Book list/review with Amazon Assoc.

[SineMacula]

I've read some discussion here about Amazon related modules, but I haven't found quite what I'm looking for... I've also played around with some of the php scripts I could find on SourceForge and Hotscripts, and have come close, but I don't have the knowledge or skill to take any of those as a starting point and turn them into a Mambo Component (which is what I'd really like).

I've managed some clumsy integration in testing (using wrapper & com_static), but what I've found that I could sort of integrate were mostly search scripts rather than pre-defined booklists. I have found a couple of php/mysql based booklist/amazon scripts, but haven't yet gotten them to work properly outside of Mambo, so I don't know what integration would be like... likely clumsy though.

Here's the ideal I'd like to find:
backend ->

create categories for booklists
set Amazon Associate's ID so that it would be included in links to amazon
enter books (preferably simply by ISBN), assign them to a category and make comments/review
have the "system" look up the info on Amazon based on the ISBN
determine which fields available from Amazon should be displayed
set various other display options - images - yes/no; etc.
create menus for either all booklists, or by category


frontend ->

view booklists by category
links to amazon for each book would include Amazon Associate's ID


Is anyone up to this task? I'd be willing to help as much as I can... perhaps by some combination of searching out and setting up tests of existing php based scripts, etc... beta testing... I'd even be willing to throw a little $$ into the pot (being a grad student though, it wouldn't be much :( ).

[ajohnson]

I too would like to see a component with such features and also would donate to the development.

[eyezberg]

You saw this http://amazoop.sourceforge.net/, right?
I guess everybody would be interested (i would)...

[SineMacula]

Yes, that is one of the many things I've found... I've been playing around with what's available quite a bit (stayed up waaaaaaay too late last night on this).

You can see an example of that package working on my test site here:
http://sine-macula.com/amazoop/examples/isbnsearch.php
it was so late when I did that, I don't remember exactly what I did... but I think I just hard coded a couple of ISBNs in there. I couldn't get that one to work in a wrapper or staticfile though.

You can also see a bunch of other attempts on my testing site: http://sine-macula.com
...the main menu has links to several little "experiments gone awry". Some are just the various API packages with a little tweaking, and a couple are based on html output from a booklist program I have. (The one that says "component" is just a basic copying of the file to the component directory, and then calling it via a url menu item).

Unfortunately, I don't have near the knowledge or skill (or time to gain them) to get anything worthwhile done in the next year or so!!

[l0o5er]

have you seen this http://www.mamboportal.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=27&func=fileinfo&parent=category&filecatid=735

[SineMacula]

Yes, I saw that, have downloaded and installed it... and it's a great start! I'm hoping it will be developed further and will add some of my "wishlist" features.