Amazon notes

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Contents

APIs

For infrastructure services, see Web_service_hosting_notes#Amazon_Infrastructure_Services


ECS / AWS

This article/section is a stub.
It is here because it was planned, created to drop some preliminary notes. Statements may be wrong, and the style and structure may suck. Feel free to add further notes or suggestions, rewrite sections or the whole into something understandable.

Previously known as Known as E-Commerce Service (ECS), now known as Associates Web Service (AWS), and, since that makes it confusable with amazon web services in general (also occasionally abbreviated as AWS [1])), also 'AWS E-commerce services'.


Note that you can access this via purely WSDL-mediated SOAP, but also via URLs like http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService.... The latter is more hardcoded, but can be a lot less bothersome (particularly in experiments) given amazon's complex WSDL.


ECS 3.0 service stopped on April 1, 2008, in favour of the the next version, 4.0 (available since 2004). In case you still have ECS3 code, see the 3→4 migration guide


ResponseGroup

Controls the set of details returned. (See also [2])

You can ask for a specific set of properties or use one of the predefined sets, such as:

  • Small: item-level data, such as:
    • ASIN
    • product title
    • product group (e.g. books)
    • product page URL
    • creator (author, artist, composer, directory, manufacturer, etc.)
    • manufacturer
    • (no pricing or availability),
  • Medium: Small plus sales information
    • sales rank
    • item details such as features
    • preview images
    • summary of price details (e.g. lowest offer)
    • editorial reviews
  • Large:
    • more detailed offer information than in Medium
    • More item metadata, such as an album's track titles,
    • BrowseNodes (place within amazon product hierarchy)
    • customer reviews
    • listmania lists
    • similar products
    • accessory products

Note that exact details differ depending on the search type, and the details present obviously vary per product.

Alexa Web Information Service (AWIS)

Mechanical Turk

FPS (Flexible Payments Service)

DevPay

Images

General

The url consists of:

  • an image collection, or rather, server. Just choose the closest; all of them should generate images for all locations:
    • http://images.amazon.com/images/P/
      (for America and Canada)
    • http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/
      (for Germany and the UK)
    • http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/
      (for Japan)
    • http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/
      (?)
  • an ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), which for books is just the ISBN without dashes
  • location ID:
    • The IDs:
      • 01: US/Canada
      • 02: UK
      • 03: Germany
      • 09: Japan
    • The things that may vary between locations include:
      • Covers (seems to default to the 01 image on non-existing IDs)
      • effects like the pricedowns. (won't appear on non-existing IDs)
      • image names/availability (won't appear on non-existing IDs)
  • the command (see below)
  • an extension (seems ignored, so is rather optional; seems to serve jpeg if this is empty, 'jpg','jpeg','png','gif', or 'bmp') -- or a 1x1 gif (!) if something is wrong with the command or extension.

Examples: 

   http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0735712352.01.THUMBZZZ
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0735712352.03.22TZZZZZ.jpg

Commands

There seem to be two command formats:

Size-centric code, Z-padded, cut to eight characters

Example: THUMBZZZ for 'basic thumbnail', or 20TZZZZZ for 'tiny size with prepended markdown'.

Even something like 47SCTHUM exists, but note it does not seem to play by simple or apparently very logical rules when you use this shorthand format. I suggest you use the long form.

The sizes are:

  • THUMB
    - Thumbnail (~47x60, but note sizes are approximate)
  • T
    - Tiny (~70x90, assumed if size code omitted)
  • M
    - Medium (100x150 sort of scale)
  • L
    - Large (200x300 or 300x400 sort of scale)

It seems you can omit a size (T is assumed), but the code cannot be all Zs.

It seems you can append filters after the size, but there seems to be more to this, it does not quite act as I would expect. It may be that they simply added some similar-name functionality.

Previously observed (see note about rotation):

  • T: Tilt left, drop shadow right
  • TL: Tilt left, drop shadow left
  • TR: Tilt right, drop shadow right
  • TRL: Tilt right, drop shadow left

Example: 20MTLZZZ

Underscore-wrapped-and-delimited filter list, size code optional

This is the more flexible format that you may as well use.

