List of all short-codes

KoolPal,
Not sure why you quoted “Working”, but there is a list of shortcodes that you can use, and their parameters in the plugin menu.

After you install and activate the plugin, there is a Shortcode Usage page in the Amazon Product Menu that has a list of everything you can do.

Warm regards,
Don

Sorry if my message was unclear, Don. Please allow me to elaborate. But first, please accept my gratitude for developing this plugin and sharing it for free. Really appreciate this.

The documentation and FAQs are not clear and designed for a person who would be installing this plugin for the FIRST time. The documentation appears to be designed for people who are upgrading this plugin.

Some queries:
1. What is the difference between [AMAZONPRODUCTS] Shortcode & [amazon-elements]? What is the usage difference, if any?
2. Are the parameters interchangeable between both? e.g. Can I use lg-image with [AMAZONPRODUCTS] Shortcode?
3. What is the difference between gallery & imagesets? (gallery mentioned in your Shortcode Usage page, imagesets used on your website in Shortcode examples)
4. Is there some detailed sample you can share with shortcodes / elements (Im sorry, but I am completely confused between the two) which can replicate any single Amazon product page in totality? This would help map clearly which shortcodes / elements is fetching what.

So far these are all the initial queries I could think of and I would appreciate some detailed response for these.

Thanks.

Kool Pal – Fair enough.

The shortcode usage page does spell out some differences and what you can and cannot use with each one, but let me see if I can explain a little better:

• 1a. [AMAZONPRODUCTS] shortcode is for when you want to put a product on a page or post, and just requires the ASIN to work. In the simplest usage you just put the shortcode and the ASIN, like [AMAZONPRODUCTS asin="B0084IG8TM"]. That will output the basic elements of the product (and that is the Image, Title, larger image link, new price, used price, and amazon button). This shortcode is the one that most people would use.
• 1b. [amazon-elements] or [amazon-element] (either works and they are both have exactly the same parameters and output) is for adding parts of a product to a page or post. You would use it if you wanted to put different elements in different parts of your content. Say you have a long review you wrote about the product and wanted the image to be in one place and then later on, you wanted the amazon description or pricing and then at the end you wanted the buy button or buy link. With this shortcode, you can do that. Usage in its simplest form is [amazon-elements asin="B0084IG8TM" fields="image"] – the ‘fields’ parameter needs to have at least value, and that can be anything available (see the list in the shortcode usage page in the plugin – I spelled out EVERY field you can use)
• 1c. The reason for the 2 shortcodes is to give you the choice for the output. [AMAZONPRODUCTS] is pre-formatted and [amazon-elements] is mostly un-formatted and returns the data you asked for. Why the two? Because people asked for ways to add additional elements to the content – and this is the best way we found to be able to do that.
• 2. Some of the parameters are interchangeable. [AMAZONPRODUCTS] uses asin, locale, partner_id, public_key, private_key, desc, features and listprice that’s it. Parameters locale, partner_id, public_key, private_key are there so you can add products from different locales with different affiliate id if you need to (had many requests for this, so added it), the others are just an on off parameter – desc="1", features="1" and listprice="1" show, in sequential order, the description from amazon, product features and listprice (or SRP). Those were the most common user requests so we made them options.
  For [amazon-elements] there are some of the same ones:
  asin, locale, partner_id, private_key, public_key, gallery, showformat, msg_instock, msg_outofstock, target, fields, labels, button_url.
  The parameters asin, locale, partner_id, private_key, public_key, are the same as the other shortcode. gallery, showformat are on/off parameters – 1 to show, 0 to hide (hidden by default unless you use something like gallery="1" to turn on for example).
  The remaining ones all require string values of some sort, i.e., target="_blank". fields and labels are the two big ones for this shortcode. You add the fields you want to display, and the label for the field.
• 3. One thing to note, is that you can use gallery as a field or as an on/off value parameter. Additionally, imagesets is a field that is exactly the same as gallery. Originally we had gallery as the on/off and imagesets as a field, but in testing people seemed to try to use them interchangeably in their tests, so we made them work the same so it was less confusing. And the reason we left both, is that it is easier to add something than to take it away. When you take it away you risk making someone’s shortcodes not work anymore.
• 4a. I don’t have a sample of how to make your page look like an Amazon page using a shortcode. That would require quite a bit of thought and layout (and time) to achieve. You could probably do it, but there are going to be 2 hurdles – 1, you need to write the CSS to style the page to look that way in addition to just using the shortcode, and 2, there are some features on Amazon that the plugin can’t re-produce (like wishlist, add to cart. etc) – I guess you COULD get a pretty close look if you had the time to put into it. BUT, the plugin is not designed to REPLICATE Amazon’s site, it is just meant to give you a better way to display products if you don’t want to use any of amazon’s widgets and scripts they provide.
• 4b. The shortcode is the small piece of code you put in your content editor to generate a desired output when the page is rendered. So you add a shortcode to get the product, but the elements (or Parameters) are what you use to fine tune the shortcode to get the display the way you want it. We only use the term ‘elements’ to refer to specific ‘Amazon Product Elements’, i.e., product title, or product price.

