Displays a cover image of a book with a link to Google Books based on a supplied ISBN-10 or ISBN-13.
Supplying an ISBN (and, optionally, a Title) will display a cover image of the relevant book with a link to that book’s page on Google Books using the Google Books API.
Using the Widget you can choose whether to:
- Force all calls to Google to be HTTPS, instead of the API returned HTTP
- Pad the Image (selected by default, uses internal CSS)
- Display a Box-Shadow (selected by default, uses internal CSS)
- Choose Alternate Google Country (defaults to “Worldwide”)
as well as
- Decide whether you would like to use a Title
- Define the ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 of the book.
Usage
- Activate the Plugin via “Plugins” → “Currently Reading” → “Activate” (if you hadn’t already done so).
- Go to “Appearance” → “Widgets” and drag the “Reading” widget into whichever Sidebar you choose.
- In the “Currently Reading” widget, you can then customise it further.
Screenshots
The Configuration of a "Currently Reading" section, with Padding enabled.
The default "Widget" configuration, with the Google Country set to South Africa and an ISBN-13.
The previous configuration as rendered by Safari.
The difference between Padding and Box-Shadow Enabled and Disabled.
Widget Configuration location in the Dashboard's sidebar.
I get a ‘*Warning: file_get_contents … : failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden*’ Error in my logs and no books are displayed. Why is this happening?
Your web-site has been configure not to allow outgoing HTTP requests and you have ‘Use Google API’ enabled.
Please de-select the ‘Use Google API’ option to use the direct connection instead.
I get a ‘*No Google Books Entry Found for ISBN:NUMBER*’ on my Blog… Why?
Sometimes Google Books does not return any valid responses on ISBNs. Try the following:
- See if you can find an alternate ISBN for the book
- Toggle the “Use Google API” option
- Find the eBook on Google’s Books Web Page and use its ISBN
Are you planing to insert other sources than Google Books to the Currently Reading widget?
I’ll have a look into supporting Amazon, though they do make you jump through hoops to use their API (which is the reason I settled on using Google Books to start with).
Is there a way to get this plugin to do a library of all of your books into WordPress?
It’s not currently possible with this plugin, no.
I’ll give it a bit of thought and see if I can extend it to do that; but it will most likely need the creation of an alternate plugin to do that.
This would likely require its own database table to do properly, as well…
ChangeLog
4.1.6
- “My apologies, your honour, my client is an idiot…”
4.1.5
4.0.8
- Add option to open Google Books link in a new Tab/Window
4.0.7
- Add the option to force the use of SSL (https) on Google’s API links
- Add the option to force the use of SSL (https) on the Alternate links to Google’s API
- Tested to WordPress 5.2.3
4.0.6
- Updated and tested WordPress 5
4.0.5
- Fix the Google Books API call
- Tested to WordPress 4.7
4.0.4
- Check cache before using it
- Check data validity before writing cache
4.0.2
- Allow (and default to) not using the Google Books API in preference to the older — direct — connection
- Since I’m probably the only Saffer using this, default to “books.google.com”
4.0.1
- Display a message (No Google Books Entry Found for ISBN) when Google has no entry for the book in question
- Reduce the width of margins so that the book entries fit better into the sidebar
- Added a screenshot of the Widget Configuration location in the Sidebar (mostly since I keep forgetting where it is)
4.0
- Use the Google Books API instead of previous deep-linking
- Fix display of ISBN when updating the widget
- Allow the selection of Alternate Google Domains (books.google.com causes issues in some countries)
- Display book’s Title instead of ISBN on mouse-over
3.4
- Minor fixes to ensure WordPress compatibility
3.3
- Moved to a ‘<div>’ based layout instead of using Lists (Kudos to James Sumners for the suggestion)
3.2
- Improved the book spacing a bit in the internal CSS
3.1
- Added the ability to have drop-shadows around the front-cover images of the books
3.0
- Release number re-alignment with internal Hg repo
2.0
- Fixed a potentially embarrassing issue with generated HTML
1.0
