AuthorCollector.com

AuthorCollector.com was developed using D6 and is intended to simplify how dedicated readers find appropriate and interesting reading material.

Motivation
- As a voracious reader of 25-30 authors, I grew tired of manually filtering Amazon results for each-and-every author and book title which looked interesting.
- I also grew tired of trying to remember my "favorite author" list... pulling up ancient invoices to remember names.
- So I developed AuthorCollector to act as an intermediary between me and Amazon... to (ideally) save me oodles of time.

Features
- Registered users manage a persistent list of favorite authors online.
- A "publications table" for these authors is regularly updated in the background using Amazon web services.
- This table can be sorted and filtered as appropriate for the user... by language, form factor (e.g. "paperback"), publication date, etc. Filter settings are persistent.
- Individual publications can be marked as "owned" or marked to be permanently "hidden".
- When hovering over a book title, a detailed pop-up tooltip with the image and details of the book appears.
- Clicking on the book title takes you to the publication's page on Amazon for purchasing.

Details
- AuthorCollector is implemented as a D6 module. A heavily modified version of the Sky theme was used as well.
- The D6 AHAH feature is used to process changes to filter block settings. The implementation is somewhat unique, as the AHAH code effects changes to the content of a block other than the calling block.
- The "Cluetip" module is used to create the detailed pop-ups when hovering over a book title. For speed popups are in-line tables... AHAH worked but a tad too slow.
- The filter block employs a collapsible section to hide less-used filtering parameters.
- Custom jQuery code is used to handle customization of the publications list... the "own" and "hide" checkboxes. Needed a custom implementation as the publications table is a table, a pager and supports user entry all at the same time.
- I implemented a nice and compact framework for storing user preferences. Anonymous user data is stored in cookies... registered users in a database. Stores arbitrary content with no coding. I'd consider making this a module, if someone shows interest.

If there is anything which disappoints me it is the responsiveness of AuthorCollector as hosted on GoDaddy... page loads can be slow... and since page content is dynamic caching doesn't work correctly. GoDaddy works reasonably for static HTML... not well suited for D6 IMO. And tech support just gives you the run-around.

Drop me a line if you like AuthorCollector. Always open to constructive criticism.

Mark