[NEW] ESBN

@moshu and others,

I’ve revised the instructions for this plugin and would appreciate any additional input. The can be seen on the Project Page.

The only part I’m still unhappy with is the last point where the user has to edit the template. Is there a better way to do this?

=C=

“Is there a better way to do this?“

Not sure why you’re unhappy about it (I’ve written a number of plugins requiring their own ‘template tag’). But you could look at filtering the_content, perhaps appending your plugin’s output to the end of it. Since not everyone would want it displayed there, I’d recommend it as a config option.

That’s exactly what I was missing yesterday ??
I think the instructions now are very clear and easy to understand for everybody. Thanks for being so receptive to our suggestions.
BTW, the plugin was OK even yesterday!

As for the code needed in the template… almost all of the plugins require some kind of small modification in the template file(s). And since you already gave the “if function exist” bit in the example, it wouldn’t break the blog even if the plugin is deactivated.

@all,

Thanks for helping me make my plugins better. I’ll cut you all in on 10% of the profits. ??

=C=

VERY nicely redone Cal! And that’s a handsome offer…. Hmmm. Am I understanding that one needs to be already registered with ESBN, which is where the “login name” needs to come from?

@vkaryl,

Yes, you need a (free) registration with ESBN before the plugin will work.

=C=

Hi Cal,
I’ve got it installed on my blog,the plugin is activated, I have setup an ESBN account, the user name is set in the plugin management screen, but I get an error code…E040 – Missing author when I make a posting. Site is https://www.cosmicechoes.org, and I have a test posting at the top of the page. Running 1.5.2. Ideas?

@rafleet,

Hmmm…the only thing I can think of at the moment is check the capitalization of your username. I don’t know if ESBN is case sensitive or not.

But your case does bring out a bug in wp-esbn. I’ll fix it tonight hopefully. If you don’t get a valid number back, it shouldn’t record it.

=C=

rafleet, does your theme have <!-- by <?php the_author() ?> --> in The Loop section on index.php? If it’s either not there at all, or commented out (as shown by <!-- --> around it) perhaps that’s causing the glitch?

I don’t know….

Oh, hey, make sure you have the call to the plugin inside The Loop!

<?php if (function_exists('esbn_output')) esbn_output($id); ?> – you do get weird results if you leave that out entirely, or don’t have it inside The Loop.

vkaryl,
Nope, no commenting out…here’s the code I’m using in the post.php in the ‘connections’ theme.

<p class="post-date"><?php the_time('D j M Y'); ?></p>
<div class="post-info"><h2 class="post-title"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
Posted by <?php the_author(); ?> under <?php the_category(' , '); ?><?php edit_post_link('(edit this)'); ?><br/><?php comments_popup_link('No Comments', '1 Comment', '[%] Comments'); ?>&nbsp; </div>
<div class="post-content">
<?php the_content(); ?>
<div class="post-info">
<?php wp_link_pages(); ?>
<center>[ <em>There are <?php echo WordCount(1, $post -> ID); ?> words in this post, with <?php echo CharCounter($post -> ID, 0); ?> Chars, amounting to <?php echo WordCount(1, 0); ?> BlogWords! </em> ] <br/>

<?php if (function_exists('esbn_output')) esbn_output($id); ?></center>

</div>
<div class="post-footer">&nbsp; </div>
</div>

Cal,

The username is the same … lower case.

Looks like a great tool. Can’t wait to get it going.

Rich

Okay, rafleet. Are you trying this on a 1.5.2 blog? While it’s working perfectly on one of my 2.0.1 blogs, I’m getting the same E40 – Missing author error on the 1.5.2 one….

Cal, does this have something to do with the use of “post_author” in the plugin php? And if so, is there some easy tweak for 1.5.2?

vkaryl,

I’ll install it on one of my 2.0.1 blogs this weekend, and see how that works. That could very simply be the issue.

Cal, have you compared this tool on the two main versions now…1.5.2 and 2.0.1, to see what differences there might be? I’m assuming that different themes may throw a monkey wrench into the mix with some theme-specific code.

Thanks for your help.

Rich

Rich, I don’t think there would be a theme-specific problem since the ESBN call HAS to live in The Loop. Unless it’s a case of you having a very tweaked theme with The Loop changed materially….

@rafleet,

No, I am running 2.0. I’ve not tried it on the 1.5 brance or on the 2.0.1 branch.

@vkaryl,

I don’t know is post_author specific to 2.0? if so then I’ll have to mark this one as 2.0 specific as that’s a requirement for the plugin to work.

=C=

Me either Cal. I’m checking some stuff….

post_author is found identically in both the 1.5.2 and 2.0.1 database in the wp_posts table. The only apparent difference is it’s int(4) in 1.5.2 and bigint(20) in 2.0.1.

So (being me, and constitutionally unable to leave something alone until it WORKS DAMN IT!), first I changed the 1.5.2 table to bigint(20). Didn’t help. Then I edited the Value in the ESBN fields to the value received for the post (obtained from ESBN).

Kludgy workaround, but does work. Think you can figure out how to tweak it for 1.5.2, Cal? For now I’m okay with a kludgy workaround, but I might be the only one who feels that way….