Amazon Auto Links - Amazon Associates Affiliate Plugin

Display Amazon Associates Affiliate Links with Minimal Effort Still manually searching products and pasting Amazon affiliate links in WordPress posts? What happens if the products get outdated? With this plugin, you do not have to worry about it nor trouble to do such repetitive tasks. Just pick categories which suit your site and it will automatically display the links of decent products just coming out from Amazon today. Amazon Auto Links is a WordPress plugin for affiliates to create Amazon affiliate links. The links are tagged with your Amazon Associates ID. All the Amazon locales are supported and it works even on JavaScript disabled browsers. Insert the ads as widget, place shortcode, or use auto-insert to display units automatically where the links should appear. If you want to search a specific product, yes, you can do that too. If you are good at HTML and CSS coding and know a little about PHP, you can create your own template! That means you can design the layout. Display Amazon affiliate links along with your posts with this plugin to earn commissions with minimal efforts. Compatible with PA-API 5! As of 2019/10/31, Amazon ended PA-API (Product Advertising API) v4 and your site may no longer be able to display Amazon products with old API keys. In that case, regenerate keys on the Amazon Associates member's area and you are good to go! Migrate from Amazon Associates Link Builder Are you looking for an alternative to the discontinued Amazon Associates Link Builder plugin? If so, this plugin can take care of their shortcodes inserted with their Gutenberg block. Just enable the option and you don't have to edit thousands of posts to replace the shortcode. Display a particular product in a post If you want to simply display your desired specific products in a post, don't worry. You can do that too. Just paste the product URL in the post editor. No shortcode is required. See How Amazon Affiliate Links are Displayed [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDCcp4KBZg] Supports All Amazon Associates Locales Includes Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Sweden, and United States. China is supported for the category unit type. Works without JavaScript Some visitors turn off JavaScript in their browsers for security reasons and most ads including Google Adsense will not show up to them. But this one works! Automatic Insertion in Posts and Feeds Just check where you want the product links to appear with auto-insert.

• Static Contents Conversion - If you want the product link to be static, it is possible. This means if you deactivate the plugin, the converted contents will remain.
• Detailed Visibility Criteria - You can enable/disable product links on the pages you want or do not want by post ID, taxonomy, page type, and post type.

Auto Link Conversion Hyper links to Amazon products in posts and comments can be transformed into your associate affiliate links. This is useful if your site allows guests to post contents that include Amazon links. Widgets Place the widget in the sidebar and select the unit you created. The product links will appear in where you want.

• By Units - choose the created units to display in the widget.
• Contextual Search - with this, you don't have to create a unit. It will automatically searches products relating to the currently displayed page contents.

Shortcode and PHP Function Insert the ads in specific posts and pages with the shortcode. If you want to insert in the theme template, use the PHP code the plugin provides to produce the outputs. Filter Products You can filter out certain products you don't want to display with a black and white list by description, title, and ASIN. Custom Buttons Visitors more likely click buttons than regular text hyper links. Define your custom buttons and insert it to the unit output. Export Ads into External Sites with Feed By subscribing to the product feed produced with the units you create as RSS or JSON, you can import them from other sites. If you have a web site that can display RSS feed contents, just create a WordPress site somewhere with this plugin and fetch the feed from the site. If you are an App developer, you can just display the items from the feed without programming an API client. Various Unit Options

• Image Size - The size of thumbnails can be specified. It supports up to 500 pixel large with a clean resolution.
• Sort Order - Shuffle the product links so that the visitor won't get bored as it gives refreshed impression.
• URL cloaking - You can obfuscate the link urls so it helps to prevent being blocked by browser Ad-blocking add-ons.
• Load with Javascript - Decides whether to display units with JavaScript.
• and more.

Customize Outputs Besides the Item Format unit option which lets you design the output of a unit, you can create a custom template. This gives you freedom of customization and lets you achieve more advanced and detailed design. Unit Types

• Category - pick your category that matches your site topic.
• Product Search - create a unit of a search result.
• Item Look-up - display specific products.
• URL - list items from an external web source.
• ScratchPad Payload - for more complex PA-API queries.

Getting Started To get started, create a unit first and display it with widgets, shortcode, or auto-insert. Supported Language

• English
• Japanese
• German
• Italian
• Spanish

Install

1. Upload amazon-auto-links.php and other files compressed in the zip folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.

Getting Started

1. Go to Dashboard -> Amazon Auto Links -> Add Unit by Category.
2. Configure the options and select categories.
3. After saving the unit option, go to 'Manage Units' to get the shortcode or if you check one of the insert option, the links will automatically appear in posts or feeds depending on your choice. The widget is available in the Appearance -> Widgets page as well.

Shortcode and Function Parameters The following parameters can be used for the shortcode, [amazon_auto_links] or the PHP function of the plugin, AmazonAutoLinks() id - the unit ID [amazon_auto_links id="123"] ` 123 ) ); ?> ` label - the label associated with the units [amazon_auto_links label="WordPress"] ` 'WordPress' ) ); ?> ` asin - ASINs (product IDs) separated by commas (`,`). [amazon_auto_links asin="B016ZNRC0Q, B00ZV9PXP2"] ` 'B016ZNRC0Q, B00ZV9PXP2' ) ); ?> ` search - Search keywords separated by commas (`,`). [amazon_auto_links search="WordPress"] ` 'WordPress' ) ); ?> Theid,asinandsearch` arguments cannot be used together. Optionally, the following arguments may be set.

• country - (string) the locale of the store. Accepted values are CA, CN, FR, DE, IT, JP, UK, ES, US, IN, BR, MX, AU, TR, AE, SG, SE, and NL.
• associate_id - (string) the Amazon Associates ID for the affiliate.
• count - (integer) determines how many items should be displayed.
• image_size - (integer) the image size in pixels.
• title_length - (integer) the maximum title character length. Set -1 for no limit. Default: -1.
• description_length - (integer) the maximum description character length. Set -1 for no limit. Default: 250.
• link_style - (integer) the link style. Accepted values are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Default: 1.
• 1 - http://www.amazon.[domain-suffix]/[product-name]/dp/[asin]/ref=[...]?tag=[associate-id]
• 2 - http://www.amazon.[domain-suffix]/exec/obidos/ASIN/[asin]/[associate-id]/ref=[...]
• 3 - http://www.amazon.[domain-suffix]/gp/product/[asin]/?tag=[associate-id]&ref=[...]
• 4 - http://www.amazon.[domain-suffix]/dp/ASIN/[asin]/ref=[...]?tag=[associate-id]
• 5 - http://localhost/wp47?productlink=[asin]&locale=[...]&tag=[associate-id]
• credit_link - (integer|boolean) whether to show the credit link. 1/true to show, 0/false to hide.
• subimage_size - (integer) the sub-image size in pixels. Default: 100.
• subimage_max_count - (integer) the maximum number of sub-images to display.
• customer_review_max_count - (integer) the maximum number of customer reviews.
• show_now_retrieving_message - (boolean|integer) whether to show the "Now retrieving..." message when sub-elements are pending to be fetched. true/1 to show false/0 to hide.
• button_type - (integer) The type of buttons. The following values are accepted. Default: 1.
• 0 - Link to the product page.
• 1 - Add to cart.
• load_with_javascript - [3.6.0+] (boolean|integer) whether to load the unit with JavaScript. true/1 to yes, false/0 to no.
• product_title - [4.0.0+] (string) An alternative text to alter the product title for anchor text. This is only supported when the asin argument is set.
• show_errors - [4.1.0+] (integer) Whether to show the output error. Default: 2.
• 0: do not show error.
• 1: show the error.
• 2: show the error in an HTML comment.

These values can be pre-defined from the setting page via Dashboard -> Amazon Auto Links -> Settings -> Default. If these arguments are omitted, the values set in the setting page will be used. Shortcode to Display Buttons Although with the %button% tag in the Item Format unit option allows you to insert a button, a button itself can be displayed indipendently with the shortcode, [aal_button ...]. It accepts the following parameters.

