Wordpress Plugin: Current Book

Published:

April 29th, 2008

Written by:

Summary
A simple little plugin to help you manage the display of a book you are currently reading. Want to show your readers what book you’re reading? That’s just what this plugin does coincidentally.

Download and Install
Download the latest release »

Upload the file bookdisplay.php to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

Usage

Open management page [Tools] – [Current Book].
Edit “Book Title” field, “Book Link”, “Image Path”* and “Author” fields
Click “Update options”
Add the following wherever you’d like the information to be displayed:
```
<?php current_book(); ?>
```
That’s it. Simple.

Recent Updates
* Added the feature to show a thumbnail image of the book you’re reading.

Need help?
If you need help installing this plugin or customizing the display of the book title and author, please feel free to contact me

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Thi s is a great plug-in, I must have read 20 book so far this year and now I can brag about them!!
http://www.pixelhavenllc.com Josh Harbaugh

Thank you very much! Let me know if there are any features you think would be good to add in future releases.
http://www.spookyland.ch Spooky

Will test this plugin too. Review feature will be nice.
http://www.pixelhavenllc.com Josh Harbaugh

@Spooky: That’s a great idea. I’ll be sure to try and work that into the next release.
woodstock

This is a cool plugin but the instructions here need to include that you have to add to your template to make the info appear on your blog
woodstock

Augh…that should be [?php current_book(); ?] to make the plugin work.
http://www.pixelhavenllc.com Josh Harbaugh

Thank you for that … the bit of code wasn’t showing up as it should have been. Step 4 has been updated appropriately.
http://www.londonremovals.co.uk Rampa

Cheers, I enjoyed reading your blog, mate. I look forward to seeing your next entries.
http://www.sogroovynow.com Christy

would love it if you could show thumbnail image of book.
http://www.pixelhavenllc.com Josh Harbaugh

@Christy: Excellent suggestion. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the next version.
http://www.couchie.com Scott

It might be nice if there was a section for specific referral program entries instead of just the link.

I use Amazon, so that’s my example: Like Amazon Associates has code to show it as either text or the graphic, etc. That way you could show the graphic or text at your preference with just normal clicking through Amazon and get paid the 1/400th of a cent or whatever. Cut and paste from Amazon’s widget & toolbar thing instead of manually entering the associate link.

Still, love this as is and am using it for my new site!
http://thompsonwerk.com Rob

How do I get the plugin to display on a single page only?
http://www.pixelhavenllc.com Josh Harbaugh

@Rob: If you mean showing it on a single post page, you’d want to put the bit of code to show the current book in the single.php template file only. Or, if you want it to display on say… the About page only you’d need to install a plugin that can allow you to place code within pages in the editor of WP.

You could also create a special template that includes the current book code for use within the ‘Pages’ of WP.
http://seeingfinance.com Idris

Hi,

A bit of confusion – I’ve installed the plugin through the dashboard of my self-hosted WP account. When I add the [?php current_book(); ?] to my page, nothing comes up.

I need to add the CustomBook template to my page? Can you tell me how to do that?

Thanks!
Cheryl

I installed/activated the plugin, edited the book info, and added to the theme template. Nothing shows up. What could I be missing?
http://metrosapiens.com/ Nathanael

Hello,

It’s a very useful plug-in but here is the message I got

Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘}’ in /homez.221/metrosap/www/wp-content/plugins/bookdisplay.php on line 53
http://www.pixelhavenllc.com Josh Harbaugh

What version of WordPress are you running, and have you made any changes to the bookdisplay.php file? I haven't test the script on WordPress 2.8, and I feel that may be part of the problem.
Pingback: A Fascinating Life » Blog Archive » What I’m Reading Right Now
http://storyboutagirl.org/ Kirsten

I would like to remove the “by (author)” and just have the name of the book linked to the link. As well as edit the font to match my website. I don't really know how to do this…
http://www.thelondonremovals.com/ Monica from London

Great plugin! Love it! Exactly what I need. Cheers! Monica
http://www.sahcammozayik.com cam mozaik

Thanks a lot! I am just learning Information.
And php and this was very easy to follow and helped a lot.
You really took time to explain every little bit.
Thanks again.
http://www.cammozaik.org cam mozaik

Thanks a lot! I am just learning Information.
Php and this was very easy to follow and helped a lot.
You really took time to explain every little bit.
Thanks again…
Turtelina

I was wondering if and how its possible to add a picture of the book that we are reading? Thank you!
Josh Harbaugh

I have updated the plug-in to include this feature. You can re-download it from the link above. Enjoy.
Turtelina

Thank you Josh!
Turtelina

Sorry to bother you again Josh, I cant get the image of the book to be displayed on the page itself. It works fine in the settings. Do you think you can give me a hint? Thank you!
Napua Ahina

I am also having a problem with the image not showing-up. It works in the settings preview, but not on the actual blog page.
Camillos

In line 111 is $output = “<a href='http://";
should be $output .= "<a href='http://";
Turtelina

The reply didnt get posted but I got it mailed, someone posted the solution, THANK YOU! It works fine now.
Turtelina

The reply didnt get posted but I got it mailed, someone posted the solution, THANK YOU! It works fine now.
http://www.pixelhavenllc.com Josh Harbaugh

Thank you very much for catching this. I have updated the file accordingly.

WordPress Plugin: Current Book

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