to post, and we;ll take it from there.
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Thanks for the semi-rude response, but yes, I have searched quite a bit. Hence the reference to all the other amazon-related plugins that my search turned up.
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mishku
Posted 4 years ago # -
Posted 4 years ago #hesed2 not being funny but where did you search, i typed in Amazon Plugin and found 10 entries, 3 of which were plugin related, and had links to the plugins. There are currently two plugins that provide what you're looking for, and mishku has been kind enough to provide three threads that cover the topic.
Do a search for Amazon plugin or Chairgear.
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Well, I searched here, and also at several different plugin sites. The two plugins I found were WP Amazon (which just helps with posts, as far as I can tell), and CG Amazon, which I have had a very difficult time finding any documentation on, and when I downloaded the plugin (together with all the others packaged with it), it basically looked like someone had thrown up php files on my desktop (and I say this as someone moderately comfortable with php, html, etc.). I should also add that I searched not only for 'amazon', but several other relevant terms.
I have to say, Jinsan, that I'm a bit taken aback at your response(s) to me here. If you take a look at my past posts on this forum you'll see that while I'm not the most knowledgeable person around, neither am I completely inept. I run across several very elementary queries on this forum each day, the vast majority of which do not require a new post. I find it somewhat strange that you've singled me out for this treatment, especially given that my initial post indicated that I had searched before posting.
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Posted 4 years ago #jinsan is having a bad hair day ;)
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Posted 4 years ago #don't talk about bad hair - i've had a hair cut, and it looks normal now. hesed2 as I stated I wasn't trying to be funny you haven't been singled out I just wonder if you've looked at the threads well enough.
David will give you support and documentation as well as help for the ChaitGear pack which is pretty popular and is realtively easy to install. I'm not saying you're inept, but give us an idea of what you have or haven't tried, what problems you've had with a particular plugin and then no one has to second guess you. Hows that sound?
To answer your original question ChaitGear allows you to add images to your sidebar, currently reading et al -if you view those threads, and check out some of the sites in those threads that use it you'll be able to see them in action.
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davidchait
Posted 4 years ago #hesed -
CG-Amazon's doc is included in the zip. If you are using a decent unzipping app, the contents should be unzipped into a single folder, containing the base install docs for CG-PowerPack, plus docs for individual plugins, plus a CG-Amazon Extras folder that has the CG-Amazon doc as it stands.
I'm more than happy to help address any issues you come up with, and always looking for improvements I can make.
FYI, the reason that I now do the "PowerPack" instead of a single plugin is that half the plugins share a number of core files, and a few actually depend on others (CG-Inline can use Amazon if installed, as can WhatTunes... etc.). And it's easier to manage one set than a bunch of individuals. I know this can seem more complex for users, but that's also why I put everything into a subfolder, and just 'stub plugins' for connecting wordpress up to the 'real code'...
Let me know if I can help. CG-Amazon was certainly designed to do sidebar Amazon stuff: just look at CHAITGEAR to see that. ;) And there should be a "Now Reading" example in the docs as of a few versions back..
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David, thanks for your response. I certainly understand your desire to keep things simple for yourself. But it does make is more difficult on others, particularly those who aren't incredibly familiar with web applications, etc. If I just want to use CG Amazon to post items in my sidebar, and the occasional item in a post, I assume I can delete all the 'plugin stubs' other than cg-amazon and cg-inline; is this correct?
When I activate cg-inline it adds about 100 lines of blank space to my most recent post.
I've just added some books to my database, pasted the code from your readme file into my template "
<?php show_amazon_items(3, 'rand', true, "NowReading"); ?>", and the result on my page is "No products found." (And yes, I have made sure the category names match).It looks like a good plugin, but I can't get it working.
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Ok, upon further investigation, I have noticed some very strange things. First off, I can only display three items or less in each category using the call: <cod><?php show_amazon_items(3, 'rand', true, "NowReading"); ?>. If I change the number to 2 or 1, it's fine. If I change it to 4, No Products Found.
Second problem. If there are less than three items in my database, nothing shows up. Again, with the above call, if there are two items in my database, No Products Found.This seems very strange to me. And I can't get it to display my wishlist at all, although that's not as big of a concern for me.