• asin - (required, string) Comma delimited ASINs.
• type - (optional, integer) 0: Link to the product page, 1: Add to cart button. Default: 1.
• id - (optional, integer) The button ID. To use the button created via Dashboard -> Amazon Auto Links -> Manage Buttons, specify the button ID.
• quantity - (optional, integer) The quantity of the item to add to cart. When multiple ASINs are specified, separate the values by commas.
• country - (optional, string) The locale of the marketplace. If not set, the default value set in the Default setting tab will be applied.
• associate_id - (optional, string) The associate tag. If not set, the default value set in the Default setting tab will be applied.
• access_key - (optional, string) The public PA-API key. If not set, the default value set in the Authentication tab will be applied.
• label - (optional, string) The button label. e.g. 'Buy Now'. Default: Buy Now.
• offer_listing_id - (optional, scalar) An offer listing id that Amazon gives.

How to Create Own Template Step 1 Copy an existing template that is located in ...wp-content/plugins/amazon-auto-links/template and rename the copied folder. Step 2 Remove the files besides style.css and template.php as other files are optional. Step 3 Edit style.css and template.php to customize the layout. Step 4 Create a folder named amazon-auto-links in your theme's folder. If you are using Twenty Thirteen, the location would be ...wp-content\themes\twentythirteen\amazon-auto-links. Step 5 Move the working folder(the copied one) to it (the amazon-auto-links folder you just created). Step 6 The plugin will automatically detect your template and add it in the template listing table. So activate it. Upgrading V1 to V2 When upgrading v1 to v2, a few options will be lost. That includes:

• Sidebar widget
• The positions of the inserting area

These options need to be reconfigured. How to Obtain Access Key and Secret Key An access and secret keys are required to perform API requests. We need to deal with additional two separate Amazon services apart from Amazon Associates. For detailed instructions, please refer to the To register as a Product Advertising API developer section. Step 1 - Create a Product Advertising API Account Before you create an access key, you have to make sure you have singed up with Amazon Product Advertising API. Step 2 - Sign up with Amazon Web Service Next, create an account with Amazon Web Service(http://aws.amazon.com/). At the top right pull-down menu, you can navigate to My Account/Console -> Security Credential. Step 3 - Create an Access Key In the Security Credentials page, find the section named Access Keys (Access Key ID and Secret Access Key) and click on that. Then press the Create New Access Key button to create a key. Don't forget to keep the secret access key as well. Amazon has changed the policy not to let the user to obtain the secret key later on. Also note that at the point that an access key is issued, if you have not created an account with Product Advertising API, the key will be invalid. If that happens, delete the created access key and go back to the previous step. You can check if your access key is valid or not with Scratchpad.

4.5.8 - 05/09/2021

• Fixed a bug that unit custom text was inserted for RSS and JSON outputs which resulted in validation errors.
• Fixed a bug that a box shadow line around product thumbnails appeared in the List template for some themes.

4.5.7 - 05/03/2021

• Tweaked the List template to adjust layout and font sizes for mobile screens.
• Tweaked the List template to give rounded corners to product thumbnails.

4.5.6 - 04/30/2021

• Fixed a bug that the %description_text% tag was not formatted properly for category and some other unit types.
• Fixed a bug that second or subsequent category units in the same page did not appear, started since v4.3.4.
• Updated Japanese translation items.
• Updated Spanish translation items.

4.5.5 - 02/20/2021

• Fixed a bug that active auto-insert items were not updated properly when deleting a unit.
• Fixed a bug that auto-insert outputs were displayed even for deleted/trashed units.
• Fixed a bug that some prices for books were not displayed for the embed unit type.
• Fixed a bug that some product thumbnails did not load for the embed unit type.
• Fixed a bug that the %feature% tag displayed the wrong output for the embed unit type.

4.5.4 - 02/11/2021

• Fixed a bug that the associate_id direct unit argument did not take effect, which started from v4.5.0.
• Fixed a bug that an Associate ID input value was lost when creating category units, which started from v4.5.0.
• Fixed a bug that the Item Format unit option was not saved properly, which started from v4.5.3.

4.5.3 - 01/31/2021

• Added the Creating Units option under the Access Rights section of the Misc tab which lets the user set a user role to allow creating units.
• Fixed a bug that the wrong status was displayed when testing PA-API keys failed in the Associates tab.
• Fixed a bug that setting forms could not load in PHP 8.0.

4.5.2 - 01/15/2021

• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP warning, "strpos(): Empty needle in "...AmazonAutoLinks_LinkConverter_Output.php on line 105".

4.5.1 - 01/08/2021

• Fixed an issue that caused a PHP error, "Call to a member function getValue() on null in ...AmazonAutoLinks_FormFields_Unit_Template_EachItemOptionSupport.php:152" on some servers.

4.5.0 - 01/07/2021

• Added the ability to set Associate IDs and PA-API key pairs for multiple locales.
• Added support for multiple locales for the link converter.
• Added the Associates setting tab.
• Added the ability to utilize Web Page Dumper to help HTTP requests.
• Optimized HTTP requests.
• Fixed an issue that the Link Style Query Key general option could be empty, which resulted in unit RSS and JSON feeds broken.
• Deprecated the Associates IDs option in the oEmbed section in place of Amazon Associates section.
• Deprecated the Authentication setting tab.
• Updated the base translation file.
• Updated the Japanese translation.
• Fixed a bug that Amazon site cookies were not stored properly.
• Tweaked the style of UI of the 3rd Party tab.

4.4.6 - 12/29/2020

• Fixed a bug that iframe elements of embedded outputs flickered when multiple instances of them were present in one page.
• Fixed a bug with embedded outputs that failed to display base64 encoded sub-images.
• Fixed a bug that embedded outputs were not possible with the locales of Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UAE, Turkey, and China.
• Fixed a bug with embedded outputs that review counts were not accurate for some cases.
• Fixed a bug that the %description% and %content% were not functioning for the embed unit type when the PA-API keys are not set.
• Fixed a bug with embedded outputs that thumbnails were not displayed with some locales.

4.4.5 - 12/22/2020

• Tweaked the style of the List template regarding vertical margins of buttons.
• Fixed a bug that unnecessary debug log was created when some unit options are enabled, started since 4.4.4.
• Fixed a bug with embedded outputs that did not display errors when no product is found.
• Fixed a bug that height of embedded outputs with iframe was not adjusted properly when multiple instances were present.
• Fixed a bug that using caches failed in some cases when an HTTP response contains an error.
• Fixed a bug with checks of setting PA-API keys which possibly resulted in unnecessary PA-API calls when they are not set.
• Fixed a bug that errors are not displayed for embedded outputs with iframe for a product of a different locale from the one set in the Authentication screen.
• Fixed a bug that unnecessary PA-API requests were performed when a product URL of a different locale from the one set in the Authentication screen is pasted in the post editor.
• Fixed an issue that user-defined custom CSS rules set via Additional CSS of Customizer did not load in plugin embedded pages for iframe.

4.4.4 - 12/13/2020

• Added the Tasks tab in the Reports page.
• Added the Site Debug Log tab in the Reports page which appears when the site debug mode it turned on.
• Tweaked the style of the UI of the Products tab.
• Fixed a bug that background routines of updating products failed when the default country was not set.
• Fixed a bug that invalid plugin tasks were not cleared properly.
• Fixed a bug that a product filter was not functioning for category units.
• Fixed a bug that tests could not run via UI on some systems.
• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP notice, "Undefined index: view in ...AmazonAutoLinks_PostType_Unit_ListTable.php on line 54".

4.4.3 - 12/10/2020

• Added the Products tab in the Reports page.
• Tweaked the UI of unit settings to have a warning message for some options that require PA-API keys when PA-API keys are not set.
• Fixed a bug in the chart of PA-API request counter which displayed the wrong step size and that the tooltip title was not set properly.
• Fixed a bug that the prime flag was not set properly for category units.

4.4.2 - 11/27/2020

• Tweaked the UI of Manage Units listing table not to display feed icons for contextual units.
• Fixed a bug that the discount filter did not function.
• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP warning, "Division by zero in ...AmazonAutoLinks_UnitOutput__ProductFilter_ByDiscountRate.php on line 71.
• Fixed a bug that proper product prices were not displayed.