Note that size T is assumed, so you need only add filters, for example _PD33_AA100_. Note that filter order may matter. Some things act globally (such as SC - probably taken out of the list before the rest is applies), while most others are a list of filters applied to the image as it currently exists in memory (i.e. applied left-to-right). Notice the difference in meaning between the last image and _AA100_PD33_.

Filters are two-letter codes and may have zero, one or more options (e.g.
PA
,
BL30
,
HL0,10,200,115,50
), usually integers, which can be negative. A few filters have required options, but generally they have defaults where possible and sensible, so parameters are generally omittable. Filters are listed below:


Image sizing

  • Note: Nothing scales up; if you want a large image, start with something larger than the default T, using SC
  • SCcode
    selects a base size that isn't the default T. Example: _SCLZZZZZZZ_.
  • SXx
    ,
    SYx
    - Scales down one specified axis to pixel size, the other proportionally.
  • AAx
    - size down (if requested size is smaller) or white-pad (if larger) to a particular (square) size, x by x. (_AA100_) (If you want another color border, see BO.)
    • You should e.g. always get a 100x100 image with just _AA100_, since T is always (or rather, assuming it is) smaller than that
  • SSx
    - similar to AA (verify)
  • CRleft,top,width,height
    crop to this box.


Transformation

  • Apparently deprecated: (rotate right)
  • PTx
    : Rotate right. Default is no tilt (used to be slight tilt).
    • Used to be
      PUx
      and
      PVx
      for rotate left, right; there may well be a new rotate-left as well.
  • BLx
    : Blur
  • SHx
    : Sharpen (It seems ~30 will counteract the apparently bilinear resizing blur well)


Decoration

  • PB
    ,
    PC
    ,
    PA
    : Drop shadow: to the left, the right, advanced (figure out).
  • HLleft,top,width,height,opacity[,r,g,b]
    : Highlight box. RGB defaults to green. Opacity and RGB are in 0..255 scale.
  • PDx
    ,
    PEx
    : Price down image on the left, right: ('x% off' for 1..99) (enlarges image if done late or last)
  • PF
    : Show CD coming out of icon. Not in all locations (not 02, 03). Resizes the image to fit. Can apparently also take a size for itself, not figured out yet.
  • ZAurlencodedstr,left,top,width,height,fontname,fontsize,r,g,b
    : add text
    • font name can be 'times', 'arial', and 'verdenab'.
    • string is cut based on whether it is inside the described box (the last character may be half outside)
  • ZC
    seems an equivalent but box-centering version of ZA (i.e. replaces the 'left' coordinate based on image)
  • BOwidth,r,g,b
    adds a width-pixel border, by default in white
  • PIname,alignwhere,deltax,deltay
    adds a picture. Where to put it and by how much to move it tends to depend - at least if you want it to show up correctly - on the image itself. Image names largely depend on the country code. Example using 'sitb-dp-500-arrow' ('search inside this book'), which works in location 01.


Notes

Rotation as in the TL/TR drop-and-rotation in the 8-Z style, as well as the PU and PV filters, stopped working around Jul 2006 (PT still worked; I suspected amazon renamed and deprecated some things), but as of Oct 2006 they worked again. I'm not sure why that is.


See also

Link structure

This article/section is a stub.
It is here because it was planned, created to drop some preliminary notes. Statements may be wrong, and the style and structure may suck. Feel free to add further notes or suggestions, rewrite sections or the whole into something understandable.

ASINs

  • are used by, and consistent between, the various amazon sites and affiliate sites (verify)
  • contain ISBN10 literally.
  • are also created for other products, including ISBNless books, CDs and sutch.


Links

ASIN-based product links:

  • http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380789035/
  • http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0380789035/
  • http://www.amazon.com/dp/0380789035/


Old, now-deprecated(verify) formats include obidos:

  • http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380789035
  • http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0195117891/
    (specifically for ISBNs)


Searches

This article/section is a stub.
It is here because it was planned, created to drop some preliminary notes. Statements may be wrong, and the style and structure may suck. Feel free to add further notes or suggestions, rewrite sections or the whole into something understandable.


You cannot use ISBN13s as ASINs, though those starting with 978 can be converted to ISBN10. You can still use ISBN13s, e.g. in searches
(which presumably works largely because ISBN13s are fairly unique numbers)
:
  • http://www.amazon.com/s/field-keywords=9780395898314



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