***edit*** If it helps, the blog I'm testing this out on is here: http://bryce.thelionrampant.net/
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Elana
Posted 4 years ago #There's also the Amazon Media Manager
http://www.denyerec.co.uk/index.php?p=63 -
Ok, here we go again. The only problems, at this stage, are:
1) if I try to display more items than exist in that category, I get No Products Found.2) there are about 100 lines of blank space displayed at the bottom of my most recent post. CG-Inline inserts
<div class='float-clear'></div>at the bottom of this post, for no apparent reason. But maybe I don't need CG-Inline at all?3) I can't figure out how to get my wishlist to show up, but this could be a problem with my wishlist ID. Where can I check what my ID is?
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Posted 4 years ago #Hey hesed -
Glad you're making progress. I just uploaded my 1.5.2 CGPP release, but I'll hold off 'connecting' it to users until I can look into your issue(s).
Sounds like the killer is there's some logic issue with requesting more items than exist. That'll hopefully be easy to find.
The second, the blank lines of space, sounds a bit strange, if CG-Inline isn't being used on that post. Even then, not sure what's being cleared that far down. I'll take a look. The float-clear thing is for when you have an inline (like Amazon) that is potentially larger than the surrounding text. The clear block allows CSS control of spacing, but I've never heard it do something like you describe (unless there's a weird html/css issue on that post/page).
3. Wishlist ID is accessible by going to your wishlist, clicking Share Your Wishlist, then grabbing the ID from the URL in the browser (should end in something like &id=Z8UC4ZGXPZU6, where Z8UC4ZGXPZU6 is the wishlist ID to reference).
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Posted 4 years ago #actually, it's clearing to the edge of the sidebar/menu, which is odd -- as if the sidebar was somehow embedded within the same div as all the posts... hmmm... will keep looking. You can quick-disable the 'effect' by putting:
$force_content_clears = false;
into your wp-config for the moment. Assuming you may want to use CG-Inline, that's the way to disable that particular 'feature'. ;)-d
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Thanks for the response David. The theme I'm using, Red Train, is slightly odd in that in calls the sidebar before the main content, so I don't know if that has something to do with the float-clear issue.
I'm messing around with CG-Inline now, and I'm a bit confused here as well. I wonder if I need to add some CSS or something. The image is getting pushed all the way down to the bottom of where the float-clear pushes the post. You can see what I'm talking about here: http://bryce.thelionrampant.net/ (scroll down to see the image). If you look at the source you can see that it shouldn't be displaying the way it is. I've also noticed that there is a file called image.php in the download package that I didn't see mentioned in the documentation anywhere.
Sorry for all the problems, I appreciate your help!
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Posted 4 years ago #Something's off with Wishlist stuff today - my own wl won't update properly. I've got a ping into the Amazon support staff.
I'm just merging my changes for the random-lookup issues (if you were doing a by-time favorites instead of random, it actually worked -- it did have to do with requesting more random entries than you had in the table... good catch!), and will get 1.5.2 uploaded asap.
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I actually did get the wishlist to display something, so I think at this point I have CG-Amazon running in a mostly manageable fashion. The only issue that remains is the number of items, and that's not too difficult to get around. I am curious about the display issue with CG-Inline that I mentioned above, however. I was also thinking that it would be nice to have a quicktab interface for CG-Inline. Just a suggestion.
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Posted 4 years ago #New CG-PP 1.5.2 is up...
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Thanks David. What is the recommended upgrade method?
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Posted 4 years ago #Drag and drop. ;)
If using a local test machine, on windows you can just drag the plugins folder over your current plugins folder, and it should do the right thing. On mac, you'd need to copy by selecting folder contents and copy over. On linux, cp.
If just uploading remote, you can just batch copy the contents of Plugins to wp-content/plugins, and contents of CG-Plugins subfolder to wp-content/cg-plugins...
I also just quickly turned off the cg-inline buggy thing, so might want to download again before doing the update process (was only a 7-min window, but...).
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I hate to say it, but this upgrade totally messed everything up. I can't even begin to describe the things that are broken now.
I guess I'll just have to wait around for a while and see if things get sorted out in the future. But at this point I can't run this on my main blog.
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Posted 4 years ago #Why don't you email me offline, and I'll help you get it up and running. I can't imagine what's broken -- this was primarily fixes across the board. I'd need to see it not-working to help fix it. cgcode at chait dot net.
One good rule of thumb: activate the plugins you need, as you need them. It could be a side effect from one of the other plugins if you went and turned them all on -- easily, given the current implementations of CG-Related and CG-PostOrder introduce buttons into the normal view for Admins (so turn those off first! ;) ).
CG-Amazon and friends have been in existance for something like a year and a half... And I'll endeavor to make sure they continue to work under most any setup! ;)
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