Installation Instructions

Minimal Requirements

• PHP: 5.x.x
• mySQL: 4.0, 4.1 or 5.x
• WordPress: 2.8 or newer

Recommended Requirements

• PHP: 5.2.x or newer
• mySQL: 5.x
• WordPress: 2.9 or newer

Theme Requirement

• Header template must contain call for wp_head() function.
• Footer template must contain call for wp_footer() function.

Upgrade Notice

• When you upgrade to new version of the plugin, check widget settings and all the plugin settings.

Basic Installation

• Plugin folder in the WordPress plugins folder must be gd-star-rating.
• Upload gd-star-rating folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
• Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
• Check all the plugin and plugin widgets settings before using the plugin.

Advanced Installation

• if you don't change location of wp-content folder, then you don't need to make any more changes.
• if your wp-content folder is moved out of default WordPress location, then you must edit plugins config.php file and set value with exact location of wp-load.php file for global constant STARRATING_WPLOAD in line 8. Without this most of the features, including saving votes, will not work.

Using gdsr-config.php file

• this file is used to set some of the constants plugin uses.
• to use this file, you must move it file from gd-star-rating folder, one level up to plugins folder.
• once you have moved it, make changes to it and it wll be loaded from the WordPress plugins root.
• all settings in it can be added to wp-config.php. if you do that, you must not move the file from gd-star-rating.

WordPress MU & BuddyPress

• Minimal version supported: 2.9
• Support for WPMU is only partial, not everything works as it should be.
• Plugin is not working with some BuddyPress specific features.

Browser Notice

• Multi review feature on administration Post Edit page will not work properly with IE6 browsers.

FAQ

How to check if there is a sample and already explained solution to my problem?

Check the post in the following category: http://www.gdstarrating.com/category/tutorials/solving-problems/.

= How to make sure that problem is actually caused by the GD Star Rating? Well, it's simple. Disable all other plugins and try GD Star Rating only. If the problem you had before is gone, than you know that it's caused by some of the plugin(s) you use. If not, bug is in GDSR.

I need support for using this plugin and some of it's features?

GD Star Rating is a free plugin. But, beyond bug fixing, support for this plugin is not free. If you need support, check out more on Dev4Press: http://dv4p.com/et.

I have trouble saving plugin settings?

This happens only with PHP4. That's why minimal plugin requirements is now PHP5. Upgrade your servers, PHP4 is no longer supported, it's outdated and full of security holes.

I have trouble saving plugin settings even with PHP5?

If you use PHP5 and still can't save settings, problem is with some of PHP security extensions like Suhosin that is not configured properly, and POST request gets filtered or shortened by the extension.

= Multi review on the post edit page is not saving reviews? For multi review meta box to work, other standard rating GD Star Rating meta box for post edit page must be also enabled from the Settings->Integration->Post Edit.

After upgrade some admin panels are not working?

Most likely problem is with cached javascript files in the browsers. Clear cache, and everything should be OK.

I want to translate the plugin to my language, or to improve existing translations?

You only need POEdit program that works on Windows, Linux and MacOS. Instructions on how to make or update translations are here: http://dv4p.com/wa.

How to change visibility of plugin menus to different user levels?

This is controlled by the constants defined in the config files. Detailed info on setting them is here: http://www.gdstarrating.com/2009/08/12/using-config-files/.

How to insert rating blocks or results directly into the theme files?

All plugins functions for inserting wherever you want can be found in the info folder included with the plugin, or at this url: http://info.dev4press.com/gd-star-rating/.

Both stars and thumbs rating block are showing on pages.

You need to disable auto insertion of the rating type you don't want to use. Both are controlled by the options on the Settings panel. For post/page stars use Posts & Pages tab and 5 auto insert checkboxes, for comments use Comments tab and 3 auto insert checkboxes. To control thumb ratings auto insertion, use Thumbs Up/Down tab, and you save auto insert options for posts and pages, and at the bottom for comments. Disable what you don't want to use.

Plugin displays in the post content weird string that includes post title and rating. What is that?

Most likely it is Google Rich Snippet. More info on that: http://dv4p.com/wh. To disable it, hide it or set it differently use tab Special on the Settings panel.

How to change the elements displayed by the plugin in widget, rating blocks and other rendering elements?

