Evergreen Widgets

Overview

Widgets can be used to display content from external sources on a library website.

Widgets

General Options

• widget=(widgetname) : Must be a valid widget name. ( recent or bestsellers )
• dest=widget003 : Each widget on a page must have a unique destination. Can be any unique name.

Limitations

• Does not work with Wordpress hosted sites. They will work on Drupal and Blogger sites.

Comments

• Widgets are cached for speed. Currently the cache time is 12 hours. This means once or twice a day someone will experience a slightly slower load time. For everyone else it should be instant.
• The Bestsellers widget is very fast since it is loading data from a local database. Evergreen queries on the other hand are significantly slower.

Recent additions

This widget displays recent additions to the catalog based on filtered results:

<script src="https://widgets.owwl.org/widgets/js/widget.php?widget=recent&dest=widget004&org_unit=778&width=5&height=1&fnf=Fiction&age=Children&hide_title=0&isbn_only=1" type="text/javascript"></script>
<div id="widget004"></div>

Options

• org_unit=778 : Library Org Unit
• Width and Height. Think columns and rows.
• fnf = Fiction or Nonfiction
• age = Adult, Children, Teen (Corresponds with copy stat cats)
• hide_title=0 : Change the 0 to a 1 to hide the widget title.
• isbn_only=1 : 1 says to only display items with ISBN's. If an item does not have an ISBN it can't display a cover photo.

Comments

• You can leave out some of the filters to get a more general result.

Bestsellers

This widget pulls data from the Bestsellers module in OWWL's Wordpress site:

<script src="https://widgets.owwl.org/widgets/js/widget.php?widget=bestsellers&dest=widget202207&width=4&height=1&hide_title=0&lists=Hardcover+Fiction|Hardcover+Nonfiction|Young+Adult+Hardcover|Picture+Books" type="text/javascript"></script>
<div id="widget202207"></div>

Options

• Width and Height. Think columns and rows.
• hide_title=0 : Change the 0 to a 1 to hide the widget title.
• lists=Hardcover+Fiction|Hardcover+Nonfiction|Young+Adult
  • These are the list names from: http://www.owwl.org/bestsellers/
  • Must replace spaces with the plus sign (+)

Google Gadgets

Google sites does not allow the use of inline javascript to add widgets. The work around is to create a real Google Gadget.

Example: https://sites.google.com/site/pioneerlibrarysystemtest/

The Google gadget URL follows the same format as the other widgets with a slightly different path:

https://widgets.owwl.org/widgets/google_gadgets.php?widget=recent&dest=widget009&org_unit=784&width=5&height=1&fnf=Fiction&age=Adult&hide_title=0

Notice the above URL is widgets/google_gadgets.php instead of widgets/js/widget.php. Everything else in the URL is the same.

To add this gadget to a Google site:

1. Logon to your site
2. Select "Insert"
3. Select "More Gadgets"
4. Select "Add Gadget by URL"
5. Enter the URL: (All one line and no spaces)

    https://widgets.owwl.org/widgets/google_gadgets.php?widget=recent&dest=widget009&org_unit=784&width=5&height=1&fnf=Fiction&age=Adult&hide_title=0
   

6. click Add
7. Set Width 525 pixels and height 200 pixels
8. Uncheck all 3 boxes
9. Click OK