=== Recommended Reading: Google Reader Shared === Contributors: Jacob M Goldman (C. Murray Consulting) Donate link: http://www.cmurrayconsulting.com/software/google-reader-shared-wordpress/ Tags: google, reader, shared, recommended, blogs Requires at least: 2.7 Tested up to: 2.8.4 Stable tag: 3.2 Recommended Reading gets the shared items from your Google Reader account. Includes easy configuration, widget support, ability to embed in a page or post (shortcode), and caching for performance. == Description == Recommended Reading: Google Reader Shared gets the shared items from your Google Reader account. Version 3 is another major update, with major performance improvements under the hood, better error handling, elimination of cURL PHP module requirement, a cleaner interface. Best of all, you can now choose to show only items shared prior to the page or post publication date when using shortcode! Version 3.1 further enhances shortcode capabitilies, with the ability to specify the number of shared items via the shortcode, as well as a new option to automatically show all shared items since the last use of the shortcode! Version 3.2 adds support for both cURL or fopen. Reverted to using cURL as primary method based on performance testing; will fall back to fopen if its available and cURL is not. Want to easily share posts you recommend from other blogs? Want to share selected posts from your business partners' news feeds or friends' blogs? The "Recommended Reading" plug in is the easy way to do it! All you need is a free Google Reader account. It includes an easy to use configuration panel inside the WordPress settings menu. From this panel you can control every aspect of the plug-in, including: 1. Your Google Reader ID... or look it up dynamically with your Google username and password! 2. Number of posts to show. 3. Format of post dates (or hide dates). 4. Option to show the source blog with link. 5. How many characters from the post's content or summary to show (including all, or none). 6. Handling of links (new window, nofollow properties) 7. Display of your notes. 8. Advanced content output and styling when embedding on a page or post. Use the sidebar widget, embed in a page or post with simple shortcode, or, for advanced users, call the list by a function in your template. Precise CSS classes throughout the output (with common WordPress conventions) allows granular control over the look within templates. Powerful caching stores and compares the the feed's provided update information, giving you fast performance with a feed that's always up to date. Requires PHP 5 or newer. == Installation == 1. Install easily with the WordPress plugin control panel or manually download the plugin and upload the folder `recommended-reading-google-reader-shared` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory 2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress 3. Configure the plugin by going to the "Rec. Reading" menu item under "Settings" 4. Widget users can add it to the sidebar by going to the "Widgets" menu under "Appearance" and adding the "Rec Reading" widget 5. If you want to display the output on a page or post, just type `[recreading]` into the page or post content. 6. Template authors can output the list anywhere in by calling the function: `google_reader_shared()`; pass the value "true" - `google_reader_shared(true)` - to replicate shortcode output. == Frequently Asked Questions == = How do I set up a Google Reader account? = Everything you need to know: http://reader.google.com = How do I share posts? = Click the "Share" button at the bottom of any post inside Google Reader. = How do I make shortcode based posts only show items shared before I published my post? = Version 3.0 adds a new option in the “Display on page / post (shortcode)” controls at the bottom of the Rec Reading settings page. Check of the first item, in bold, “As of publish date”, to show items published before you published your post! = I want to regularly share my latest items with my readers. Can Recommended Reading automatically show all the shared posts between the publication date of the current post and the last post to use the shortcode? = Yes! First, check off the "As of publish date" option (discussed in the question). And as of version 3.1, you can now check the next option, "up to last post" to do just that! = The plugin worked prior to 3.0, but now won't validate my ID or display shared items. What happened? = As of version 3.0, the plug-in switched over from using a "cURL" approach to an "fopen" approach for pulling in the external feed. The new approach enjoys wider support, largely because it doesn't pose the same resource consumption risks that cURL does. It is very unusual for a host to have cURL enabled, and fopen disabled. If this applies to you, leave a note on our support page; we may update the plug-in to use cURL as a fallback. Version 3.1.2 includes a friendly, more informative error message if this situation applies to you. = Do I need to be at my computer to update my recommended reading? = Nope! Since the plug in gets posts from the Google Reader shared feed, you can update your website's / blog's feed from any Google Reader interface that supports shared items. Google has a free mobile version of Google Reader... recommend items from your mobile phone! http://www.google.com/reader/m == Screenshots == 1. Sceenshot of output, using widget. 2. Screenshot of configuration panel. 3. Screenshot of shortcode output. == Changelog == v1.01 * Added "Quick Set" option to display settings * Vastly improved handling of ID validation * Fixed source post links v1.02 * Fixed description of "Trim Post Content" * Option for opening links in a new window * Improved output error checking for config saved with invalid feed ID * JavaScript and PHP code optimizations throughout v1.5 * Added caching based on feed update tag * Added control over display of shared item notes * Added control over widget title * More standard widget output * Added more help to plugin options * Added options to support plugin author v1.51 * Fixed path issue causing validation and lookup issues v1.52 * Improved path handling for validation and lookup * Added check for PHP 5 v1.522 * Fixed mistake in PHP check v1.530 * Improved error handling and requirements check * Minor XML parsing changes attempting to address rare object error v1.540 * Smarter requirements checking * Modified code causing fatal error upon attempting activation in PHP4 v1.541 * Fixed additional fatal error upon attempting activation in PHP4 v2.0 * Easily embed in a page or post with shortcode; includes special settings! * Option to hide stand alone notes * Add rel="nofollow" to links * Control the preface text for item source and publish date * Improved built in help * Misc code improvements and clean up v2.0.1 * Updated options code for compatibility with future versions and Wordpress MU v3.0 * Ability to show items prior to post publication date when using shortcode * Major performance improvements across the board, from caching to ID verification * Elimination of "cURL" PHP module requirement; uses `file_get_contents` instead * Administrative interface clean up and polish, including subtle jQuery-powered animations * Quickly access Rec. Reading settings page from plug-in list * Better error handling * Validated compatibility with WordPress 2.8 v3.1 * May now specify number of items in shortcode via 'items' attribute * New option to show all shared items since last use of shortcode * Improved date/time handling, including GMT offset v3.1.1 * Fixed ability to call in template by `google_reader_shared()` function v3.1.2 * Display friendly / descriptive error message when host does not have fopen enabled v3.2 * Will now support hosts with either cURL or fopen enabled * cURL now used as primary method for retrieving feed based on performance testing * Improved validation of ID when using fopen method (PHP offset bug) Future enhancements: * Better support for multiple user notes * Override settings via parameters when called by function * Support for individual shared folders * PHP4 backwards compatability (if enough demand)