Creating a Book Grid

NOTE: In Mooberry Book Manager versions prior to 3.4, Book Grids are set up on Pages.  To set up a Book Grid, add a new page using the Pages menu (or edit an existing one), just like you normally would in WordPress. Scroll down on the Add/Edit Page screen and you’ll find the Book Grid Settings section. You can add a Book Grid to any page on your website.

When you install Mooberry Book Manager (or update to 3.4 or later), a new menu will be added to your Dashboard for Book Grids:

As of version 3.4, you can save Book Grids, and even re-use them on multiple pages if you’d like. Book Grids are no longer tied to Pages, they are now independent objects that can be added to any blog post or page. You can also add multiple Book Grids to a single post or page.

Here’s what a Book Grid page looks like:

How to Create a Book Grid

1. Create a title to help you remember what this book grid is for. This title is only used in the list of Book Grids. It’s never displayed to the reader and is for your convenience only.
   

   
   Next, choose which books you want to display in the Grid:

2. Setting	Chooses these books to display in the Grid
   All	All the books you’ve saved into Mooberry Book Manager
   All Published	All the books with a publication date of the current day or earlier
   All Coming Soon	All the books with a publication date after the current day or with no publication date
   Select Genres	All the book in the genre(s) you select
   Select Series	All the books in the series (one or more) you select
   Select Books	You select the specific book(s) to display
   Select Tags	All the books in the tag(s) you select
   Select Editors	All the books edited by the editor(s) you select
   Select Illustrators	All the books illustrated by the illustrator(s) you select
   Select Cover Artists	All the books with covers designed by the cover artist(s) you select
   Select Publishers	All the books published by the publisher(s) you select

3. The books can be grouped into categories with a heading for each group:
   

   Setting	Heading	Books w/o Info in Field
   None	N/A	N/A
   Genre	{name of genre} Genre	Uncategorized
   Series	{name of series} Series	Standalones
   Tag	{name of tag} Tag	Untagged
   Editor	Editor: {name of editor}	No Editor Specified
   Illustrator	Illustrator: {name of illustrator}	No Illustrator Specified
   Cover Artist	Cover Artist: {name of cover artist}	No Cover Artist Specified
   Publisher	Published by {name of publisher}	No Publisher Specified

4. If you choose something other than “None” or “Series”, you’ll be able to further group the books. You can add several groupings, however be aware that adding more than 5 levels can cause the web page to time out.
5. If you aren’t grouping by series, choose an order for the books. (Books grouped by series will be ordered by their Series Order.)
   

   Setting	Sorts the books by
   Publication Date (oldest first)	Order of publication, oldest to newest
   Publication Date (newest first)	Order of publication, newest to oldest
   Title (A-Z)	Alphabetical by title
   Title (Z-A)	Reverse-alphabetical by title
   Custom	Choose your own order for the books (see note below)

6. Decide if you want to use the default book cover height. (See Book Grid Settings to learn more about the default Book Grid settings.) If you don’t want to use the default, set the height in pixels. The minimum is 50.
7. You can see a preview of the Book Grid based on the settings you have chosen. Every time you change a setting, the Show Preview button will be enabled. Click the button to see a preview of the Book Grid.
   

   

8. Every Book Grid has a unique ID number. This ID number is how WordPress will know which Book Grid to display on your page. The shortcode you need to put into your page to display this Book Grid is typed out for you. All you need to do it click on it to select it, copy it to your clipboard, and then paste it into the page where you want the Book Grid to appear.
   

   Another, Easier Way to Add a Book Grid to a Page or Post

Once you have created your Book Grid, go to the page or post you’d like to add it to.

1. When you’re editing a page or blog post, you’ll see a new button added called Add Book Grid on the editor:
   

   

2. If you click that button, a window will pop up allowing you to choose which Book Grid to add to the page:
   

3. After you choose the Book Grid and click Insert Shortcode, the necessary code will be added to the editor for you, wherever your cursor was when you clicked the Add Book Grid button.
   

Custom Sorting (version 3.3+)

As of version 3.3, if you choose  Select Books as the Books to Display and None as the first Group By, you’ll have the option to sort your books in a custom order. Each book selected will be shown in a list. You can drag and drop the titles into the order you want for the grid.

Upgrading to Version 3.4

When you update to version 3.4, you will be prompted to migrate your Book Grids to the new system. You must do this in order for your book grids to display on your website. When your Book Grids migrate, this is what will happen:

1. A new Book Grid will be created for every Book Grid you have on a page. The title for the Book Grid will be “Imported Book Grid:” plus the name of the page it was on. All of the settings will migrate.
2. A shortcode to add that Book Grid to the page will be added to the end of the page’s content.
3. Any text entered into the Additional Content (bottom) field will be added to the page’s content after the shortcode.