4.4.1 - 11/18/2020

• Added the Details column in the unit listing table and removed the Template and Unit Type columns.
• Fixed a bug that dud not load stylesheets in the setting pages.

4.4.0 - 11/13/20020

• Added the Sweden locale.
• Added the ability to process pasted Amazon URLs in the post editor when they are not of a product URL by performing like the URL unit type.
• Added the ability to log PA-API request counts.
• Added a warning in unit outputs when an Associate tag is not set.
• Added a warning when the site PHP version is below 5.6.20.
• Tweaked the style of the List template regarding the thumbnail width and the font size of now-retrieving elements in embedded iframe.
• Tweaked the style of the Error Log and Debug Log tab screens.
• Fixed a bug that unusable proxies were not cleared automatically.
• Fixed a bug that Item Look-up units failed to retrieve products with PA-API with a certain number of items.
• Fixed a bug that did not resume now-retrieving elements for iframe embedded outputs.
• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP notice, "file_get_contents(): read of ... bytes failed with errno=13 Permission denied in ...AmazonAutoLinks_VersatileFileManager.php on line 107."
• Fixed a bug that caused broken mark-ups in the Error Log tab when a log item includes a detail of some HTML elements.
• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP fatal error: "Uncaught Error: Wrong parameters for Exception ..." in the Tests page when an Ajax request failed.
• Changed the default value of the Show Errors unit option to Show errors.
• Moved the Error Log and Debug Log tabs to the Reports page.

4.3.9 - 11/06/2020

• Added the Italian translation.
• Updated the Japanese translation items.
• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP warning saying the directory already exists with mkdir().
• Fixed a bug that some translation items were unable to translate.

4.3.8 - 11/02/2020

• Added the File Permissions field in the About tab of the Help page.
• Regenerated the base language file.
• Fixed a bug that failed to create a plugin temporary directory on some sites causing a PHP Warning: file_put_contents(...) failed to open stream: No such file or directory in ...AmazonAutoLinks_VersatileFileManager.php on line 89.
• Removed the Server Information field in the About tab of the Help page.

4.3.7 - 10/28/2020

• Fixed a bug that caused the PHP error, "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ')' in ...AmazonAutoLinks_UnitOutput__ItemFormatter.php on line 130" in below PHP 7.3.

4.3.6 - 10/24/2020

• Fixed a bug that some background routines often reached the PHP maximum execution time, started since v4.3.4.
• Fixed a bug that background routines which remained due to an error of another routine did not resume smoothly.

4.3.5 - 10/21/2020

• Optimized HTTP requests.
• Fixed a bug that the contextual units were not finding products due to the wrong locale if the default unit options were not set, started since v4.3.4.
• Fixed a bug that caused the PHP notice, "Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in ...AmazonAutoLinks_TemplateOption.php on line 176."
• Fixed a bug that caused the PHP notice, "Trying to access array offset on value of type null in ...AmazonAutoLinks_DatabaseTable_aal_request_cache.php on line 227." in PHP 7.4.
• Fixed a bug that caused the PHP fatal error, "Uncaught Error: Cannot use object of type WP_Error as array." when trying to retrieve HTTP status code, started since v4.3.4.

4.3.4 - 10/17/2020

• Added the Saudi Arabia locale.
• Fixed a bug that descriptions in the category unit only appeared for the first product.
• Fixed a bug that passing the unit_format direct arguments were not taking effects.
• Fixed a bug that passing the item_format, image_format, title_format, unit_format direct arguments were not taking effects, started since v4.0.0.
• Fixed a bug that country flags were not displayed in the Embed setting tab.
• Tweaked the default Image Format unit option regarding widths.
• Tweaked the style of Embed setting tab.
• Optimized HTTP requests to Amazon sites.
• Optimized PA-API requests.

4.3.3 - 10/04/2020

• Fixed a bug that updating now-retrieving elements failed with a certain number of items.
• Fixed an issue that on some sites with a database of the utf8-mb4 type collation got an error " Specified key was too long; max key length is 1000 bytes...".
• Fixed a bug that caused an error "database error Duplicate entry '...' for key 'product_id' for query ..." when activating the plugin after downgrading it.

4.3.2 - 09/28/2020

• Fixed a bug that caused a browser console error in the setting screens.
• Fixed a bug that Ajax requests for non-logged-in visitors failed with the message, "Could not get a user ID".

4.3.1 - 09/26/2020

• Tweaked the setting UI to include a current tab title in the <title> tag.
• Optimized PA-API requests to prevent duplicated payloads.
• Optimized the process of updating pending elements labeled "Now retrieving..."
• Fixed an issue with the List template that some sub-images overlapped the thumbnail.
• Fixed a bug that button links were broken since 4.3.0.
• Reverted the change made in v4.3.0 regarding the default thumbnail layout to drop max-height.

4.3.0 - 09/24/2020

• Added the ability to resume pending elements saying "Now retrieving..." with JavaScript.
• Added the Language and Currency options in the Default setting screen.
• Added the Reset button in the Default setting screen.
• Added the Custom Text unit option.
• Added the Unit Format option under the Output Format unit option.
• Added the ability to toggle the status of buttons.
• Added the [aal_button ...] short code to display buttons.
• Added the Override the button label. unit option that allows the user override a button label.
• Added the theme button option for the Select Button option.
• Added target="_blank" to the unit view links to open the link in a new tab
• Added the Test page and Debug Log tab which appear when the site debug mode is turned on.
• Added the mechanism to reuse HTTP caches if a new response contains an error.
• Fixed a bug that some internal styles were duplicated in the Manage Units page.
• Fixed an issue that the setting form could not be submitted after an hour passed.
• Fixed a bug that caused overhead in admin-ajax.php.
• Refined some setting form elements by updating Admin Page Framework.
• Refined the Error Log screen.
• Minified CSS files.
• Minified JavaScript scripts.
• Tweaked the style of the default thumbnail layout to drop max-height.
• Tweaked the style of setting form fields.
• Tweaked the button style.
• Optimized the embed unit type.
• Removed the deprecated unit types, tag and similarity_lookup.

4.2.10 - 09/18/2020

• Optimized PA-API requests.
• Fixed a bug that descriptions were duplicated in embed unit type outputs, started from v4.2.9.
• Fixed an issue that the %date% value was not accurate.
• Fixed CSS rules that were not taking effect.
• Fixed duplicated id attribute values in HTML mark-ups in the category selection screen.
• Fixed an incompatibility issue with PHP v5.3.x or below that caused a syntax error.
• Fixed a mark-up error in an unit price disclaimer output element.

4.2.9 - 09/12/2020

• Optimized the embed unit type to display elements as much as possible in the first load when the API keys are set.
• Fixed a bug with the embed unit type that iframe sources were loaded twice.

4.2.8 - 09/08/2020

• Tweaked the default layout of the List template not to support the min width for the thumbnail.
• Fixed a bug that the default value of the Language unit option was not set properly.
• Fixed a bug that images and titles failed to show with the embed unit type in some cases.
• Optimized PA-API requests.

4.2.7 - 09/03/2020

• Fixed a bug with the contextual widget that failed to retrieve products due to the incorrect currency and language arguments.

4.2.6 – 08/29/2020

• Fixed a bug that Item Look-up and Contextual unit types could not display product titles, which started since v4.0.0.

4.2.5 – 08/26/2020

• Fixed an incompatibility issue with PHP 5.4.x or below regarding the empty() language construct.

4.2.4 - 08/24/2020

• Tweaked styling of List, Category, Search templates.
• Fixed a bug that in some cases preferred_currency and language unit options were not set.

4.2.3 - 08/18/2020

• Optimized PA-API requests.

4.2.2 - 08/16/2020

• Added the Spanish translation.
• Updated the translation files.
• Added debug information in the console.log of the category selection screen.
• Added more precise error messages to appear in the embed unit type outputs.
• Fixed incompatibility with WordPress 5.5 regarding input radio boxes that caused the unchecked state while selecting them.
• Fixed a bug that modified date of the product was not retrieved for non-cached results.

4.2.1 - 08/06/2020

• Optimized performance in the category selection screen of the category unit type.

