Google Books Widget

Want to share your library with friends, family and even the rest of the world? If that's the case, you can use my new Google Books Library Widget. Please take a look and experiment with this new widget, and let me know what you think about it.

Google Books

In Google Books you can create your own Library. Take a look here to see my small test library. As you can see, there are 2 books in this library, and I have written a small review for each of them. Creating your own Google Books Library is very easy. First of all, you need to have a Google account. As a Blogger user, you probably have one. After signing in on your Google account, select "more" from the menubar on the Google main page. This opens a small pop-up menu, where you can select "Books". This brings you to the Books-page, where you start creating your Library by "Importing Books". You can easily add books to your Library by entering a list of ISBN-numbers. Google will look up all bookdata. After importing some books, return to the Library page (click on "My Library" in the menubar), to see your Library Listing. Now you can add comments, reviews, and a ranking (0-5 stars) to your books. After setting up your Library, it is time to move on to creating the Google Books Library Widget.

Creating the Widget
Creating the Widget is done in a few easy steps:

1. Get the URL of your Google Books Library;
2. Create a Widget with Yahoo Pipes;
3. Add the Widget to your Blog.

It will take less than a minute to set it up.

1. Get your Google Books Library URL
Go to your Google Books Library page. Select the contents from your browser's address bar by right-clicking on it and selecting "copy" from the popup menu.

2. Create the Widget with Yahoo Pipes
Go to my Google Books Library Pipe by clinking on the link. In the entry-field, enter the URL by right-clicking and pasting the URL you just copied. Click the "Run Pipe" button. Your Library data are retrieved, and displayed as a list of titles and descriptions.
If the output is as you expected, go on to the next step.

3. Add the Widget to your Blog
Now click on "Get as a Badge". Badge is the Yahoo-word for Widgets. This will bring up the Badge Configuration Window. In this window, click on "Customize the size, type and settings of your Badge". In the entry-field again paste your Google Books URL and click "Next". Now select "Blogger" as the destination for your Badge. This brings you to the familiar Blogger-screen, where you can select the Blog, and enter the heading for the new Page Element. Click on "Add Widget", and afterwards view your Blog.

Please change URL's

In my last post I have informed you of my ISP changing my homepage URL. I hve repaired most of the links in this blog, but if you have installed my widgets (such as Recent Posts and Recent Comments, you will have to change the link in your own blog as well.

Please change all referrals to "http://home.planet.nl/~hansoosting/......." to "http://home.kpn.nl/oosti468/......" to get your widgets working again.

Good luck and sorry for the inconvenience.

Tip: download my javascript-files, and upload them at your own web-space.

Speeding Up BlogTOC

Some of you who are using my (much appreciated) BlogTOC widget have mentioned the long load times of their blog as a result of the BlogTOC widget. Also, some of you want to display the Table of Contents automatically, without the visitor having to click on the Show TOC link.

Well, I will share some ideas with you regarding this subject.

Speeding up stuff
If you implement the BlogTOC widget in the standard way, the entire code of the widget is placed in a Blogger Page Element, usually somewhere at the top of you blog.
Now, while your Blog is loading, all code is processed from top to bottom. The piece of code that is the most time-consuming is the code that retrieves the Blogger Feed, parses it, and puts the data in a set of javascript arrays. This slows down loading, but once the data has loaded displaying it is done lightning-fast.
A good solution is, to move the retrieval-code to a page element that is completely at the bottom of your blog page.
I have moved the code to the bottom of the footer, and that has sped up loading a lot.
The code you have to move is this:

<script src="http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&start-index=1&max-results=100&callback=loadtoc"></script>

Automatic display of TOC
If you want the TOC to auto-display, add a simple line of javascript code at the end:

<script type="text/javascript">showToc();</script>

Aorta Widget

If you like mashups, you probably will like my new Aorta Widget as well. It displays your life's bloddstream, your Aorta, in the sidebar of your Blog. What is in your Aorta? Your Blogger Blog feed, to begin with. But also your Flickr Photo's, your Picasa Webalbums, and your YouTube Channel.

Easy Installation
Go to the Widget Installation & Downlaods Page, and click the Install Widget to Blog button. This will bring up the Widget Installer, where you can customize the widget before installation.
Enter the full url of your Blogger blog. If you have a Picasa Webalbums account, enter the Picasa username here. If you don't have a Picasa account, leave this field blank. If you have a Flickr account, enter your FlickrID here. Again, if you have no account, leave the field blank. Finally, enter your YouTube username, or leave blank if you have no YouTube presence.
Click Customize, and then Add to my Blog.

Easy Styling
Add custom CSS-classes to your skin. You need .bbaortabox, .bbaortaitem and .bbwidgetfooter.