Amazon Product Advertising API 5.0

Hi, I am trying to understand what is going on with this plugin and the Amazon API update.

Will this plugin continue to operate as normal after March 9th, without the user having to make any changes?

I have this plugin on a lot of different posts. Is there an easy way for me to find all the posts I have used this plugin on?

Thanks

@atlas99
We are working on a new version that will work with the new PA API 5.0 and are trying to have it completed by March 9th (the Amazon cutoff date). When complete, all you should need to do (for the plugin, at least) is update it via the WordPress plugin updater.

Amazon does require that you do some updates on their side as well. They require you to migrate your keys to the PA API page (if you have not done so already). You will then need to add these new keys to the plugin settings. Additionally, if you are using set of keys that are more than 2 years old, you may need to create a new set of keys so that they will work with the new API.

For more info on migrating your keys, see here. The page does not say it is a necessity to migrate to use the 5.0 API, however, the email that Amazon is sending to existing API users explicitly states that you MUST migrate the API account to use the PA API v5.0.

Additionally, there is no way to see all the pages that contain amazon products (not with the plugin anyway).

Regards,
Don

Hi @prophecy2040, Thanks for the plugin. I’ve also written an open sourced client library to access PA API 5.0. But it’s in Golang.

But I would like to bring your attention to a part of my library that you can reuse to test your plugin.

It is a collection of complete responses (with all resources) from PA API for all four operations viz. GetBrowseNodes, GetItems, GetVariations, and SearchItems.

You can find those real responses from the API here: https://github.com/utekaravinash/gopaapi5/tree/master/_response

You may get some idea about using this library from this blog post on my site: https://www.utekar.com/amazon-product-advertising-api-5-go-client-library-gopaapi/

I hope I was of some help in your development of the plugin.

Best!
Avinash

Thank you for updating your plugin to the API 5. Your plugin is so much easier to use and customize than other ones I have tried. Here’s hoping you make the March 9 deadline!

I would be glad if you can manage to update 1 or 2 days prior to the shutoff of PA4.0, as I have to make customizations and test everything again.

Thanks a lot for your effort!

@mattmatt88 & @kokopoko22 – Thank you.
We are working to try to have the PA API v5 version of the plugin ready for release on this Saturday (March 7th, 2020). As of right now we are still mapping all the changes from the two versions.

As you may (or may not) be aware, the new API is almost 100% different in the way you make API requests, as well as the data it returns (in regards to the naming convention and structure). So one of our biggest tasks it trying to map the version 4 fields to an acceptable version 5 equivalent. In many cases, the data in the new version 5 is significantly less than in version 4, so we are also trying to make sure the products using these fields do not produce errors and that we are able to return what we anticipate is the data that the user wants to display on the page.

If we have it ready prior, we will push it to everyone.

Thank you for the understanding.
Don

Adding a reply so I can click the “Notify me of follow-up replies via email” button. Thanks for working on an update for this!

@rickpoet
Sounds good!
I’ll post a reply to this thread when I push the update so everyone will get notified.

Don

Rock on, Sir.

Are you able to update today?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by mattmatt88.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by mattmatt88.

Hi Everyone
*** Quick Update ***
We should have an update ready to go late tonight or very early in the morning.

Programming is completed and we are just testing and squashing bugs at the moment, so as soon as I am comfortable with the fixes and updates, I will push it to the repository.

Thank you for your patience and understanding – this was a HUGE undertaking and required an almost complete re-write of the core plugin functionality.
As a bonus, we were able to get the Gutenberg Blocks into this update. There will be blocks for Amazon Elements, Amazon Searches, an Amazon Product Grid and the standard Amazon Product Layout. We were also able to get a few other enhancements in, that some of you have asked for recently.

Thank you!
Don

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Don Fischer. Reason: clarity

THANK YOU. Seriously. Is there a link we can donate money to you for this?

Thank you very much for this!

Donations to Don (the developer) can be made here.

Thank you!

Hi all –
I just pushed the new plugin version to the Repository and I wanted to let you all know.

Some things to note:
1. We still need to get the documentation completed – I thought it was more important to get the API update in there right now and we can get the help/info documentation up in a few days.
2. There are many fields that are no longer in the API Data that Amazon returns for version 5. Most notably the Product Description (yeah, I know – WTF?) and the Customer Reviews iframe. The did add some new ones, like (wait for it…) Kindle Pricing (finally after 6+ years) and a few other things. FOr those needing a description, you can use the ‘features’ field for some form of tex, but it is NOT the same and not present on all products.
3.There are now Gutenberg Blocks. They are not too difficult to use – and you after you play around with them for a few minutes, you will become an expert – but I will add documentation – and a video – on how to use them for those that need it.
4. LASTLY, but most importantly, For those that have not migrated their Amazon keys to from the AWS Console to the Affiliate portal will NEED to do this ASAP. The API will not work without the new keys (although Amazon has said it will – but it doesn’t). Additionally, I have found that if your keys were generated more than a year ago, you may need to get a new set of keys, as most of the time the old keys are not correctly set with the right permissions to use the Version 5.0 API.

That should be it for now. I am off to get some sleep (been a LONG 2 weeks). If you have any issues, please let me know.

Warm regards,
Don