4.2.0 - 08/03/2020

• Added the proxy option.
• Refined the category selection screen of the category unit type.

4.1.0 - 07/11/2020

• Added the ScratchPad Payload unit type that allows custom API queries generated on Scratchpad.
• Added the ability to accept * for the Product Filters options to apply to everything.
• Added support for PhpZon shortcodes.
• Added the Show Errors unit option under the Common Advanced section that allows the user to decide whether to display output errors.
• Added the %author% tag that displays product authors for the Item Format unit option.
• Added the %image_size% Item Format option tag.
• Added new translated items for the Japanese translation.
• Added the Netherlands locale for search and category unit types.
• Added the Singapore locale for search unit types.
• Tweaked the default Item Format option to set min-width for the thumbnail container.
• Tweaked the UI regarding the admin bar menu items.
• Renewed the base translation file.
• Fixed a bug that activated templates which are no longer exist were still loaded and caused PHP warnings in the template listing screen.

4.0.6 – 06/26/2020

• Fixed a bug that the Item look-up unit creation screen was unreachable.
• Fixed a bug that caused an undefined index warning when a custom template is unexpectedly removed.

4.0.5 – 04/09/2020

• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP error saying class not found in the post editing screen.

4.0.4 - 03/08/2020

• Tweaked the default Image Format option layout value.
• Fixed an issue that units with the Prevent Duplicates unit option enabled produced no results in the unit preview page when some third-party plugins call the the_content filters in prior to rendering the post.
• Fixed a bug that the Output Format unit options were not loaded properly for some cases.
• Fixed a bug that template names were not displayed in Manage Units screen.
• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP fatal error "Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function register_block_type()" for WordPress v4.9.x or below.
• Fixed a bug that the default template was not listed in the Template unit option when no template was activated, started from v4.0.0.

4.0.3 - 03/03/2020

• Changed the Secret Access Key option input field to be masked.
• Fixed a bug that templates were doubled in the Templates setting screen.
• Fixed a bug that cased the fatal PHP error in setting pages.

4.0.2 - 02/26/2020

• Tweaked the List template regarding the width of sub-image container elements.
• Tweaked the default Image Format option layout value.
• Added the Image template.
• Changed the behavior of when the template path is not found to apply the default template instead of showing an error.
• Fixed a bug that templates were not properly loaded with some cases, started from v4.0.0.

4.0.1 - 02/24/2020

• Changed the Now retrieving... message not to show when API keys are not set.
• Optimized the process of performing PA-API requests.
• Fixed a bug that last inputs were not properly restored when creating search type units.
• Fixed a bug that the ASINs option for the Item Look-up unit type was sanitized properly when saved, started in 3.9.0.
• Tweaked the styling of the List template for widget areas.
• Tweaked the default Image Format option layout value.
• Tweaked the process of retrieving ratings.

4.0.0 - 02/20/2020

• Added the Compress option in the Cache section.
• Added the Output Formats unit options that support Item Format, Image Format, and Title Format options for each template.
• Added the Feed unit type that imports unit data from external sites and display them.
• Added the ability to automatically embed product links when an Amazon URL is pasted in a post editor.
• Added the product_title shortcode parameter which alters the product title and serves as anchor text.
• Added the new Text template.
• Tweaked the styling of the List template for widget areas and relatively small thumbnail sizes.
• Optimized the process of saving error log entries.
• Optimized the outputs of the [amazon_textlink] shortcode of Amazon Associates Link Builder to remove some outer container.
• Changed the default behavior of compressing caches.
• Changed the Category and Search templates not to be the default activated templates.
• Changed the default template to List for all the unit types.
• Fixed PHP warnings of deprecation when displaying buttons.
• Fixed a bug that some URL query parameters of buttons were not properly set.
• Fixed a bug that last inputs for creating units were not stored properly for some unit types.
• Fixed a bug that category units did not show the updated date in the price disclaimer text.
• Removed some array key elements and local variables passed to the template file which has been kept for backward-compatibility.
• Removed legacy code for v2 or earlier.
• Deprecated the Item Format unit option for the new Output Formats unit option that support item format option per template.

3.12.0 - 02/05/2020

• Added the Keywords to Exclude unit option for the Contextual unit type.
• Optimized the caching mechanism to compress data.

3.11.1 - 01/29/2020

• Added options to select cache tables when clearing caches from the Cache screen.
• Fixed a bug with some locales that rating stars were not displayed.
• Fixed a bug that Country unit option was not property set for some cases.
• Fixed a bug with some unit options for the Product Search unit type.

3.11.0 - 01/25/2020

• Optimized item look-up (GetItems) PA-API requests.
• Added the ability to capture Amazon Associates Link Builder block contents and shortcodes.
• Tweaked the layout of the Error Log screen.

3.10.1 - 12/13/2019

• Added the Singapore locale for the category unit type.
• Fixed a bug with JSON feeds that caused a JSON syntax error.
• Fixed a bug with RSS feeds that caused a validation error.
• Fixed an issue that for some rare cases, prices did not show up.

3.10.0 - 11/23/2019

• Added the ability to specify preferred language and currency for units.
• Added the ability to filter items by Amazon Prime service eligibility.
• Added the ability to filter items by free shipping and FBA delivery eligibility.
• Added the About tab in the Help admin page which displays plugin information.
• Tweaked the styling of templates regarding prices, the prime mark, and rating stars, and margins of features and categories.
• Added the Delivery Flags unit option for the search unit type.
• Fixed an issue that %content% and %description% outputs were no longer available for category units since v3.9.0 due to the use of PA-API5.
• Fixed a bug in the template listing table that information of listed templates were showing outdated information even they were updated.
• Fixed a bug that API requests did not go through with some custom sort options.
• Fixed an issue that the %description% output created an empty element when the product description was not available.
• Fixed an issue that unit status was not updated when an error occurred until the cache was renewed.
• Fixed a bug that the Raw Sort unit option for the category unit type treated as Random.
• Fixed a bug that the %prime% Item Format variable did not show the prime mark.
• Fixed a bug that the advanced filter unit option for adult products caused some overhead.

3.9.6 - 11/20/2019

• Fixed a bug that the Raw sort unit option for the category unit type was treated as Random, which has started since v3.9.3.

3.9.5 - 11/16/2019

• Fixed a bug with the category unit type that caused excessive nested function calls when setting a large number of item count, which has started since 3.9.0.

3.9.4 - 11/14/2019

• Added the noopener rel attribute value for generated hyperlinks.
• Fixed a bug that caused the PHP fatal error, Uncaught Error: Call to undefined method in the category select page of the category unit type, which has started since v3.9.3.
• Fixed a bug for category units that the same list of products were shown even when multiple categories are added, which has started since v3.9.0.
• Fixed a bug that multiple categories could not be added when creating a new category unit, which has started since v3.9.0.
• Fixed a bug that thumbnails of the category unit type were not displayed properly, which has started since v3.9.0.

3.9.3 - 11/13/2019

• Fixed a bug that the Sort unit option of the category unit type did not take effect, which has started since v3.9.0.

3.9.2 - 11/06/2019

• Fixed a bug that outputs with %category% and %feature% unit Item Format option variables were not properly formatted, which has started since v3.9.0.
• Fixed a bug with some advanced product filter options that did not retrieve product data properly.
• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP fatal error with advanced product filter options, which has started since v3.9.0.
• Fixed a bug that cached connectivity status was shown in the Authentication page.

3.9.1 - 11/04/2019

• Added the Minimum Review Rating advanced unit option for the search unit type.
• Fixed a compatibility issue with PHP 7.3, occurred when browsing category lists.

3.9.0 - 11/01/2019

• Added support for PA-API 5 (deprecated the use of PA-API 4, which is no longer functional as of Oct 31, 2019 due to the termination by Amazon).
• Added the ability for the category unit type not to require Product Advertising API keys.
• Added the Error Log page (Tools -> Error Log) that displays plugin errors.
• Added the a unit filter option to remove adult products.
• Added the option to disable widgets.
• Added the %prime% variable for the Item Format unit option which displays a prime icon.
• Fixed a bug that rating stars appeared in category units when the product did not have a review, started since v3.8.12.
• Deprecated Similarity Look-up unit type as PA-API 5 does not support similarity look-up.
• Deprecated similar_product_image_size and similar_product_max_count unit options.