All rendering is controlled by the T2 templates system. To change the rendering output you need to make your own templates and change what they display.

Plugin is not showing rating stars or rating widgets after update, or all stars and thumbs have disappeared, and there is nothing in stars/thumbs selection lists.

Check all plugin settings and plugins widgets settings after update and save them. If graphics is gone, try rebuilding stars and thumbs sets: go to plugin Tools -> tab Graphics -> Rescan.

After update I can vote for some posts (stars and/or thumbs).

Most likely, you have already voted for these posts. Plugin uses database log and cookies to prevent duplicate votes (can be disabled). Update CAN'T break the plugin (well, this is true in 99% of the cases), because tables layout and queries are not changed for a long time. You can't upgrade to latest versions from old releases pre 1.3.0 version.

I have added one of the plugins widgets, and it's not showing anything.

Check the widget settings. Most likely problem is with default widget setting to show only posts with 5 votes or more. If you have just set the plugin most likely you still don't have enough votes.

Instead of ratings, in posts on front and category pages plugin shows something like this: VN:F [1.6.7_924] Rating 0/10 (0 Votes).

This is not a bug, but a well-known excerpt problem More details on that and the solutions are in this post: http://www.gdstarrating.com/2009/02/13/the-excerpt-problems/.

Can I use this plugin in combination with cache plugins like WP Super Cache?

Yes. Plugin supports all cache plugins and can load ratings using ajax to keep them current and to avoid ratings to be cached. To enable this feature, you need to activate it on the plugins Settings panel, tab Features, and option Cache Support. You can use this option even if you don't use cache plugins. Instead of showing ratings with the page, plugin will render loading message that will be replaced with rating block once the page is fully loaded.

Which cache plugin is recommended?

I recommend using W3 Total Cache plugin: http://WordPress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/. It's already set to work with GD Star Rating.

After upgrade plugin is not rendering stars, and only a loading message appears.

This is caused by the cache plugins support enabled that causes rating block to be loaded after the page is ready. To disable this feature, you need to deactivate it on the plugins Settings panel, tab Features, option Cache Support.

Plugin is not working in some browsers.

Plugin is tested in Opera 9, Opera 9.5, Opera 10, Safari 3, Safari 4, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, MS Internet Explorer 6, MS Internet Explorer 7, MS Internet Explorer 8. However, still there is a possibility that plugin fails to work in some browsers because other plugins or theme can contain JavaScript code that can interfere with GD Star Rating. In that case, you need to fix code causing the problems. I will not test how badly written plugins can cause problems.

After plugin is activated, I get an empty page or 500 Internal Server error.

In rare cases problem is with the plugin, and it is caused by old PHP version (older than 4.4.0). If this is the problem, you cannot use plugin until you update the PHP. But, in most cases problem is caused by some incompatibiliy with theme or other plugin. If that is the case, than you need to find the error behind the problem.

Plugin CSS and JavaScript files used for rating are not loaded, and for them server returns internal error.

This is the problem in case when PHP on the server can't execute these files. Both main JS and CSS are not static files, but dynamic PHP files. The best way to avoid this is to set files and folders permissions properly. All folders should be set to 0755 and all files to 0644. If this doesn't help, contact hosting admin to check what's preventing PHP from accessing this files.

Stars and/or thumbs are not showing in the rating blocks.

There could be two causes for this: * Plugins CSS and JavaScript files are not loaded: Check the previous FAQ answer. * There are no stars or thumbs set selected for the plugin to use. To check this, go to Graphics panel and you will see if there are any sets there, and if any of them is selected. If there are no sets displayed, you need to rescan for them: panel Tools, tab Graphics, and button Rescan. Once the sets are back, you need to select on the Graphics panel sets and sizes you want to use in the active rating blocks: http://www.gdstarrating.com/2009/05/20/settings-explained-part-5/.

With cache support mode active, ratings are stuck in the loading state.

Most likely problem is with the cache plugin you are using, and that plugin is adding some HTML code to the end of AJAX response, making it impossible for plugin to decode the JSON received from the server to display stars. This is usually the case with WP Super Cache plugin.

Rating is not working in Firefox, but is working in other browsers.

