I thought this might be useful to those DK users that have their own WordPress blogs. The Congressional Search WordPress Widget provides a form in your WordPress sidebar where visitors can search the THOMAS database at http://thomas.loc.gov/.... This database keeps track of full-text copies of bills, as well as their Sponsors and other important information.
Download and instructions below the fold.
Here's what you do to get the widget working on your site. As of now, it is only set up to work with blogs running WordPress 2.2 or later.
- Download the plugin here and unzip it.
- Copy the 'thomasSearch' folder to your wp-content -> plugins directory.
- Open your blog's administration section, and click 'Plugins' in the top-right corner.
- Scroll down until you find the 'Search Congress' plugin, and click 'Activate'.
- At this point, you should get a message 'Plugin activated' at the top of the screen. If not, you can email me at chris@pacifiedcitizen.com with any error message you receive.
There aren't any control panel settings at the moment, as this is my first WP plugin. However, I'm hoping to implement the ability to change your settings, and perhaps include a custom search results wrapper for your blog. For now, it's just useful (for me, anyway) to have a quick reference search field for bills in the House and Senate.
Any ideas, comments, criticisms and suggestions are all welcome!