3.8.14 - 05/22/2019

• Fixed an issue with the Types option of category units that lead to find no products.

3.8.13 - 05/19/2019

• Optimized the category and url unit types to reduce PA API requests when no items are found.
• Fixed an issue that some products of the Types option of category units have been no longer available.

3.8.12 - 03/30/2019

• Fixed a bug that Access Rights -> Capability option did not take effect.
• Fixed a bug that truncating database tables were not successful in some cases.
• Fixed a bug that periodic background tasks of clearing expired caches were not functioning since v3.7.3.
• Optimized the category unit type to reduce unnecessary database queries and API requests.

3.8.11 - 03/09/2019

• Optimized the use of Amazon Product Advertising API to reduce unnecessary API requests.

3.8.10 - 03/04/2019

• Changed link styles other than the default one to preserve URL query parameters given by the Amazon Product Advertising API.

3.8.9 - 02/26/2019

• Updated the Japanese translation.
• Fixed an issue of unnecessary function calls in admin-ajax.php.
• Fixed a misspelling in the Manage Units page regarding PHP codes.

3.8.8 - 01/17/2019

• Added the aal_ajax_loaded_unit jQuery event for templates using JavaScript.
• Fixed an issue that plugin translations are not recognized by wordpress.org by adding Text Domain and Domain Path to the plugin comment header
• Fixed a broken link in a setting page.

3.8.7 - 01/11/2019

• Updated the Japanese translation.
• Added the German translation.
• Fixed an issue of too few products shown due to product filters when setting a small number of the Item Count unit option.

3.8.6 - 01/08/2019

• Fixed a bug of the malformed product category outputs with the %category% Item Format variable.
• Fixed a bug with the %category% variable for the Item Format unit option, which inserted debug outputs.
• Tweaked styling of the List, Category and Search templates.

3.8.5 - 01/04/2019

• Fixed a bug with the %feature% variable for the Item Format unit option, which inserted debug outputs.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes pending product details did not complete.

3.8.4 - 12/30/2018

• Tweaked styling of the template listing page.

3.8.3 - 12/27/2018

• Tweaked styling of the List, Category and Search templates.

3.8.2 - 12/22/2018

• Fixed an issue that category units often returned insufficient number of products.

3.8.1 - 12/20/2018

• Changed the category unit type to require Product Advertising API keys.
• Added the Raw sort select option for the category unit type.
• Deprecated the Date sort select option for the category unit type.
• Deprecated the Keep the raw title unit option for the category unit type.
• Fixed an issue that category units no longer showed products due to recent deprecation of Amazon product feeds by the Amazon store sites.
• Fixed a bug that category unit caches were not deleted properly via the action link in the Manage Units page.
• Fixed a bug that internally stored URLs for category units were malformed in some occasions.

3.8.0 - 12/03/2018

• Changed the default Item Format unit option value.
• Added the default template List.
• Added the %category%, %feature%, %date%, %rank% variables for the Item Format unit option.
• Added the ability to convert amazon links in posts, comments and possibly other areas into user's associate links.
• Fixed a bug that review numbers get broken characters for some locales.
• Fixed a bug that descriptions of category units were HTML-encoded.

3.7.10 - 11/14/2018

• Fixed a bug that caused a PHP warning upon plugin uninstall.

3.7.9 - 11/09/2018

• Fixed an issue with a contextual unit that the unit status became error due to no context in the preview.
• Fixed a bug that a unit status of the category unit type was not updated when it is created for the first time until the cache was renewed.
• Fixed a bug that ratings became an incorrect number for some cases.

3.7.8 - 11/04/2018

• Added the Toggle Status bulk action for the Auto-insert listing table.
• Tweaked UI by not displaying some action links and bulk actions in the drop down list in the trash view of the listing table.
• Fixed an issue that unit status was not properly updated when an action link is clicked.

3.7.7 - 10/29/2018

• Tweaked the visual of unit status and updating indications in the unit listing table.
• Added the ability to reset unit status of units when caches are deleted in the setting page.
• Optimized the process of performing API requests for product information by reducing the number of HTTP requests.

3.7.6 - 10/25/2018

• Added the Ready/Loading unit status to be displayed when the unit has not been loaded yet.
• Added unit action links to the bulk action drop down list in the unit listing page.
• Added the ability to reduce each HTTP request cache size.
• Fixed a bug that debug outputs for units were not shown when the unit response had an error.
• Fixed a bug with the Renew Cache action link of Category units.
• Fixed a bug that caused PHP Notice: Undefined index: constructor_parameters... in the background, started with v3.7.5.

3.7.5 - 10/16/2018

• Added the ability to reduce URL unit cache sizes.
• Added the Custom URL Query unit option field.
• Fixed an issue that dates in the disclaimer output were not accurate.
• Fixed a bug with the Renew Cache action link of URL units.

3.7.4 - 10/09/2018

• Added the aal_action_activate_templates and aal_action_deactivate_templates action hooks so that third parties can toggle the template status.
• Fixed some broken links in the admin area.

3.7.3 - 10/02/2018

• Added the ability to limit the overall cache sizes.
• Added a field notice of whether the periodic check of cache removal is functional in the setting page.

3.7.2 - 09/29/2018

• Fixed an issue that duplicated database queries were performed with category units.
• Fixed a bug that excluding sub-categories for category units did not fully take effect.

3.7.1 - 09/24/2018

• Fixed an issue that the No Products Found message was moved to the top in the category selection screen of the Category unit type.
• Tweaked unit error outputs which include the change of the class selector to warning from error.

3.7.0 - 09/13/2018

• Added the ability to display errors in the unit listing table of the Manage Units page.
• Optimized the number of API requests based on the Item Format option.
• Optimized API request parameters regarding similar products.

3.6.7 - 09/07/2018

• Added the aal_filter_api_request_uri filter hook to allow third-parties to modify API request URI.
• Added the Associate ID field in the Authentication setting section for some locales.

3.6.6 - 08/09/2018

• Added the Data section in the Reset setting page, which handles export/import options.
• Added the ability to clean up used custom post type posts upon plugin uninstall.

3.6.5 - 08/04/2018

• Added the translation items for the Japanese and default language file.

3.6.4 - 07/29/2018

• Added the aal_filter_product_link filter hook to allow third-parties to modify product links.

3.6.3 - 07/17/2018

• Fixed a compatibility issue with third party plugins/themes which attempt to instantiate the plugin widgets.

3.6.2 - 07/09/2018

• Fixed a bug that the default button is not created.

3.6.1 - 07/04/2018

• Added rel='nofollow' to the button links.

3.6.0 - 06/22/2018

• Added the Load with Javascript unit option that lets the user decide whether to display the unit with JavaScript.

3.5.7 - 06/09/2018

• Fixed an issue that some categories could not be recognized when creating a category unit.

3.5.6 - 06/05/2018

• Added SSL support for impression counter scripts.
• Added the API response error message to be displayed for API authentication in the setting page.

3.5.5 - 05/11/2018

• Fixed a bug that incorrect categories were displayed when creating a new product search and item search unit.
• Added support for the Australia locale.
• Added support for the locales of Mexico and Brazil for the search units.

3.5.4 - 05/02/2018

• Fixed an issue that category units could not detect some sub-categories when creating a unit.
• Added custom filter hooks in the feed template to allow third-parties to modify the RSS feed outputs.

3.5.3 - 09/10/2017

• Changed the default value of the Credit Link unit option.

3.5.2 - 06/08/2017

• Fixed an issue that the search unit types missed product thumbnails in rare cases.

3.5.1 - 05/03/2017

• Fixed an issue that the random sort order for URL and Item Look-up units was applied after the product data were retrieved which caused the same items to constantly appear.

