=== 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, rss, feeds, recommended, blogs, widget, shortcode
Requires at least: 2.8
Tested up to: 2.8.5
Stable tag: 4.0

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.

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.
   9. A link back to your full shared items feed at Google

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.

Version 4.0 is a major update that introduces dramatic changes and improvements "under the hood". Key 
components, including feed loading and parsing, were rewritten to take full advantage of the latest WordPress 
API and to improve performance. As a result of the re-writes, 4.0 introduces dramatic performance improvements 
across the board, as well as PHP4 and broader host compatibility. Best practices, including a plug-in 
uninstall script, contextual help, and a dramatic reduction in option table rows have all been introduced.
While there are no new "visible" features for your readers, significant fit and finish has been added to the 
plug-in configuration page. 

All told, 4.0 represents a "code maturity" milestone, that will facilitate the addition of new features in
the coming months. We will address any issues that result from the broader rollout of this major update 
quickly: please report them in the comments section on our website.


== 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.

== FAQ ==

= 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? =

In the “Display on page / post (shortcode)” controls at the bottom of the Rec Reading settings page check off 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). You can now check the next option, 
"up to last post" to do just that!

= 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 

= Additional frequeuntly asked questions are covered in the plug-in help. Just click the help tab near the header
on the plug-in configuration page. =


== 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)

v3.2.1
* When checking item date against post date, now uses date item shared, not published
* Fixes to time zone handling; correctly determines precise date/time values
* Workaround for broken conversion of publish date in earlier versions of PHP

v3.3
* New option for a "read more" link back to your shared items page at Google
* Set the "read more" link to the shared items Atom feed instead of the page
* Plug-in cache automatically cleared when re-activating or auto-upgrading plugin

v4.0
Version 4.0 is a major update that introduces dramatic changes and improvements "under the hood". Key 
components, including feed loading and parsing, were rewritten to take full advantage of the latest WordPress 
API and to improve performance. As a result of the re-writes, 4.0 introduces dramatic performance improvements 
across the board, as well as PHP4 and broader host compatibility. While there are no new "visible" features 
for your readers, significant fit and finish has been added to the plug-in configuration page. Too many
changes under the hood to list!

Future enhancements:
* Schedule a regular shortcode based post!
* Better support for multiple user notes
* Override settings via parameters when called by function
* Support for individual shared folders