There are many extensions for Firefox that modify the page, and are known to cause many JavaScript problems. Plugin works with all major browsers, and all JavaScript is developed using Firefox and Firebug. But I am not using (nor will test) Firefox with extensions (I use only Firebug).

I tried everything (I really tried), and many things are still not working.

I can't guarantee that plugin will work on every WordPress setup. In 99.9% of the cases there are no problems, but some plugin, theme and server combinations can cause problems that can't be anticipated. But this is very rare, and in most cases that can be corrected by tracking down the problem. And usually only some plugins features will fail. Do not simply give up, find the problem, find the PHP error that can cause problem that will most likely point to some other plugin causing problems.

Changelog

1.9.17

• Fixed potential vulnerability for the t2 templates panel editor
• Fixed several warnings during the creation of new template

1.9.16

• Additional arguments for some of the rendering functions
• Several new actions and filters for ajax and rendering ( thanks to Galen Wright-Watson: http://sublimitywebdesign.com/ )
• Static directive added to functions in some classes ( thanks to Galen Wright-Watson )
• Conditional load of debug version of gdsr.js ( thanks to Galen Wright-Watson )
• Fixed several potential undefined warnings ( thanks to Galen Wright-Watson )
• Fixed replaced deprecated wp_specialchars function ( thanks to Galen Wright-Watson )
• Fixed replaced deprecated fetch_rss function ( thanks to Galen Wright-Watson )

1.9.15

• Using user roles and capabilities instead of user levels
• Information panel for upcoming GDSR 2.0
• Fixed several deprecated warnings caused by use of user levels
• Fixed query parameter issue with the main CSS file ( thanks to Emil Sirbu: http://trafictube.ro )

1.9.14

• Added filters for rating values before saving to database
• Fixed votes keyword used for Google rich snippets integration

1.9.13

• Changes to some of the rendering functions

1.9.12

• Plugin is tested with WordPress 3.3, no problems were found
• Removed some obsolete website links from info files
• Several minor changes and cleanup of the public functions
• Fixed validity data check could generate warnings in the gdsr.css.php

1.9.11

• Minor changes to filters attached to posts
• Fixed export script SQL injection exploit ( thanks to Miroslav Stampar for reporting, http://about.me/stamparm )

1.9.10

• Minor changes and improvements to the templates system
• Fixed missing default parameters for rating shortcode
• Fixed JSONP callback function printed without checking for validity ( thanks to Julio from http://www.boiteaweb.fr )
• Fixed very rare memory leak caused by loading of templates definitions

1.9.9

• Additional cleanup of AJAX received data before processing
• Nonce AJAX protection is now always active and used
• Fixed bayesian stars invalid rendering in the rating widget
• Fixed rare SQL injection exploit through cached AJAX requests

1.9.8

• Added filters for checking the voting rules for rating blocks
• Removed outdated check for update changelog code
• Fixed Problem with range settings for rating widget
• Fixed Minor JavaScript issue with missing variables

1.9.7

• Added Persian translation
• JavaScript compressed using YUI Compressor
• Improved widget results templates rendering
• Some minor fixes and changes

1.9.6

• Added several new entries in FAQ
• Fixed multi rating javascript voting problem
• Fixed small noticed validation issues

1.9.5

• Removed dropdown checkbox control for causing too much problems
• Improvements in rating javascript code

1.9.4

• Added Hindi translation
• Fixed problems with including js/css files
• Fixed several rendering functions
• Fixed some interface problems

1.9.3

• Tool to remove all and only rating data from database
• Articles panel supports custom post types
• Few integration functions improvements
• Updated readme file with new FAQ entries
• Builder and TinyMCE3 control fixes for WordPress 3.0
• Fixed taxonomies in widget in WordPress 3.0
• Fixed rating integration missing on the new post editor
• Fixed several minor interface problem

1.9.2

• Rating widget supports custom post types in WordPress 3.0
• Loading styles and stars for post editor panels
• Meta boxes missing for custom post types editors
• Several minor rendering improvements

1.9.1

• Added filters to WP Query expansion
• Added new filters to T2 rendering engine
• Changes in some actions used for saving votes
• Fixed grouping problems with rating widget
• Fixed preventing authors to vote for own comments and posts

1.9.0

• Google Rich Snippets support for RDF and Microdata formats
• Improved templates for Google Rich Snippets