3.5.0 - 01/23/2017

• Added the Renew Cache action link in the unit listing table.
• Added the search shortcode and function argument which performs a keyword search with the set keywords.
• Added the asin shortcode and function argument which list products of the set ASINs.
• Added the Contextual unit type.
• Added the Sort Order option to the Item Look-up unit type.
• Refined the API request caching mechanism.
• (breaking change) Fixed typos in option key names. This fix affects the stored option values of Interval for Removing Expired Caches and Caching Mode. Some users may need to re-save the options.
• Fixed a bug that produced invalid RSS2 and JSON formats.

3.4.13 - 01/05/2017

• Fixed a bug that an incorrect offered price was displayed with the %price% variable of the Item Format option.
• Tweaked the accuracy of detecting products with URL units.

3.4.12 - 12/24/2016

• Fixed a bug that invalid user inputs for the Item ID option were saved with the Item Look-up unit.

3.4.11 - 12/16/2016

• Fixed a warning wp_kses_js_entities is deprecated since version 4.7.0.
• Fixed an issue that static auto-insert was not performed when a draft is saved.
• Changed the %price% variable for the Item Format unit option to show the lowest offered price from just a discounted price when available.

3.4.10 - 11/28/2016

• Fixed a bug with static auto-insert.

3.4.9 - 11/27/2016

• Fixed an issue that some API requests were not cached properly.

3.4.8 - 11/25/2016

• Added cache size indications in the Cache setting section.
• Fixed a bug that unexpired caches were deleted when deleting expired caches.
• Fixed an issue that some ASINs were not detected accurately in URL units.
• Fixed a bug that PHP warnings occurred in the background in some rare occasion.

3.4.7 - 11/06/2016

• Fixed a bug that the Contextual Products widgets were no longer displaying any products, introduced in 3.4.6.
• Fixed a bug occurred in PHP 5.3 that caused a warning debug_backtrace() expects at most 1 parameter, 2 given.

3.4.6 - 11/02/2016

• Fixed a bug with the shortcode that some direct product search arguments were not recognized.

3.4.5 - 10/27/2016

• Fixed an issue that reaches PHP max input vars in the auto-insert definition page on some servers.

3.4.4 - 09/16/2016

• Fixed an issue that some locale specific API keys were not connected to the API server by adding the Server Locale option in the Authentication section.

3.4.3 - 09/02/2016

• Fixed a bug of discount prices displayed with the %price% variable for the Item Format unit option.

3.4.2 - 06/09/2016

• Fixed a bug that products of Category units were not displayed on some servers introduced in v3.4.1.

3.4.1 - 05/31/2016

• Fixed a bug that the %rating% variable in the Item Format option produced HTML outputs with an invalid structure.

3.4.0 - 03/17/2016

• Added the ability to automatically extract ASINs for the Item Look-up and Similarity search unit types.
• Added the ability to set a custom label for the unit preview page.
• Added the Interval for Removing Expired Caches option.
• Added the default unit options.
• Changed the %price% variable in the Item Format option to display a discounted price when available.
• Fixed a bug that ISBN could not be set with the Item Look-up unit type even the locale was set to US.
• Fixed a bug that expired caches were not cleared automatically.
• Fixed a bug that the custom data base tables did not have the proper character set and collation.

3.3.6 - 01/14/2016

• Fixed PHP warnings caused by using a deprecated method.

3.3.5 - 01/13/2016

• Tweaked the style of an Auto-insert option.
• Fixed a bug that caused a warning when setting the Post Type Slug option ( Settings -> General -> Unit Preview -> Post Type Slug).
• Optimized performance in the admin area.

3.3.4 - 01/02/2016

• Fixed a bug that a fatal error occurred with category units on sites enabling SSL.
• Improved performance of the setting pages.

3.3.3 - 12/31/2015

• Fixed a bug that caused illegal string offset warnings with stored template data.

3.3.2 - 12/29/2015

• Fixed an issue that the setting forms could not be displayed when third-party plugins or themes have JavaScript errors in the same page.

3.3.1 - 12/25/2015

• Fixed invalid offset warnings in PHP 7.
• Fixed a bug that an invalid character was inserted in the RSS feed.

3.3.0 - 12/23/2015

• Improved the performance of the auto-insert functionality.
• Added the Description Suffix unit option that let the uset set own text for the read more label.
• Added the Max Image Size for Similar Product Thumbnails and Max number of Similar Products unit options.
• Added the %meta% variable to the Item Format unit option.
• Added the %similar% variable to the Item Format unit option.
• Added the Unit Options Converter in the Tools page.
• Added the %content% variable for the full product description to the Item Format unit option.
• Added the RSS Content Tag option that lets the user decide whether a complete product output should be in the <description> tag or the <content> tag in the feed.
• Added the Allowed HTML Tag Attributes option and the Allowed Inline CSS Properties option in the Misc setting page.
• Fixed a bug that deactivated templates were loaded as active.
• Fixed some incompatibility issue with PHP 7.
• Fixed a bug that the unit options could not load when there is no button created.
• Fixed a bug with the contextual product widget which caused Item Format option to be empty when the user first add the widget without connecting to the API.
• Fixed a bug with the contextual product widget which caused a fatal error when the user enabled Breadcrumb in the Additional Criteria option and enabled The home page in the Available Page Type` option.
• Fixed a bug that custom database table versions were not saved properly and caused extra database queries.
• Reduced the number of database queries in widget forms.
• Changed the Item Format option to be available.
• Changed the %description% variable of the Category unit type to include description produced by Amazon Product Advertising API if the user has authenticated the plugin.
• Deprecated the Template Options Converter.

3.2.4 - 12/13/2015

• Fixed an issue that unit preview could not be displayed without re-saving the site permalink options after setting a custom unit preview post type slug.
• Fixed a bug that a View action link was inserted in different post type listing table when a custom unit preview post type slug was set.
• Fixed a bug in the contextual products widget that the Credit Link option was not displayed properly.
• Fixed an issue of a fatal error Maximum function nesting level of 'x' reached when the server enables the XDebug extension and sets a low value for the xdebug.max_nesting_level option.
• Tweaked the appearance of the auto-insert setting page.

3.2.3 - 12/11/2015

• Fixed a compatibility issue with WordPress 4.4 that some widget options could not be saved.

3.2.2 - 12/09/2015

• Added a unit option to select credit link type.
• Fixed a bug that reselecting categories via the Select Categories button in the Category unit editing page let to a fatal error, introduced in v3.2.0.
• Changed the minimum required cache duration to 600.
• Changed the Found Items field in the URL unit definition page to display Not Found message for finding no item.

3.2.1 - 12/04/2015

• Fixed a bug with the Item Look-up and URL unit types that the Number of Items option did not take effect.
• Fixed a bug that some Amazon Product Advertising API response errors could not be displayed when the Query per Item option was enabled.
• Fixed incorrect inline CSS values in the default Image Format unit option.
• Changed the default template of the Contextual Products Widget to Search.
• Tweaked the style of Search and Category templates for disclaimer elements in widgets.
• Tweaked the style of Search template to wrap descriptions.
• Removed some advanced options of the URL unit type as their values could not be used rather led to errors.

3.2.0 - 12/02/2015

• Enhanced the ability of the contextual product search for the site search terms.
• Added the URL unit type which enables to search products and list them with given urls.
• Added the Query per Term unit option for the Search, Item Look-up, Similarity Look-up unit types.
• Added the %disclaimer% variable in the Item Format unit option.
• Added a unit option to toggle the visibility of Now Retrieving... message.
• Added the internal ability to set previous unit option values when creating a new unit.
• Changed the some option inputs larger including product filter options and search items of the Item look-up and Similarity look-up unit type s.
• Changed the initial position of the Template unit option section.
• Tweaked the style of setting pages and forms.
• Deprecated the tag unit type as it is no longer supported by Amazon.

3.1.4 - 11/27/2015

• Added the search_per_keyword argument for the shortcode which can be set to true when performing search with multiple keywords.
• Enhanced the ability of the contextual product widget.

3.1.3 - 11/26/2015

• Changed the unit template formatting options to accept some inline CSS properties.
• Tweaked the style of rating images of the Category and Search templates.
• Tweaked the style of sub-images in widgets of the Category and Search templates.
• Tweaked the style of some option fields in the plugin setting pages.
• Fixed a bug that some options with numbers could not set more than 1.

