Display Goodreads.com reviews for ISBNs you specify on any page or post.
The GoodReviews plugin displays information about a specific title from Goodreads, including reader reviews. This plugin was developed mainly for authors or booksellers who want to showcase Goodreads information about specific titles on their WordPress sites. You must obtain a Goodreads API developer key in order to use this plugin. You can obain an API key by following the instructions at goodreads.com/api. This plugin was developed by a third party who is not affiliated with Goodreads.
Why would I want to use this plugin?
GoodReviews serves a very specific requirement. It was primarily developed to enable an author or a bookseller to display Goodreads title information and reader reviews on a WordPress site. Goodreads is a social network for book lovers that enables members to rate and review books.
Why do I need WordPress version 3.8 or later to use this plugin?
WordPress 3.8 introduced support for the dashicons font, which contains the star and half-star symbols that GoodReviews uses in the Book Info pane. If you do not use the Book Info pane, you can probably successfully install and use GoodReviews in WordPress 3.5 or later.
Can I use a widget to display reviews instead of a shortcode?
As of GoodReviews 2.0.0, you can use either a widget OR the shortcode to display each of the three GoodReviews panes (About This Book, Buy This Book, and Reviews From Goodreads). However, style issues might make it tricky to try to use both the widgets and the shortcode on the same site because any CSS/style changes you make will apply to both the widgets and the shortcode. It is recommended that you choose to use either the GoodReviews widgets or the GoodReviews shortcode, not both.
What if my title does not have an ISBN?
Version 1.0.4 or later supports the use of a Goodreads ID instead of an ISBN to retrieve title information from Goodreads. Replace the isbn
parameter in the shortcode with grid
and use the Goodreads ID number instead of an ISBN. ISBNs are still supported as well.
How do I customize the height and width of the book information and reviews pane
GoodReviews offers two ways to control the height and width of its elements. You can either create custom Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in your theme, or you can specify height, width, and border values in the shortcode. To use the shortcode method, include one or all of the following parameters in the shortcode:
- height=”<some value>”
- width=”<some value>”
- border=”<on | off>”
For example, to display the book information and reviews in 500×500 elements with a bordered iframe reviews element, you could issue the following shortcode:
[goodreviews isbn="0000000000000" height="500" width="500" border="On"]
How do I turn off the default CSS for this plugin?
Version 1.1.0 and later supports the complete disabling of the default styles by providing a valid URL to an alternate stylesheet on the GoodReviews Settings page. If you have previously altered your theme CSS to modify GoodReviews CSS elements for a previous version of GoodReviews, you should provide a URL to a blank stylesheet file in the Alternate Stylesheet URL field.
How do I customize the CSS for this plugin?
Version 1.1.0 and later supports customizing the look of the book info, buy info, and reviews elements by supplying the URL to an alternate stylesheet on the Settings page. You can also use the following shortcode parameters:
- grbackground – provide the hexadecimal code for the background color you want (do not include the # symbol)
- grtext – provide the hexadecimal code for the text color you want (do not include the # symbol)
- grstars – provide the hexadecimal code for the star color you want (do not include the # symbol)
- grlinks – provide the hexadecimal code for the text color you want (do not include the $ symbol)
For example, issuing the following shortcode will style the GoodReviews elements with white text on black background along with blue stars and red links.
[goodreviews isbn="0000000000000" grbackground="000" grtext="fff" grstars="00f" grlinks="f00"]
Can I control the number of reviews that the plugin returns?
You can use the grnumber
parameter to control the number of reviews that are displayed on each page of reviews. By default, 10 reviews per page are displayed. The following code would configure GoodReviews to return 20 reviews per page instead:
[goodreviews isbn="0000000000000" grnumber="20"]
What if I don’t want people to see 1-star reviews of my title?
You can configure GoodReviews to return only the reviews that meet a minimum star rating. By default, the plugin returns all reviews, regardless of star rating. The following code would configure GoodReviews to return only reviews that have a 3-star rating or higher:
[goodreviews isbn="0000000000000" grminimum="3"]
How do I make the cover image bigger or smaller, or turn it off completely?
Issue the shortcode with the cover
parameter to select the Goodreads large cover image, small cover image, or no cover image at all. For example, to use the large cover image (which is the default), you would issue the following shortcode:
[goodreviews isbn=”0000000000000″ cover=”large”]
To use the small cover image, you would issue the following shortcode:
[goodreviews isbn=”0000000000000″ cover=”small”]
To turn off the cover completely, you would issue the following shortcode:
[goodreviews isbn=”0000000000000″ cover=”off”]
Can I display my Goodreads.com author photo in the book information element?
Yes, as of version 1.0.4 and later. By default, the author photo is not displayed. You can enable the display of either the large version or the scaled version of your Goodreads author photo by issuing the shortcode with the author
parameter. For example, to show the large version of your author photo, you could use the following shortcode:
[goodreviews isbn=”0000000000000″ author=”large”]
To use the small version of your author photo, you could use the following shortcode:
[goodreviews isbn=”0000000000000″ author=”small”]
What if I don’t want to display the book information element?
You can turn off the book information element by issuing the shortcode with the bookinfo
parameter set to off
. For example:
[goodreviews isbn=”0000000000000″ bookinfo=”off”]
What if I don’t want to display the book buying links?
You can turn off the book buying links by issuing the shortcode with the buyinfo
parameter set to off
. For example:
[goodreviews isbn=”0000000000000″ buyinfo=”off”]
What if I don’t want to display the reviews iframe?
Version 2.0.0 supports disabling the reviews frame by configuring the reviews
parameter to off
. However, because the main point of GoodReviews is to display reviews, this parameter was only implemented so that the Buy This Book widget and the Book Info widget could be dislayed without reviews.
Why is some information (such as the cover image, publisher information, or publication date) missing from the GoodReviews elements when it is visible on the Goodreads site?
This is a mystery to me. The GoodReviews plugin uses what the Goodreads API returns for a given ISBN. Therefore, if the information is in the API feed, GoodReviews will display it. Unfortunately, sometimes the information for some titles/editions appears to be excluded from the API feed even if it is present on the Goodreads link for that title.
Can I turn off the Goodreads credits at the bottom of each element?
No, nor should you. Turning off the Goodreads credits is a violation of their API Terms and Conditions.
The shortcode doesn’t seem to work. What should I do?
Ensure that you enter the shortcode in TEXT/HTML mode, not VISUAL mode.