Associate Engine : Configuration Variables
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Configuration Variables

Note: The following tables are only a partial list of the configuration variables. See the ae-ini.txt configuration file for a complete list of all the configuration variables. Click here for sample ae-ini.txt file.

Sample ae-ini.txt Configuration File

Click here for a sample ae-ini.txt configuration file. Click here for information about the ae-ini.txt configuration file.

Sample ae-ini.txt configuration file

Other Configuration Variables

The following table shows configuration variables that do not fit into any particular group.

addto.*

The configuration variables addto.* control the appearance of the "Buy from Amazon.com" buttons.

Quick-Click Buttons: By setting the configuration variable addto.quickclick to yes, "Buy from Amazon.com" buttons will become Quick-Click "Buy from Amazon.com" buttons. The style of the buttons is set with the configuration variable addto.quickclick.style

Configuration Variable	Default	Meaning (default shown in red)
addto.buy	yes	yes = show the "Buy from Amazon.com" button (either graphical or text) no = don't show the button
addto.buyfrom	yes	yes = show the "Buy from" international links. Note: For links to appear, at least one of amazonid.* must also be set. no = don't show the "Buy from" international links.
addto.graphics	yes	yes = use graphical button no = use plain text button/link
addto.newwindow	yes	yes = clicking the button opens new window no = stay in the same window
addto.newwindow.target	_blank	name of new window (default is "_blank")
addto.quickclick	no	yes = use "Buy from amazon.com" Quick-Click buttons* no = use regular "Buy from amazon.com" buttons* * addto.buy must be set to yes for buttons to appear.
addto.quickclick.style	1	Sets the style of the Quick-Click buttons as follows: 1 = 2 = 5 = 6 = * addto.graphics must be set to yes for graphical buttons to appear
addto.textstyle		yes = use stylized "Buy from" and "Add to" text buttons. The style attribute of the <input> is set by addto.textstyle.style. See also addto.graphics. no = do not stylize the "Buy from" and "Add to" text buttons. The style attribute of the <input> is not set.
addto.textstyle.style		Value of style attribute of the "Buy from" and "Add to" text buttons. <input>. The style attribute of the <input> is set to this value. See also addto.graphics and addto.textstyle. The default style is: background-color:#FFCF60; color:#000060; cursor:hand; width:120pt;

Note: The variables addto.graphics, addto.newwindowand addto.newwindow.target also affect the "Add to Amazon.com Wish List", "Add to Amazon.com Wedding Registry", and "Add to Amazon.com Baby Registry" buttons generated by formatting codes {details.addto.wishList}, {details.addto.weddingRegistry} and {details.addto.babyRegistry}, respectively. Graphical buttons are: , , and .

amazonID.*

The configuration variables amazonID.* set the associate ID's used with the international Amazon associate programs such as amazon.co.uk

Note: Your amazon.com associate ID is set via the ae-key.txt file. See: Request Key.

If you are not signed up with any one of these programs, then leave the corresponding configuration variable unchanged in the ae-ini.txt configuration file (default is NONE).

NOTE: If you configure Associate Engine to use any of these international Amazon associate programs, we recommend that you examine the links in the results to ensure that they do in fact contain your correct associate ID's for those programs. Note: Each of Amazon's associate programs are separate from the U.S. based associate program at www.amazon.com, so if you want to use the amazon.co.uk associate program too you have to sign up with it separately.

See also: Using Associate Engine with amazon.co.uk if you want Associate Engine results to be based on amazon.co.uk rather than amazon.com.

asinsearch.*

The configuration variables asinsearch.* control the appearance of individual product details.

By setting asinsearch.format, a product's detail page can be shown locally using Associate Engine with the specified format template. Click here for example. If asinsearch.format is not set, then when a user clicks on a product link, the user will be brought to the product's detail page at the www.amazon.com website.

