Display externally sourced reviews of book being added (searched for)

[simonpickering]

Another of those "standing in the bookshop" type requests ;)

It would be nice to be able to search for any given book (this would mean using the Add Book functionality currently) and to see not only the book synopsis but also a list of reviews so that I can decide whether the book is any good and worth buying.

Goodreads, Amazon and Google Books all provide reviews/ratings, so there ought to be sufficient data out there to make this useful.

Deciding which to use might be more troublesome, but it should be possible to obtain the overall rating info for a given book from the 3 services and present that compactly (average stars & total number of reviews) and then allow the user to select whichever service they prefer (e.g. if it has the most reviews) to be expanded and have the book reviews downloaded while they wait.

[Grunthos]

Having just got back from the bookshop, I completely agree.

Each site probably has terms & conditions we would need to check carefully.

My first inclination would be to use goodreads because the API exists, and for detailed reviews, I see no big problem with going to the goodreads web page. Work-flow might be:

• Do a search as normal to find the book
• From the book editor, select 'See Reviews' from the options menu
• select whose reviews (goodreads, Amazon)
• get sent to web page

This is definitely not ideal...but is a start.

Please feel free to offer refinements! (or entire other designs)

[simonpickering]

I'd prefer to not have to add the book in order to see the reviews (but that's another issue).

Ideally I'd like to Search for (i.e. Add Book) and on the entry page have a button to allow me to request reviews before I add the book to e.g. my WishList shelf. Fine if it redirects to a webpage to begin with, but integration would be nicer (and quicker) eventually.

[Grunthos]

I agree.

I have been puzzling over this since prior to version 4.0.

I like the idea of have a scan/search option that then presents some choices to the user. The basic idea would be to scan/search for a book, then, based on the book (and whether it is in you collection), present a selection of choices:

• Add Book
• Edit Book
• Loan/Return Book
• See Reviews

...and probably others.

I don't really want to break up the simplicity of the existing 'Add Book' workflow, but the first steps in this work-flow are almost identical.

[simonpickering]

Add Book could remain as it is and it would be the search function which would change (to allow scanning as well as text searching, and to present results in different categories - in db, not in db, close matches in db).

Then if a book is in the db, clicking on it in the results list would simply open the edit book dialog (to allow access to loan status, location, etc.).

For books not in the db I wonder if adding in an extra dialog class which would be opened to show summary info (similar to the Add Book dialog) and also give access to reviews, with buttons to add or to cancel.

It might be useful to have a summary screen which provides access to the reviews and which could also be used when a user clicks on a book which is already in the database (rather than going straight to the edit book dialog, if all you want is to view the book details). There's a related Issue open about this edit vs summary display, Issue #261.