3.1.2 - 11/25/2015

• Changed the default value of the page type option in the Contextual Search widget.
• Tweaked the style of thumbnails of the Category and Search templates.

3.1.1 - 08/09/2015

• Fixed a fatal error Call to undefined function mb_detect_encoding()... in the category select page on the server that does not install the multibite string extension.
• Fixed a bug that the %price% variable in the Item Format unit option was not functional.

3.1.0 - 07/27/2015

• Added the ability to skip no thumbnail items.
• Added the Button Type unit option that lets the user add a product to the Amazon shopping cart.
• Added the ability to produce RSS and JSON feeds by unit id.
• Added the home and front page criteria for the Available Page Types option in the widget form.
• Tweaked the style of built-in templates.
• Tweaked the style of the credit link.
• Fixed PHP warnings related file path lengths set to the PHP_MAXPATHLEN constant.
• Fixed an issue that widget by unit could not be displayed in the front/home page, introduced in 3.0.5.

3.0.5 - 07/14/2015

• Added visibility options to the widget by unit.
• Fixed a credit link that pointed the plugin directory which occurs when the user does not update the options to v3.

3.0.4 - 07/07/2015

• Changed debug methods not to function when the site debug mode is off.
• Changed not to redirect the user to the listing table page after editing an auto-insert definition.
• Fixed strict standard PHP warnings.

3.0.3 - 07/05/2015

• Fixed a bug in the contextual product widget that product filter options did not take effect.
• Fixed a bug that setting 0 for the Max Image Size for Sub-images option did not disable the images.
• Fixed a bug that templates inherited from v2 options were listed twice in the template listing table.

3.0.2 - 07/04/2015

• Fixed an issue that templates were not properly loaded if the user did not upgrade the options to v3.

3.0.1 - 06/30/2015

• Tweaked the formatting of a product element.
• Fixed an issue that translation files were not loaded in the front-end.
• Updated the base translation file.

3 - 06/29/2015

• Added the Tools setting page.
• Added the contextual products widget.
• Added the ability to design buttons and insert them in units.
• Added black and white lists per unit.
• Added common advanced unit options.
• Added the %button%, %review%, %rating%, and %image_set% variables to the template option.
• Refined the method of processing RSS feed data by getting rid of SimplePie.
• Refined the caching mechanism by introducing custom tables.
• Refined the setting pages.
• Changed the behaviour of the white-list to only allow certain products from being blocked, from only showing certain products.
• Added a unit preview link to a unit name in the Auto-insert listing table.
• Tweaked the Manage Auto-insert admin menu that did not appear in the Auto-insert listing page.
• Remove the Template option section when creating a new unit.
• Removed the Add Auto insert admin menu link.
• Removed the Support section from the settings.
• Updated Admin Page Framework.
• Updated the Amazon Product Advertising API version.

2.2.1 - 04/25/2015

• Fixed a compatibility issue with WordPress 4.2 in template listing page.
• Tweaked the styling of plugin template listing pages.

2.2.0 - 04/24/2015

• Added the Preview Unit options including one that allows the user to set a custom url slug to the unit preview page.

2.1.2 - 12/15/2014

• Added the aal_action_loaded_plugin action hook.
• Changed the timing of a localization function call.
• Tweaked the way to display product prices of the search unit type.
• Updated the Japanese translation file.

2.1.1 - 12/04/2014

• Added the ability to automatically remove auto-insert items with no unit associated when a unit is removed.
• Changed the displayed product price of the Search unit type to use the discount price if there is an offered price.
• Optimized the performance.

2.1.0 - 11/24/2014

• Added the India locale for the search unit type.
• Fixed an issue that when Marketpalce is selected in the Category option of the Select unit type, an error was shown.

2.0.7 - 11/14/2014

• Added a error message when a template is not found.
• Added the Merchant ID option in the advanced options for the Search unit type.
• Fixed an issue that options were not saved with sites that enables object caching in the admin area.

2.0.6 - 09/27/2014

• Made a small optimization on the background caching routines.
• Added the %price% variable for the search unit type.
• Fixed widget output formatting.

2.0.5.4 - 06/07/2014

• Tweaked the styling to horizontally center the Not Found image of the Search template.
• Fixed the label of one of the advanced options of the search unit type.

2.0.5.3 - 05/30/2014

• Fixed the warning: Array to string conversion in... message when product links were displayed with the auto-insert.

2.0.5.2 - 05/27/2014

• Tweaked a form validation method to prevent no type option item from getting selected.
• Changed the file structure of including files.
• Tweaked the styling of the Category template to center the not found image.

2.0.5.1 - 04/24/2014

• Changed the default option value of Prevent Duplicates.

2.0.5 - 03/22/2014

• Fixed a bug that templates were deactivated when the plugin was deactivated and reactivated.
• Fixed an issue that the the_content filter was ignored in the plugin custom post type page.
• Added the Caching Mode option.
• Fixed a compatibility issue with a third-party plugin that hooks the posts_where filter.
• Fixed a PHP warning that occurs when a user with an insufficient access level logs in to the admin page.
• Added the class selectors representing unit ID and the label to the products container element.
• Fixed a bug that the column option was saved always as 1 for the first time.
• Refactored the code.

2.0.4.1 - 03/03/2014

• Fixed a bug with the Auto-insert feature that a set page type for the Where to Enable section did not take effect.
• Added the ability to use an image when no product is found for the search unit type.
• Fixed a bug with the search unit type that results of the same API request but with a different locale were saved with the same name.
• Fixed a bug with the search unit type that same products were stored in the response array when more than 10 items were set.

2.0.4 - 02/27/2014

• Improved the caching mechanism.
• Fixed a bug that caches for the search unit type renewed in the background were not saved properly with the right name.
• Fixed a bug that caches durations for the search unit type were not set properly.

2.0.3.5 - 02/01/2014

• Fixed a possible security issue in the plugin admin pages.
• Tweaked the form text input length.
• Fixed an issue that (recently, newly) tagged... message was inserted in the title of product links of Tag unit type.
• Fixed the warning: Strict standards: Declaration of ... should be compatible with ... when displaying the output of the tag unit type.

2.0.3.4 - 01/25/2014

• Fixed: a bug that the Settings link of the plugin in the plugin listing table did not point to the Setting page.
• Fixed: a bug that caused a broken output in the search unit type due to an undefined index in an array when the authentication keys are not properly set in some PHP versions.
• Added: the Number of Items option for the Similarity Look-up search unit type.
• Fixed the warning: Strict standards: Declaration of ... should be compatible with ....
• Updated: the Admin Page Framework library to v2.1.7.2.

2.0.3.3 - 01/17/2014

• Fixed: a bug that the Single Post check option did not take effect in the Page post type.
• Updated: the Admin Page Framework library to v2.1.7.1.
• Fixed: a bug that taxonomy check list boxes were gone since v2.0.2.

2.0.3.2 - 01/07/2014

• Fixed: an issue that an image element was inserted when no image of the product was found in the search unit type.
• Fixed: undefined index warnings with the search unit types.
• Fixed: a bug in the advanced search option that the Title option did not take effect.

2.0.3.1 - 01/03/2014

• Fixed: an issue that the stylesheet urls included the characters, /./, which may have caused a problem for third-party plugins that minifies CSS.
• Fixed: an issue that some outputs broke html tags due to unescaped characters.
• Fixed: a bug that search units did not return results with the correct item count.

2.0.3 - 12/20/2013

• Added: the Similarity Look-up unit type which allows to display similar products by ASIN.
• Changed: the message "Could not identify the unit type." to be inserted as an HTML comment.

2.0.2 - 12/17/2013

• Fixed: an issue that too many database queries were performed in the plugin setting pages as of v2.0.1 due to disabling object caching.
• Added: the Item Look-up unit type which allows to pick one or more items by item ID.
• Fixed: the method handling Amazon Product Advertising API to treat invalid XML returned by the API as an error.
• Updated: the information regarding obtaining an Amazon access key since the linked documentation page has been closed.
• Added: a help page and some information pages in the plugin admin pages.
• Tweaked: the style of the option elements in the unit definition page.
• Updated: the Admin Page Framework library to v2.1.6.