Very Important:   asinsearch.format does not work in demo mode asinsearch.format is ignored in demo mode. You must have a valid key to use asinsearch.format. While in demo mode, all product links go to the www.amazon.com home page.

Set the configuration variable asinsearch.format to the format that you want to use. For example, setting it to "details" would cause ae-format/details.fmt to be used. The default value of asinsearch.format is "" which causes links to go to amazon.com's product pages.

See:

• Sample "List" Format Templates
• Sample "Details" Format Templates
• Introduction to Format Templates

This configuration variable specifies the default format to use when doing an ASIN search with one ASIN. Note: This feature does not affect the international Amazon links.

availability.*

The configuration variables availability and availability.* control the display of product availability information (see {details.availability} formatting code).

browse.*

The configuration variables browse.* control the appearance of browse index pages. A browse index page is a page that shows a list of product sub-categories. Example: Books.

cache.*

The configuration variables cache.* control how the product data cache works. The product data cache stores product data fetched from Amazon.com Web Services (AWS). If the same search request occurs, product data is read from the product data cache rather than being fetched again from AWS. Reading data from the cache is faster than fetching data from AWS. Configuration variables let you specify the maximum size of the cache and how long it takes for cached data to become stale and be removed from the cache.

If cache.stale is set to a higher number, then the longer it is that product data stays in the product data cache. Disadvantage: If amazon.com changes the details (e.g.: prices, description, reviews, etc.) of the products that are in the cache, then those changes will not appear until the relevant data in the cache has become stale and refetched (upon the next request for it). Advantage: The data is in the cache longer and thus repeat requests for that same data can be processed/displayed faster since the data is immediately available. Thus, you should set cache.stale to obtain a balance between freshness and speed that you are satisified with

See also: imgcache.*

exclude.*

To exclude products, set configuration variable exclude.list to a list of ASIN comma-separated ASIN numbers (e.g.: ASIN1,ASIN2,ASIN3). Or put the ASIN numbers (one per line) in a .txt text file in the ae-exclude directory and set configuration variable exclude.file to the name of that .txt file (note: don't specify the extension; e.g.: " mylist" rather than "mylist.txt").

imgcache.*

The configuration variables imgcache.* control how the image cache. The image cache stores product image data (width & height) fetched from the amazon.com website. Images are fetched and stored in the image cache if the grid parameter is used with the if (images first) option, or if the imageWH configuration variable is set to yes.

If the same search request occurs, image data is read from the image cache rather than being fetched again from amazon.com. Reading image data from the image cache is faster than fetching data from amazon.com. Configuration variables let you specify the maximum size of the image cache and how long it takes for cached image data to become stale and be removed from the image cache.

See also: cache.*

links.*

The configuration variables links.* control the formatting of links.

log.*

The configuration variables log.* control what information is written to the log. By reviewing the log file, you can see what searches were performed. The log file is a text file that can be opened in a plain text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad. The log filename is ae-log.txt (note: the filename is based on the filename of the script; for example, if you rename ae.pl to shop.pl then the log file will be named shop-log.txt). The default log file location is the same directory where ae.pl is located. Logging stops if the log file reaches 1MB in size (see log.size configuration variable); delete the file to continue logging.

Note: To selectively log only the current search request instead, use the log script parameter instead. Tip: To log only keyword search forms, add a hidden variable to your form instead: <input type=hidden name="log" value="1">

prevNext.*

The configuration variables prevNext.* control how the "Previous Results" and "More Results" links are displays at the bottom of results.

Configuration Variable	Default	Meaning (default shown in red)
prevNext	yes	yes = include "More results" and "Previous results" links no = don't include links
prevNext.graphics	yes	yes = use graphical buttons and no = use plain text links "<< Previous Results" and "More Results >>"
prevNext.total	no	yes = "NNN - NNN of NNN" as results range no = "NNN - NNN" as results range

prices.* and showPrices

The configuration variables prices.* and showPrices control the display of prices.

