OpenBook Requirements and Troubleshooting
I have gathered this information into this single official post. Any updates will be maintained here.
OpenBook is a WordPress plugin. You need to have your own WordPress installation, not the free WordPress server which does not support custom plugins.
Your server must support at least PHP 5.0. If you are getting an “unexpected {” error when you activate OpenBook, it is because you have an earlier version of PHP. Note: my server was set to PHP4, but upgrading to PHP5 was a simple switch.
OpenBook uses the JSON library. This comes with PHP 5.2, but OpenBook also has a custom JSON library for PHP 5.0 users (e.g., Redhat servers).
OpenBook uses PHPs cURL library. It has been available since PHP 4.0.2, but your system administrator may have this package disabled. Here is a simple test for cURL. If it is not enabled, your administrator may wish to consult the PHP installation and configuration notes.
Troubleshooting Requirements. If you are using OpenBook and nothing is happening, e.g., blank post, it is likely that a PHP error is occuring due to a missing requirement, but that WordPress is suppressing the error. For troubleshooting, enable error reporting. See this thread.
Troubleshooting Conflicts If you using OpenBook and getting strange formatting results, it is possible that your theme or other plugins have a conflict with OpenBook. Test switching your theme and disabling other plugins, enabling them one at a time. I am interested in hearing about any such conflict.
If the above does not resolve your problem, please contact me. Thanks, John
I am building a wordpress site and would realy like to use your excellent opnebook. However I cant get it to work.
I have a specific page with a template called reading and i have placed the short code in it.
Are there any specifics for shortcode to work? Do i need php tags?
I would appreciate any help you can spare.
This is my page
<div id=”right_pan”.
Google preview books
GBS_insertEmbeddedViewer(‘ISBN:0738531367′,400,300);
Openbook
[openbook booknumber="0864921535"]
Hi Mike, PHP tags are not required. Your usage looks correct. What output do you see? Do you meet the criteria in the article above?
Hi there! I’m running WordPress 2.8 and my PHP version is 5.2…when I try to activate the OpenBook plug-in, I get the following error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘{‘ in /home2/picardyt/public_html/wp-content/plugins/openbook-book-data/openbook.php on line 41
I don’t know much of anything about code…any ideas?
Hi Becky, that error occurs when you have PHP4, which does not use the error handling of PHP5+. Mind double-checking your PHP version?
Ah, you’re right (of course). The control panel for my hosting site was being a little deceptive; the 5.2 that was listed wasn’t actually the version that was activated. Thanks for letting me know that the PHP version was the problem!
Were you able to switch up? On my host (netfirms) it was a simple switch: http://support.netfirms.com/article.php?id=713
Yup! It took a little searching (I use BlueHost) but it was really easy once I found it. Thanks again.
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OpenBook WordPress Plugin
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