Nice and Simple, But Could Be Improved

I went ahead and hacked the plugin code, replacing the code linking the cover image to Google with the code that echos the custom message field, then I put ONLY the book’s Amazon link in the custom message area. Voila, book cover links to the Amazon page. I also added a title tag to the img code that outputs the book title, which is just good practice 😉

Here’s my new code in currently-reading-book/currently-reading-book.php (the first lines are unchanged, so you can search for the portion that needs replacing using that. It’s toward the beginning of the file):

// Output this anywhere in the blog
	function currently_reading_book() {
		$crb_settings = get_option('currently_reading_book_settings');

		if($crb_settings['visibility_settings']['show_preview']) {

?>

			<a href="<?php echo stripslashes($crb_settings['book_custom_msg']); ?>" <?php if($crb_settings['preview_new_window']) { ?> target="_blank" <?php } ?>>
	        <img src="<?php echo $crb_settings['book_cover'] ?>" title="<?php echo stripslashes($crb_settings['book_title']); ?>"/></a>

<?php

		}

Thanks for the reply 🙂

I actually liked this plugin over another I tried because I didn’t have to mess with the Amazon app/API thing where I had to enter a secret key to set it up and all that jazz, so I like the idea of keeping it simple. I don’t think most people would mind manually entering the Amazon URL for each book.

Love the idea of a bookshelf mode, as long as there isn’t a bunch of design involved. no clever bookshelf background graphic or anything, please. Ideally, it’d be styled pretty much how I currently have it on my own site, but with the option to show 2 books side by side (or one after another, as the user would like to set it up for their layout): http://www.ashleyheckman.com/me/

One of the better aspects of this plugin, IMO was the minimal CSS I had to add to center everything and simplify/style the text output. Please don’t make that more complex than needed in future releases 😉

Wish more plugin authors did the same!