You may occasionally notice that some prices shown by Associate Engine may not exactly match the prices shown on the amazon.com website. There's probably 3 possible reasons why the prices might appear differently between Amazon.com's AWS (Amazon.com Web Services) and amazon.com's website:

1. AWS has the incorrect price. This has been reported on Amazon.com's discussion forum by some users of AWS.

2. The price recently changed and the old price is in your ae.pl data cache (ae-cache directory). In that case, either lower the cache stale time (cache.stale configuration variable) or purge that page from the cache so it is loaded fresh next time (add &purgefile parameter to the URL).

3. At the amazon.com website, you're looking at a "new & used" marketplace price. That marketplace price could be lower than the "Amazon.com price" returned by AWS.

So, the things you can do about the potential price difference are either:

1. Turn off prices by setting configuration variable: showprices no
2. Add a note to your page template such as "Prices subject to change. Click for current price."
3. Lower the cache stale time; however, this means potentially more data traffic and some slower results (because of first fetch to fill cache).

script.*

The configuration variables script.* control the operation of the script.

search.*

The configuration variables search.* are used to pre-define searches.

---

search.default

If no parameters are specified (i.e.: /cgi-bin/ae.pl), then best selling books are shown. To change the default search, set search.default to the search parameters you want to use as the default. For example, to make the DVD browse index (type=browse&mode=dvd) the default search, set the following in ae-ini.txt:

search.default "type=browse&mode=dvd"

---

search.NAME

Once you pre-define a search, you can refer to it by using its name with the search script parameter.

For example, if ae-ini.txt contains the following line to pre-define a search named arnold:

search.arnold "type=search&mode=dvd&keyword=Arnold+Schwarzenegger"

then this pre-defined search (searches for Arnold Schwarzenegger DVD's) can be accessed using the following shorter URL:

/cgi-bin/ae.pl?search=arnold

This would be equivalent to the following longer URL:

/cgi-bin/ae.pl?type=search&mode=dvd&keyword=Arnold+Schwarzenegger

Note: Other script parameters can be used with a pre-defined search, such as:

/cgi-bin/ae.pl?search=arnold&grid=c:3,r:2

---

Virtual Directory

Pre-defined searches can also be used in conjunction with Virtual Directory to create very short URL's. Assuming that search.arnold is defined as above, and that virtual directory /amazon/ has been set up, then the following three URL's would be equivalent and would display Arnold Schwarzenegger DVD's:

/cgi-bin/ae.pl?type=search&mode=dvd&keyword=Arnold+Schwarzenegger /cgi-bin/ae.pl?search=arnold /amazon/search_arnold

site.*

Configuration variable site.domain is automatically set to the domain name of your website. To show your website's domain name, use {cfg.site.domain} in your Page Templates.

store.include.*

The configuration variables store.include.* control the inclusion of custom headers/footers in the sample Page Templates provided.

You can set the store.include.* variables to any of the following type of values:

• Empty Value:
  i.e.: ""
  The empty value "" menas do not include anything.

• HTML:
  e.g.: "<H1>Welcome!</H1>"
  The specified HTML is included.

• Associate Engine include statement:
  e.g.: "{include header}"
  The HTML to be included is read from ae-include/*.html such as ae-include/header.html

• Server-Side-Include (SSI):
  e.g.: "<!--#include virtual='someurl'-->"
  The HTML to be included is read from the URL someurl. Notice the use of apostrophes ' around someurl since the entire value is delimited with " marks. The someurl can be relative to / such as /header.html or it can be absolute such as http://www.mydomain.com/header.html

store.navbar.*

The configuration variables store.navbar.* control the display of the navigation bar ("navbar" for short) in the sample Page Templates provided.

template.*

The configuration variables template.* control the use of Page Templates.

virtual.*

The configuration variables virtual.* control the use of Virtual Directory.

The following table shows some possible values for the virtual.ending configuration variable.

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