Hope this helps.
Again, for more details on what ‘elements’ you can use in the shortcodes, see the Shortcode Usage Page in the plugin menu after it is installed.

Warm regards,
Don

Thanks a ton for this detailed response Don. I am sure this would help a lot of fresh installers too.

Let me try all of the options based on the details shared by you. Will ty not to bother you often ??

Really appreciate your effort in all this.

God bless.

Thanks for the great plug-in.

I’ve read the Short Code Usage and FAQ documentation and was hoping you could point me to the Amazon documentation that covers the various fields that can be used by the short codes? I’ve looked through the Product Advertising API Developer Guide and see many of the fields you use but some are not referenced (e.g, button, large-image-link, etc.) and you use some naming variations (e.g., lg-image) that I don’t see referenced there either.

Is there a definitive list or table of fields and permutations I’m missing?

Thanks!

scditto2000 –
The plugin has a few plugin specific fields for use with the plugin (just to make it easier to use) but any field that is sent from the API can be displayed on the page with the shortcode – well, ALMOST all. Some of them are not available in certain regions and some are returned as arrays of data (so they can’t be used right out of the box),and some are product specific – but most can be use as is.

The plugin does have a list of all general fields available. Amazon is always modifying what data is sent for what product groups, so they may change slightly here and there, but they are as accurate as possible.

One thing to note – Kindle items and streaming movies DO NOT have any pricing in the API – so you will never be able to get a price for them even though amazon shows a price on their site. We are limited to what they push into the API – and if it is not there, there is nothing we can do (except wait – as I am sure they will one day add it).

Since I keep getting a lot of questions on this, I will post them here:

Common Fields
These are generally common in all products (if available)

ASIN
URL
Title
SmallImage
MediumImage
LargeImage
AddlImages
Feature
Format
PartNumber
ProductGroup
ProductTypeName
ISBN
ItemDesc
ListPrice
SKU
UPC
CustomerReviews

Offer/Pricing Elements
These are generally returned for most products.

LowestNewPrice
LowestUsedPrice
LowestRefurbishedPrice
LowestCollectiblePrice
MoreOffersUrl
NewAmazonPricing
TotalCollectible
TotalNew
TotalOffers
TotalRefurbished
TotalUsed

Items Attributes
Available only to their select product groups and not available in all locales. Try it first to see if it returns a value. For example, the Actor field is not going to be returned if the product is a computer or some form of electronics, but would be returned if the product was a DVD or Blu-ray Movie.

Actor
Artist
AspectRatio
AudienceRating
AudioFormat
Author
Binding
Brand
CatalogNumberList
Category
CEROAgeRating
ClothingSize
Color
Creator
Department
Director
EAN
EANList
Edition
EISBN
EpisodeSequence
ESRBAgeRating
Genre
HardwarePlatform
HazardousMaterialType
IsAdultProduct
IsAutographed
IsEligibleForTradeIn
IsMemorabilia
IssuesPerYear
ItemDimensions
ItemPartNumber
Label
Languages
LegalDisclaimer
MagazineType
Manufacturer
ManufacturerMaximumAge
ManufacturerMinimumAge
ManufacturerPartsWarrantyDescription
MediaType
Model
ModelYear
MPN
NumberOfDiscs
NumberOfIssues
NumberOfItems
NumberOfPages
NumberOfTracks
OperatingSystem
PackageDimensions
PackageDimensionsWidth
PackageDimensionsHeight
PackageDimensionsLength
PackageDimensionsWeight
PackageQuantity
PictureFormat
Platform
ProductTypeSubcategory
PublicationDate
Publisher
RegionCode
ReleaseDate
RunningTime
SeikodoProductCode
ShoeSize
Size
Studio
SubscriptionLength
TrackSequence
TradeInValue
UPCList
Warranty
WEEETaxValue

Best of Luck,
Don