It’s time for the second part of the settings explained post. This time I will describe settings on Integration and Posts And Pages panels. You can expect third (and last for now) part tomorrow soon.
Integration tab
1. Integration
First part is settings used to integrate various plugin features into WordPress. Options are divided into several logical sections, and I think that options are self explanatory. Here you can disable dashboard widget, or sidebar widgets. As you can see there is also Comments widget, that will be added in 1.2.0 (finally). Also, comments integration is not working in WP 2.7, hopefully WordPress developers will change this for 2.8. RSS options are interesting, and with them you can add current post rating into feed, and also a small banner.
2. Posts And Pages
Ratings
This tab has a lot of options, divided into sections also. First section is the most important one, and by default most of the options will be hidden once you install the plugin. Most people don’t need to change any options here, so they don’t need to see them. To see all of the options, you need to go back to administration tabs, and previous article that describes the options.
First line are options to set the stars used for standard rating and number of stars. When you change number of stars, plugin will recalculate all the saved ratings to new value. After that you can specify alignment and placement of rating text. You can enable and set rating header that will be rendered on the top of the rating block. There are also two fields to add custom CSS classes that will be added to rating block and the rating text.
Defaults and restrictions
Rating blocks are inserted into posts and pages automatically, and with auto insert options you can control where the block will be added automatically. Plugin will insert it at the bottom of the post. If you don’t like that, disable auto insertion and add rating block using shortcodes or manual integration functions directly into theme.
Now to the default rules and restrictions. By default each new post will use this settings, but you can override them for each post or group of posts. Also, you can prevent post authors to vote, and this option is enabled by default. You can set if the plugin will check for cookies or duplicated IP’s to prevent double voting. This part needs some improving.
Wating...
Waiting message is displayed when you vote for the post. While the vote is sent back to the server, you will see this waiting message, You can use both text and animations. Preview will show you whatever you set. Some animations look best without any text. So, experiment with them, especially if you use small stars.
Review settings
Review rating is rating set by the post author, It’s a single rating value and can be set separately from standard ratings. Most of the options are the same as for the rating: There is no rating text and no auto insertion. You need to use shortcodes or function to show review in the posts.
Hopefully, this post will further help you in setting the plugin and use it more efficiently.
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March 8, 2009
at 6:58 AM
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More great documentation, thank you MillaN!
Hey, did you hear the news the other day, that Automattic have completely opened up the IntenseDebate distributed commenting system by creating a centrally-hosted plugin platform, allowing developers to create distributed versions of their comment-specific WordPress plugins.
According to the documentation, the plugins are based entirely on the existing WordPress plugin structure, so, it is quite easy to convert existing plugins.
It is really big news is you sit back and think about the direction Automattic are moving in – it is pretty clear that, with this first move towards centrally hosted plugins, they are probably thinking about how they can safely provide plugins to the 1 million+ active WordPress.com blogs.
Personally, I think that GD Star Rating would be be the ultimate plugin for IntenseDebate.
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March 8, 2009
at 11:31 AM
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I read something about it, but didn’t have time to check it out. I don’t like centrally hosted plugins and gathering of data offsite.
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March 8, 2009
at 3:57 PM
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I think it is worth checking out because there is more to this than meets the eye.
Using IntenseDebate, you continue to store comments in your own installation of WordPress, so you can stop using ID at any time and return to your native comments.
The big advantage of ID is that it encourages people to comment and participate more, because they can build a reputation across all the sites they visit. I believe that this incentive to comment will become increasingly important as more sites adopt systems such as ID and Disqus, you may soon have a situation in which people are reluctant to comment on sites that cannot add to their distributed reputation.
The big disadvantage, until now, was that ID decided how your comments looked and what features were included – you could not include special functionality such as GD Star Rating or Facebook Connect integration. Now, however, they have fixed that problem and you can add any functionality you want to your comments.
I understand the traditional reluctance of experienced WordPress users to rely upon outside services but, in this case, I think there is a lot more to it, I think that they have addressed the disadvantages brilliantly and that, if you take the long view, the benefits will add genuine value and momentum to blogs generally.
As for centrally hosted plugins, your current users have no problems hosted and updated their plugins but it is worth noting that, apart from the 1 million self-hosted WordPress installations, there are 1 million active blogs hosted on WordPress.com. Those people probably chose to use WordPress.com because they did not have the technical abilities and/or resources to run a self-hosted WordPress. Unfortunately, this means that they cannot use plugins.
I am suggesting that Automattic are experimenting with centrally hosted plugins because they want to introduce them for their 1 million active WordPress.com users. This will be a pretty big change for plugin authors, automatically doubling your audience.
As I say, there is more to this than is immediately obvious, and I think it is worth checking out. particularly lead developer Jon Fox’s answers to questions about how open the system will be:
Jon’s answers
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March 8, 2009
at 5:09 PM
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As I understand it plugins will be controled. They can’t just allow any plugin to be included. So, until there is more details on how custom plugins can be used with ID. When that happens, I will like to have GD Star Rating support for ID. But, I am sure that this will not happen that soon, the whole idea is still just the experiment and it will be some time before they straight all things and make the system stable.
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March 9, 2009
at 12:03 PM
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Nice work on this plugin – looks like you’ve put a huge amount of effort in.
You say above that “comments integration is not working in WP 2.7″ – just to check, this means that if I’m using WP2.7.1, I can’t have people voting on a post within the comments form, is that right? So for 2.7, we can only use ratings submitted within the admin interface.
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March 9, 2009
at 12:10 PM
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No, this means that integration in the comment edit in the admin section is not working.
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March 14, 2009
at 6:40 AM
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How do I add the rating block using shortcodes? I tried putting the shortcodes directly in my template, but that didn’t work. Is there some PHP code necessary to insert them in a template page? How do I do that?
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March 21, 2009
at 6:10 PM
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Hey I have a stupid question… is there a quick and easy way to post so that the star rating shows up on the TOP of the post?
Thanks!
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March 22, 2009
at 11:18 PM
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Right now, no. This has been discussed on the forum several times.
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