Liv & Paul’s Web Page

Hi Ayden, I’ll look into it…

Seems link the ip2nation site is down and the request to check the current version of the database is failing. I’ll update the plugin to fail more gracefully. However longer term it looks like I may have to use another ip address lookup method.

Hi, Thanks for the feedback, if you don’t want it to display the flags, simply un-select the “Multinational Link” option in the settings page. Also make sure the “Localise Amazon Link” option _is_ selected then the link will be targeted to the most appropriate Amazon site. The reason I put the ‘flags’ in was because the detection of users country of origin using their IP address is not perfect, someone in Alsace or Belgium presented with the link to the French Amazon site might get annoyed if this was the only option. Hope that helps.

Hmmm,

I have to admit I have only tested it using PHP version 5, so I suspect you are right in thinking this is the problem.

Although I am hoping to do another version soon (with extra support for image based links) but I doubt I’ll be able to remove all the PHP5 dependencies, sorry! I’ll also add a note to state that only works with PHP5.

Paul

@sthe
Hi, there currently isn’t an option to change the target for the link, but I’ll put it on my list of things to do for the next version.

@Bob
To verify that your associate ID is included in the link: The link should contain something like ‘tag=XXX’ where XXX is your associate ID for your preferred locale. Check out the example links on this page. Have you got ID’s for all locales?

@Bob
When the link shortcode is added to your post it does not include your ASIN ID. When the link is created and displayed on your site the ID is taken from your settings. If you preview your post then hover over the amazon link, you should see that it contains your tag.

You only need IDs for other locales if you think you will get a lot of visitors from them. To do this you need to register for each amazon locale separately, which is a bit of a pain!

Hi, The best way to get the Amazon link items in a sidebar is to edit your themes sidebar template, I haven’t put widget support in as I do not use it.

You need to add something like this to the sidebar part of your theme:

< ?php if (function_exists('amazon_recommends')) : ?>
<h2>Amazon</h2>
<ul>< ?php echo amazon_recommends(3,30); ?></ul>
< ?php endif; ?>


It’s the ‘echo amazon_recommends(3,30)’ that creates the list, you could also use ‘echo amazon_make_links(‘asin=XYZ&text=”My Link”‘);’ to insert a product link.

The wishlist generated needs at least 320px wide sidebar to work, you can change this by added a userstyles.css file to the plugin directory, with something like this in:

.amazon_container {
min-width: 300px; # Width of the sidebar - 10px margin
margin-right:10px;
}

.amazon_img_container {
height:80px; # About a 1/4 of the sidebar width
float:right;
border:1px dotted;
padding:5px;
margin-right:0px;
width:80px; # About a 1/4 of the sidebar width
}

I can add an option to change the number of items in the list if you like. I’ll put this in the next version.

I was also thinking of doing a template facility, which also could produce the result you are after.

Yes, you are correct ‘affiliate tag’ is your ‘Tracking ID’ found on the Affiliate site. The ‘AWS Public and Private Keys’ are indeed the ‘Access Key ID’ and ‘Secret Access Key’ found under the Access Credentials section of the AWS site.

@Christine
Hi Christine,

I don’t think the plugin should be using too much memory, it uses roughly 400Kbytes on my site out of a total 16,000Kbytes used by WordPress + all of my plugins.

68,000Kbytes used by your site does look a tad high though, could be some odd interaction between the AmazonLink plugin and the SEO one?

You can increase the memory limit in wp-config.php, look for the line like this:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '96M');


@Viktor Leberecht
Hi Viktor,

No its not something to worry about I will fix the problem in the next release of the plugin, it only affects the plugin activation not the day to day operation. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Cheers,

Paul

@Tobias
Hi Tobias,

Yes, that is a pain – I’ve fixed it in the development version, will do a bug fix release later today.

Thanks for spotting!

Paul

@Alberto
Hi Alberto,

Unfortunately Amazon does not fully support some of the widgets on all its sites. They are only supported for Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr and Amazon.jp.

This may be why the widget is not working, also be aware that some adblocking plugins will filter out the Amazon widgets.

Paul

@Sandie Anne
Hi Sandie,

Thanks for using the plugin, I can see why your original code did not work. The template name is case sensitive and needs to be template=Thumbnail.

So to display the composTumbler you just need to insert the code [amazon asin=B000H2X2EW&template=Thumbnail]. The title is optional, and only needed if you want to change the title that Amazon provides.

I will update the plugin in the next version so that the template name is not case sensitive, this should make things easier!

Using this template should ensure that the image displayed is the smaller thumbnail one, using the ‘Image’ template will show the fullsize image.

You should not need to worry about the content of the thumbnail coding this will automatically be inserted into your post by the plugin. It will replace all the ‘%…%’ items with the correct data.

I have noticed a couple of bugs with the plugin whilst investigating your question, I intend to fix these shortly and issue a new version of the plugin.

