Adding more categories to the Amazon Plugin

cellounge · Post by **cellounge** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:47 pm

In the amazon plugin you can only search under 16 different catagories. How would you add the other 16 categories that are in Amazon's directories. For instance, I have a cell phone blog at http://www.celllounge.com/cellphones I would like to use the amazon plugin there, but the cellphone category is not available.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Post by **garvinhicking** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:04 pm

For future questions like these, please use the "Plugins" forum. This "Development" forum is only meant for actual code contributions or actual code questions.

But on to your question:

I figure you're using the serendipity_event_amazonchooser plugin? That file contains this code:

Code: Select all

                           $mode= array(
                                'baby',
                                'books',
                                'classical',
                                'dvd',
                                'electronics',
                                'garden',
                                'kitchen',
                                'magazines',
                                'music',
                                'pc-hardware',
                                'photo',
                                'software',
                                'toys',
                                'universal',
                                'vhs',
                                'videogames'
                            );

So there you could easily enhance the $mode array. If you tell me the list of all names, I can also patch them to the plugin and committ it.

Best regards,
Garvin

cellounge · Post by **cellounge** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:20 pm

Code: Select all

$mode= array( 
                                'baby',
                                'books',
                                'cell phone',
                                'classical',
                                'dvd',
                                'electronics',
                                'garden',
                                'kitchen',
                                'magazines',
                                'music',
                                'pc-hardware',
                                'photo',
                                'software',
                                'toys',
                                'universal',
                                'vhs',
                                'videogames'
                            );

                            $mode_names = array (
                                'baby' => 'Baby',
                                'books' => 'Books',
                                'classical' => 'Classical Music',
                                'cell phone' => 'Cell Phones', 
                                'dvd' => 'DVD',
                                'electronics' => 'Electronics',
                                'garden' => 'Outdoor Living',
                                'kitchen' => 'Kitchen & Housewares',
                                'magazines' => 'Magazines',
                                'music' => 'Popular Music',
                                'pc-hardware' => 'Computers',
                                'photo' => 'Camera & Photo',
                                'software' => 'Software',
                                'toys' => 'Toys & Games',
                                'universal' => 'Tools & Hardware',
                                'vhs' => 'Video',
                                'videogames' => 'Computer & Video Games'
                            );

When I put cell phones in this array I get kids bops results or wierd things not related to cell phones Did I code the array wrong?

cellounge · Post by **cellounge** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:31 pm

1. Audio + Video
2. Cell Phones
3. Office Products
4. Musical instruments
5. Home + Garden
6. Automotive
7. Bed + Bath
8. Furniture and Decor
9. Gourmet Food
10. Pet Supplies
11. Apperall and accessories
12. Shoes
13. Jewelry and Watches
14. Beauty
15. Health and persoanl Care
16. Sports + Outdoors

Much appreciated, and by the way Serendipity is the best blogging software I have ever tried. It beats pmachine hands down!

Post by **garvinhicking** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:28 pm

Hi!

Sadly it just seems that Amazon does not have a WebServer category name associated with it.

I am very sure that spaces are not allowed in category names. You might want to try "cell_phones" or "cellphones".

I browsed thorugh the Amazon site but could not find a definition in their API on how to map which category. Maybe you can find it.

If you google for "pc-hardware garden classical baby vhs amazon" you can see many code listings of similar snippets, but NONE of them contain cellphones...at least none of which i found.

Lastly, you could try to contact Amazon to ask them?

Best regards,
Garvin

mgroeninger · Post by **mgroeninger** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:57 pm

Amazon's documentation is getting pretty dated, but the category list here seems to be close to accurate. I don't have time to make any changes to the plugin right now, but I might be able to next week sometime...

Note that not all the servers support the full list of indexes, and I love the line about

All search index names are case-sensitive.

since none of indexes are currently captialized and appear to still be working... (though, actually, I haven't used this plugin in a few months, so I might be wrong.)

cellounge · Post by **cellounge** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:40 pm

Just wanted to say thanks a bunch for your help. I will give this a try and see what happens. I just wonder if wireless accessories in that list is what I need. By the way all of categories are in lower case and they all work. You can see for yourself at http://www.cellounge.com/community/

mgroeninger · Post by **mgroeninger** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:56 pm

Wow, sorry, I was rushing there... That link wasn't the direct link I wanted I guess...

Try this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/sdk/main.h ... ndexValues

Or you can just try something like:

Code: Select all

$mode= array(
                                'baby',
                                'books',
                                'classical',
                                'dvd',
                                'electronics',
                                'garden',
                                'kitchen',
                                'magazines',
                                'music',
                                'pc-hardware',
                                'photo',
                                'software',
                                'toys',
                                'universal',
                                'vhs',
                                'videogames',
                                'Wireless',
                                'WirelessAccessories'
                            );

                            $mode_names = array (
                                'baby' => 'Baby',
                                'books' => 'Books',
                                'classical' => 'Classical Music',
                                'cell phone' => 'Cell Phones',
                                'dvd' => 'DVD',
                                'electronics' => 'Electronics',
                                'garden' => 'Outdoor Living',
                                'kitchen' => 'Kitchen & Housewares',
                                'magazines' => 'Magazines',
                                'music' => 'Popular Music',
                                'pc-hardware' => 'Computers',
                                'photo' => 'Camera & Photo',
                                'software' => 'Software',
                                'toys' => 'Toys & Games',
                                'universal' => 'Tools & Hardware',
                                'vhs' => 'Video',
                                'videogames' => 'Computer & Video Games',
                                'Wireless' => 'Wireless Phones',
                                'WirelessAccessories' => 'Wireless Accessories'
                            );

At least, I think that should work...

And I'm glad to hear the plugin is working for you!

Edit: Looks like you found the list on your own... Glad you did!

cellounge · Post by **cellounge** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:42 pm

I tried apparel from that list and it does work. However when doing the wireless or the wireless accesorries it does not.

But I did finally get it to work. This is what I did to make it work. I went to Amazon.com, and then went to the cell phone section. From there I viewed the source code, and scrolled down to the search box section. It had code that looked like this.

Code: Select all

 <select name="index">
<option value="blended">Amazon.com</option>
<option value=wireless-phones selected>Cell Phones
<option value=wireless-plans>Service Plans
<option value=wireless-accessories>Accessories
</select>

You will notice that it says "wireless-phones selected" for Cell phones. Well at first I just copied and pasted it as it is. But it still did not work. So I took out the part that says "selected". So now I am left with "wireless-phones"

This did work, so hooray for me. I will go through and get the rest of them working and then I will send you a copy of the amazon chooser file if you want me to.

mgroeninger · Post by **mgroeninger** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:49 pm

Good to know! Thanks for reporting your findings (and I am glad you got it to work for you)!

Hopefully I will have sometime this weekend or so to sit down and go through the Amazon dropdown and try to get the list updated...

Adding more categories to the Amazon Plugin

Adding more categories to the Amazon Plugin

Re: Adding more categories to the Amazon Plugin

List of all new categories that are needed?

Re: List of all new categories that are needed?

Thanks a bunch!

The list does not exactly work on the cell phones.