This plug-in embeds an Amazon Web Services request into a content article. The amazon web services content plugin works for Joomla 1.5x to 3.0x. It requires an API key, which you can easily obtain by opening an account at http://aws.amazon.com/

You will also require a valid Amazon Associates ID, which you obtain through creating an account here. You will require permission for each domain on which you wish to use your ID, you can obtain this through your Amazon Associates account. This is important, the Amazon product advertising API will not return result without this.

Usage

Joomla Core Content

The plugin parameters are illustrated below.

Using Article Metatags

The easiest way to use the plugin is to simply select the section, category or individual articles using the plugin manager. The plugin will be automatically rendered, and the output appended to the selected articles. The plugin will use the article metatag keywords to run a keyword search on the selected Amazon site.

You can use the plugin parameters to select the number of tags to use. The default is 2, and it is usually good to use one or two at most, the reason being that Amazon will only return search results that contain all keywords, if too many are used then it unlikely to return any results.

Using Embedding Code

You can also use embedding code to render the plugin for an individual article. This allows you to have greater control over the results returned, including allowing you to select an individual product by ASIN or ISBN (10 digit).

To embed the plugin, use the following format:



with the parameters specified as a list separated by semi-colons (;). yes can be replaced by no to switch the options off, replace xxxxxxxx with the relevant values.

Country can take the values

com
de
co.uk
fr
jp
ca

for the relevant Amazon sites.

Some more examples:-



Replace xxxxxx with your chosen values.

You can find the Amazon itemId by looking at the Amazon listing for your chosen item. It will be listed under product details. It will be the value of the ASIN number, except in the case of books, where it will be the ISBN-10 number.

You don't specify a search index where you are using the item id, the value will be ignored.

If you are doing a keyword search, the search index does not need to be specified, because the default value of 'All' will be used.

If you are using an author or title search, you will need to specify Books or another category where this kind of search is supported (see the Amazon documentation for further details).

The available values for searchIndex are:-

All
Apparel
Automotive
Baby
Beauty
Blended
Books
Classical
DigitalMusic
DVD
Electronics
ForeignBooks
GourmetFood
Grocery
HealthPersonalCare
Hobbies
HomeGarden
Industrial
Jewelry
KindleStore
Kitchen
Magazines
Merchants
Miscellaneous
MP3Downloads
Music
MusicalInstruments
MusicTracks
OfficeProducts
OutdoorLiving
PCHardware
PetSupplies
Photo
SilverMerchant
Software
SoftwareVideoGames
SportingGoods
Tools
Toys
VHS
Video
VideoGames
Watches
Wireless
WirelessAccessories

Not all of these are available for all Amazon countries.

If the administrator allows the Amazon associates ID can be set by the author. Otherwise the adminstrator can specify that his or her own associates ID must be used. This is done by editing the plugin parameters in the Joomla plugin manager.

Please note that Amazon now require you to obtain permission for each domain on which you use your ID. It will not return results until you do.