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widget for bookcover on LibraryThing.com

  1. ranti
    Member

    Hello All,

    I just signed up for a wordpress blog and am wondering if I could show a bookcover image from my book collections located at LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com) . They have a widget that will allow one to show random bookcover image (http://www.librarything.com/extras.php) similar like the Flickr widget.

    However, it's my understanding I can't use the javascript they provided due to WordPress.com rules. So, anybody has a suggestion/workaround/idea on this besides using the Text widget containing a link to my LibraryThing? Thanks in advance!

    ranti.

  2. timethief
    Member

    Create a bookmark and then you'll have the link which you can click on and connect to them with. Your readers will be able to do the same.

  3. drmike
    Member

    Thank you for providing a link to what you're suggesting. I wish more people would do that around here when they make their suggestions. :)

    Granted, I can't pull it up to see what they're talking about but still, thanks for the though. :)

    There widget is different from a WordPress Widget. Best best I would think would be just to save the HTML data from your account and just create a Page with it. You would have to update it manually though every so often but it's a work around.

  4. ranti
    Member

    timethief and drmike, thanks for the suggestions. drmike, sorry, I completely forgot that to see the widget one must login first. But creating a login is very easy. Just type in a login name and password of choice and you'll get an account. :-)

    Yes, I gather their "widget" is different from a WP Widget. It's basically a javascript with various parameters that pull images from their server.

    Thanks again.

    ranti.

  5. cornell
    Member

    Unfortunately you've just hit the sticky wicket. As you may already know, Javascript is disabled on wp.com blogs for security.

    Currently there's no way round this and we have no defined timescale for its enabling.

    :(

  6. babbler
    Member

    Sorry to bump, but nobody has noticed this:

    <b>Widgets on LiveJournal</b>: LiveJournal does not allow Javascript on their pages, so this widget will not work there. I'm working on a LJ-compatible widget.

    Since WordPress.com, like LiveJournal (why does that distrub me?) doesn't enable javascript. So, unless there is some big difference between LJ and WP.com, we could use the LJ widget here.

  7. drmike
    Member

    There's a big difference between Live Journal and WordPress. They are two different softwares. (Like Mac and Windows. Granted, they're both OSes but two different things.)Also we're not allowed to install our own Widgets. You can request them though if they exist. Here's a list of some ofthe current ones.

  8. alunsalt
    Member

    I'm using the XML feed in an RSS widget on the presentation panel. Example at http://archaeoastronomy.wordpress.com/ which takes the feed from http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/alun You can find your own feed by looking in your profile. the address should be the same as mine with your name instead of 'alun'.

    It doesn't have book covers, but LT could alter that by providing a different feed if you asked nicely.

  9. drmike
    Member

    That must be fairly new because I don't remember seeing any RSS feeds over there when I looked and I was looking for them. Good catch. :)

  10. babbler
    Member

    @drmike: I meant that the LT people would provide some code that WP.com users put into the text boxes.

    @alunsalt: That's great, I didn't notice the feeds. But I doubt I am going to add new books to my collection any time soon. :(

  11. ranti
    Member

    @alunsalt: this is great! Thanks for the pointer. Appreciate it. :-)

  12. ariane5
    Member

    I wondered about this Library Thing 'thing' too - it would be really useful to be able to show the book covers. Also - can anyone tell me how to use the "Thingies" here: http://www.librarything.com/extras.php in my sidebar? I assume I create a text widget, but then how to get the image in it?

  13. ariane5
    Member

    [Resolved] I got it to work! I finally figured out what they're getting at here: http://faq.wordpress.com/badges/

  14. gess
    Member

    Hello everyone,

    Can someone explain to me--baby steps-- how to create a widget from LibraryThing. Thank you!

  15. sulz
    Member

    the general gist is that you can't have a librarything widget on wp.com because it uses javascript. alternatively, you can set up an rss feed of your librarything page in the sidebar or put a link to your librarything in your blogroll. you can also put a badge that links to your librarything page, if you have an image you want to put up.

    http://www.librarything.com/extras.php
    http://www.librarything.com/blog/2006/12/graphical-widgets-for-lj-and-etc-first.php

  16. gess
    Member

    Thank you sulz :)

  17. anotherperson
    Member

    I just posted a LibraryThing widget on my WP blog and the javascript is working like a charm. It was very, very simple to do so I'm posting instructions here (as I couldn't find any):

    1. Open up the WordPress control panel/dashboard (sorry, but only I can open mine)

    2. Click on the “Presentation” tab

    3. Open up the “Widgets” tab that should now appear.

    4. Scroll down the page and click on that dropdown box under “textbox widgets” and select the next number that appears (for example, “1″ is set as the default so select “2″). That will create a new box under “Available Widgets.”

    5. Click and drag that new box to the appropriate sidebar.

    6. Double click on that box and a new window will show up.

    7. Enter the widget’s heading in the top box on the new window.

    8. Enter the code into the bottom box on the same window.

    9. Click on “Save changes” which appears on the right side of the screen.

    10. You’re done!

    After you've created the new text widget, cut and paste the code from LibraryThing into the widget box (after you've moved it to one of your sidebars) and that's it. Hope this saves others some time - it took me several hours to figure it out.

  18. sulz
    Member

    I just posted a LibraryThing widget on my WP blog and the javascript is working like a charm.

    i don't think that possible? all javascript code is stripped if you tried to insert it. i think you're referring to a html code. where exactly did you get the code from?

  19. thesacredpath
    Staff

    @anotherperson
    I suspect you are self-hosted using the software from wordpress.org. If not, can you post the URL to your blog?

  20. anotherperson
    Member

    Yes, thesacredpath I am on a self-hosted blog. I realized that after I posted. Sorry for the confusion.

  21. raincoaster
    Member

    No worries; you might want to post that over at WordPress.org.

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