2.0.1 - 11/30/2013

• Improved: the method to load template stylesheets.
• Disabled: object caching in the plugin pages and the options.php (the page that stores the settings) in order to avoid conflicts with caching plugins.
• Updated: the Admin Page Framework library to v2.1.4.
• Added: the aal_filter_unit_output filter.
• Fixed: a bug in form filed layout that an enclosing tag was missing.
• Fixed: the warning, Creating default object from empty value.

2 - 11/01/2013

• Changed: to ask user permission to display ads in the settings page and the support rate when the plugin is activated for the first time.
• Changed: the unit label option to a taxonomy.
• Changed: the url cloak to use less characters (moved to the link style option).
• Added: the ability to limit auto-static-insertion by taxonomy and post type.
• Added: the ability to limit auto-insertion by taxonomy, post type, and post ID.
• Added: the ability to prevent duplicated products from being displayed throughout the page load.
• Added: the ability to create units by tag.
• Added: the Brazil and Mexico locales.
• Added: the case sensitive option for the black and white list options.
• Added: the white list option.
• Added: the auto-insert feature. Accordingly, the Where to Insert option and Where to Disable option were deprecated.
• Added: the tag unit type.
• Added: the search unit type.
• Added: the template system. Accordingly, the Container, Item, Image format options were deprecated.
• Renewed: (Breaking Changes)the entire option structure. Accordingly, after running the option importer script, which is displayed as a link in the admin message, the insert position options need to be reconfigured.
• Renewed: the background-caching system.
• Renewed: the icon.
• Renewed: the admin interface.

1.2.6 - 09/01/2013

• Added: the ability to use SSL images if the site runs on SSL.
• Added: the Indian locale.

1.2.5.2 - 03/08/2013

• Added: an error message for servers which does not have the DOM XML extension which appears upon plugin activation.
• Disabled: completely DOM related errors.
• Tweaked: some code for faster loading in the admin settings pages.
• Changed: the option object to be global for plugin extensions.
• Added: filters for plugin extensions.

1.2.5.1 - 02/23/2013

• Fixed: the warning, Undefined variable: oAAL.

1.2.5 - 02/23/2013

• Added: the version number to appear in the footer of the plugin setting pages.
• Added: the ability to remove all used option values of the plugin upon plugin deactivation, which can be set in General Settings.
• Fixed: the warning message, undefined index, save, which occurred in the debug mode when posting a new post.

1.2.4 - 02/22/2013

• Added: the "Access Right to Setting Page" option in the General Settings page that sets the access level for the admin page of the plugin.

1.2.3 - 02/21/2013

• Fixed: a bug that title sorting was not accurately performed when the title contained HTML tags or encoded differently from other titles.
• Changed: the name of the sort option, Title, to Title Ascending.
• Added: the Title Descending sort order option.

1.2.2 - 02/21/2013

• Added: the Debug Log option and page.
• Changed: the default value of the Prefetch Category Lists option to Off.
• Fixed: the Japanese localization file name.
• Disabled: the warining message to occur: Warning: DOMElement::setAttribute() [domelement.setattribute]: string is not in UTF-8.

1.2.1 - 02/18/2013

• Fixed: a bug that changing unit option values did not take effect when the Proceed button was pressed via the Manage Unit page.
• Changed: product links to be disabled on the front page ( not only on the home page ) if the "Disable on the home page" option is enabled.
• Fixed: warning messages, undefined index, which appeared in the debug mode when the Delete Selected Units button was pressed.

1.2.0 - 02/12/2013

• Fixed: some lines of code which caused warning messages when the WordPress debug mode was turned on.
• Added: the ability to clean up remaining once-off events upon plugin deactivation.
• Added: the option to disable product links per unit basis on certain pages including the home page.
• Fixed: a bug that url cloak had not been working as of 1.1.9.

1.1.9 - 01/24/2013

• Updated: the Japanese localization file.
• Added: the Above and Below Post on Publish check boxes for the auto insert option.
• Fixed: the styles of the Manage Unit table by loading the stylesheet in all the setting tab pages of the plugin.
• Changed: the file name to amazon-auto-links.php from amazonautolinks.php
• Changed: the text domain to amazon-auto-links from amazonautolinks.
• Changed: the timimng of registering classes to be extension-friendly.
• Changed: code formatting to extend the plugin more easily.

1.1.8 - 01/19/2013

• Added: the icons for the Operation column of the Manage Unit table .
• Adjusted: the styles of the Manage Unit page in the admin page.
• Fixed: an issue that R18 categories requiring additional redirects could not be browsed in the category selection page.

1.1.7 - 01/16/2013

• Fixed: a bug that caches were not cleared with database tables that have a custom prefix.
• Fixed: a bug that the Prefetch Category Lists option had not take effect since v1.1.3 removing the iframe preview page.

1.1.6 - 01/14/2013

• Fixed: a minor bug that an error message did not appear properly when category links cannot be retrieved.
• Added: Blacklist by title and description set in the General Settings page.

1.1.5 - 12/14/2012

• Changed: to force the unit output to close any unclosed HTML tags.
• Fixed: a bug that the plugin requirement check did not work as of v1.1.3.
• Improved: the response speed when first accessing the setting page.

1.1.4 - 12/13/2012

• Fixed: a bug that shortcode did not work as of v1.1.3.

1.1.3 - 12/13/2012

• Supported: WordPress 3.5
• Changed: the preview page not to use iframe so that "Could not locate admin.php" error would not occur.
• Fixed: a bug that the style was not loaded in one of the tab page in the plugin setting page.
• Fixed: a bug that the arrow images which indicate where to click did not appear in the category selection page.
• Added: the ability to delete transients for category caches when the pre-fetch option is set to off.
• Added: the unit memory usage in the unit preview page.
• Added: the ability to remove transients when the plug-in is deactivated.

1.1.2 - 11/11/2012

• Fixed: a bug which displayed the plugin memory usage in the page footer.

1.1.1 - 11/02/2012

• Added: the prefetch category links option, which helps in some servers which sets a low value to the max simultaneous database connections.

1.1.0 - 10/26/2012

• Fixed: a bug that url cloak option was forced to be unchecked in the option page.
• Fixed: a bug that credit option was forced to be checked in the option page.
• Fixed: an issue that encryption did not work on servers which disables the mcrypt extension.
• Fixed: an issue that some form elements of the admin page did not appear on servers with the short_open_tag setting disabled.
• Fixed: a bug that the AmazonAutoLinks() function did not retrieve the correct unit ID.

1.0.9 - 10/06/2012

• Added: the link cloaking feature.

1.0.8 - 10/03/2012

• Fixed: a bug that shortcode failed to display the unit saved in version 1.0.7 or later.
• Added: the title length option.
• Added: the link style option.
• Added: the credit insert option.

1.0.7 - 10/02/2012

• Fixed: an issue that the widget got un-associated when the unit label got changed.
• Fixed: an issue that category caches were saved with the wrong name which resulted on not using the cache when available.
• Fixed: an issue that the format of the img tag got changed when the validation failed when setting up a unit.
• Added: a donation link in the plugin listing page.

1.0.6 - 09/24/2012

• Added: the rel attribute, rel="nofollow", in the a tag of product links.
• Re-added: the widget which enables to add units easily on the sidebar.

1.0.5 - 09/20/2012

• Improved: the caching method. Now the caches of links are renewed in the background.

1.0.4 - 09/18/2012

• Added: the settings link in the plugin list page of the administration panel.
• Improved: the page load speed in the category selection page by reducing the cache elements.

1.0.3 - 09/16/2012

• Fixed: an issue that in below PHP v5.2.4, the link descriptions could not be retrieved properly; as a result, the edit and view page links were broken.
• Improved: the page load speed in the category selection page with caches.
• Removed: the widget functionality since it produced a blank page in some systems and the cause and solution could not be found.

1.0.2 - 09/12/2012

• Fixed: an issue that form buttons did not appear in the category selection page in WordPress version 3.1x or ealier.

1.0.1 - 09/10/2012

• Added: the Widget option.

1.0.0 - 09/10/2012

• Initial Release