PS. I should have read your site earlier, as my Sugar Snap peas have only grown about 3 feet tall (too little sun). I planted them in standard garden compost (mainly oak leaf mulch, also the reason for the shade!). The kids loved them anyway.

@Sandie Anne
Hi Sandie,

Thanks for persevering, that is definitely not a thumbnail image! if your shortcode is similar to the one in my comment above then the problem might be with the template in the settings.

The content of the ‘thumbnail’ template should be something like this:

%LINK_OPEN%<img alt="%TITLE%" title="%TITLE%" src="%THUMB%" class="%IMAGE_CLASS%">%LINK_CLOSE%

The important part is the bit that reads src="%THUMB%".

I can get the thumbnail to work on my site: Composter Test Post.

Paul

@Matt
Hi Matt,

Thought I’d post a summary of our email discussion here as it may help others:

There are a couple of bugs in the version of the plugin (2.0.1), which I have fixed in the development version, that are causing the links to fail. I will try and publish a new version shortly.

Half the problem I think is that Amazon does not fully support the .it domain yet, so the plugin has to use the .fr one for its requests (I chose .fr so at least the prices would be in Euros!).

Also remember that by default the template is populated by the fields that are included in the [amazon] shortcode, one of those fields is the URL to the book cover image ‘image’ or ‘thumb’. So if you have uploaded the image to your WordPress media library you can manually enter the URL to it there.

e.g.
[amazon asin=8830427616&template=thumbnail&title=My Title&thumb=/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/fc18_2010Nientedaperdere-197x300.jpg]

Alternatively you can make the plugin get the cover image directly from Amazon. Do this by ensuring that the ‘Live Data’ setting is enabled in the global settings. Or if you only want it for this particular link, add the ‘live=1′ option to the shortcode. However to enable the ‘Live Data’ setting you must be enrolled in the Amazon Web Services and put your Access Key Information in the Backend Setting section.

e.g.
[amazon asin=8830427616&template=thumbnail&live=1]

To ensure that the links are to amazon.it, ensure that Italy is selected as the ‘Default Country’ in the Global settings. However when ‘Localise Amazon Link’ is enabled it should link to the amazon.it site automatically.

Thanks for persevering with the plugin, and good luck with your site!

Paul

Hi Kory,

Thanks for your interest in the plugin. Sorry if it is not clear it means the WordPress site author (i.e. you) not the plugin author. So any affliate ID’s you put in the settings page will always appear in the affiliate links.

If you do not want to bother joining some Amazon affiliate locales that are not primary to your site’s target readership and you have localisation enabled, then by default the plugin’s affiliate ID’s will be used for visitors from those locales. This is partly because Amazon AWS service now mandates that a valid ID must be used for all request.

@Chris Hunt
Hi Chris,

To add Amazon links to your template you would want to add something like this:

< ?php
if (function_exists(amazon_make_links) &&
    get_post_meta($post->ID, 'my_products', true)) {
   $my_products = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'my_products', true);
   echo amazon_make_links('template=thumbnail&live=1&asin=' . $my_products);
} ?>

Then in your post add a Custom field 'my_products' in this case, containing a single ASIN or a comma separated list of ASIN numbers.

Note: Currently the plugin only brings in the 'multinational popup' support if it finds an [amazon] shortcode in the post content - so this won't work if you only use it in template content. I'll add an option to force it to load the scripts if you need this.

EDIT:
I've installed the Shortcode Exec PHP plugin and it seems to work okay with mine. If I define a 'amazon' shortcode in the 'Shortcode Exec PHP' plugin then it gets processed by that plugin first and removes all the [amazon] shortcodes from the post. But can't reproduce your symptoms. If you disable the 'Shortcode Exec PHP' plugin do the shortcodes get expanded?

@David

Hi David, I have released version 2.0.4 which should have all the Debug Warnings fixed. Your version of PHP seems to be more strict than the one I have installed. Hopefully that will fix the problem for you.

Paul

@Ross

Hi Ross, Thanks for your interest in the plugin, it seems the US version of the iframe code does not match all the other locales. I have updated the plugin to add support for the US domain ‘rcm.amazon.com’. If you install version 2.0.7 and change the Iframe template content on the Amazon Link Settings page to:

<iframe src="http://%RCM%/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=%TAG%&o=%MPLACE_ID%&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=%ASIN%" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

If cut and paste does not work then in the Templates section, delete the ‘Iframe image’ template then the ‘Wishlist’ template – this will make the plugin re-install the default template.

It should then work as expected.

@Chris
Hi Chris, Thanks for your interest in the plugin!

The currency conversion would be a nice addition and I’ll look into it. I have had a quick look on the Amazon AWS site and it does not look like this is something that I can get directly from Amazon.

In the short term I would have to just use a third party currency conversion, which would not reflect the actual price that Amazon would charge. This is probably not ideal.

To be honest I would probably prefer to do this as a different plugin, i.e. one that detects currency strings '£X.YZ' and outputs the conversion automatically '£X.YZ ($A.BC, €D.EF)'.