Some thoughts about the Amazon Plugins

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NightFlyer
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Some thoughts about the Amazon Plugins

Post by NightFlyer »

Hello,
I'm still in the process to migrate my Blog to S9Y and I was playing around with the Amazon Plugins.
The biggest part of this entry is not a list of bugs found, its more some thoughts about it, some things about usability and features to enhance this great plugin.

First a little bug:
The "Done" button in the Amazon chooser plugin for blog entries does not work in Chrome. The funny part is: The same button found in the Amazon recommendation plugin is working.

Some thoughts:

Consolidate the "Amazon Media Button" and the "Amazon Recommendations" plugins. I was thinking about something like a library for entered Amazon products: One place to search and enter products, where you can list and view them and select which product is visible in the sidebar or/and in a blog entry. In this way it would be much easier to work with it. At the Moment its a bit cumbersome if i want that a product is displayed in a blog entry and as well in the sidebar I have to enter it in two different places.

Use same ASIN-Syntax in both plugins. ATM the way how an ASIN must be written is differing in the "Amazon Media Button Plugin" the ASIN Looks like "B0035JL3RW,DVD" in the "Amazon Recommendations" it is "B0035JL3RW-DVD". So copy and paste between both plugins needs always a bit of rework.

*****Edit*****
Forgot something:
Another nice usability tweek would be the posibility to select multiple results in the Amazon search. In my case I want to add the DVD and the Blu-Ray version of a Movie to my entries or the siedbar so for every version of the movie I need to search it again and add it.
*****Edit*****

I know that these suggestions could lead into very much work but I think this could lead into a very good enhancement in usability for this plugin. What do you think?

Unfortunately I'm not a programmer.
But if some testing is to do I can help.

Best Regards
NF
Ianardo
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Re: Some thoughts about the Amazon Plugins

Post by Ianardo »

Good suggestions.

Something I'd like to see is some way to format the way a box is delivered in a post - even if it's just a simple choice between 'Portrait' and 'Landscape'.
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mgroeninger
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Re: Some thoughts about the Amazon Plugins

Post by mgroeninger »

Hi folks,
I'm not discounting any suggestions if I don't address them in this post. I'm just super busy and want to address some of the functionality in the current plugin. Hopefully I'll have some time to post more completely and to start looking at changes that we can make to meet some of the plugins faults.
Something I'd like to see is some way to format the way a box is delivered in a post - even if it's just a simple choice between 'Portrait' and 'Landscape'.
Typically I make sure that content/formatting is separate from the php code. Garvin's done a great job of making this simple, so I try to use those tools.

The block that is generated for a post is controlled by "plugin_amazon_display.tpl" and the plugin will respect css and tpl files that are in a template directory. I would recommend that you make a custom template directory and copy the plugin css and tpl files into it. Then you can edit them and make whatever changes you like.
The "Done" button in the Amazon chooser plugin for blog entries does not work in Chrome. The funny part is: The same button found in the Amazon recommendation plugin is working.
Sorry, I don't use Chrome. If I remember correctly, that button is using some DOM tricks and javascript to do the insert. Those aren't my strong suit, and will take some time to figure out what Chrome wants.
Consolidate the "Amazon Media Button" and the "Amazon Recommendations" plugins. I was thinking about something like a library for entered Amazon products: One place to search and enter products, where you can list and view them and select which product is visible in the sidebar or/and in a blog entry. In this way it would be much easier to work with it. At the Moment its a bit cumbersome if i want that a product is displayed in a blog entry and as well in the sidebar I have to enter it in two different places.
I tend to agree, though combining the plugins isn't exactly that answer. The sidebar plugin is dependent on the event plugin already, so the easier thing would be to edit the event plugin to support a backend database. Last plugin I did this type of thing for was the bookmark plugin, a long time ago. It took a lot of effort, which I don't have time for at the moment. If I get some time I will see how much code I can clean-up/re-use and hopefully we can make two plugins better.
Use same ASIN-Syntax in both plugins. ATM the way how an ASIN must be written is differing in the "Amazon Media Button Plugin" the ASIN Looks like "B0035JL3RW,DVD" in the "Amazon Recommendations" it is "B0035JL3RW-DVD". So copy and paste between both plugins needs always a bit of rework.
I actually thought that one of the formats was supported in both plugins, but I must have broken that. When I get some time I will see if I can get that working. There was a technical reason why they have different syntax, but I don't recall it right now.
Another nice usability tweek would be the posibility to select multiple results in the Amazon search. In my case I want to add the DVD and the Blu-Ray version of a Movie to my entries or the siedbar so for every version of the movie I need to search it again and add it.
This is something that I really haven't figured out how to do, mostly because of the same lack of DOM/javascript skills I mentioned earlier. If I stumble across a way to do this without too much pain I'd be happy to add it.

Sorry I don't really have anything firm to add to this thread. If I can clear some time (or if the Amazon stuff becomes more rewarding/interesting than my other projects) I will play with the code a bit.

Matt
Ianardo
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Re: Some thoughts about the Amazon Plugins

Post by Ianardo »

Thanks Matt :)
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NightFlyer
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Re: Some thoughts about the Amazon Plugins

Post by NightFlyer »

Hey Matt,
many thanks for your answeres. :)

NF
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