Portal Software - [Chris] Reviews

Reviews
by Christos Teriakis (aka ChrisTERiS)

Please note that from
11 Aug 2013
you can get support only in my site
http://www.teriakis.com

Demo: http://www.christeris.net/dev42/reviews.php
Demo Accounts:
demouser1 / demopass1
demouser2 / demopass2
demouser3 / demopass3

1.- What's this mod?

Is better to say what is NOT . For sure is not that mod requested for years now at this thread. But is a good Reviews system for those who want to review one type of items (eg Games, Books, Autos etc) and one group of rating questions is ok for them. With the help of extra fields and a bit works from your side to configure it, you can have a very good reviews section in your site.

• Supports unlimited categories
• You can set the word that will be use in the pages to identify the type of your reviews (eg Game - Games, Book - Books etc)
• Supports Extra fields (but not searchable)
• Supports one group of rating questions (but unlimited questions)
• Supports users' reviews and overall rating
• Supports Headline, review text, positive points, negative points
• Supports Product photos or YouTube video if exists
• Has PM templates for:
  • PM user when admin approves his Review
  • PM user when admin rejects Review
• Revier can temporary hide the review and a later time he can activate it again.
• There are listings for:
  • Category Reviews
  • Timeframe (What's New) Reviews
  • User Reviews
  • Search Results
• In view Review page the visitor can see also:
  • Editor Rating
  • Community Rating
  • Lowest Rating
  • Highest Rating
  • Editor other reviews on sidebar
• In all pages there are available the follow blocks having the appearance of widgets:
  • Category Menu
  • Search Form
  • Statistics
  • Top Editor Products (Games, Books, etc)
  • Top Community Products
  • New Reviews
  • New Community Ratings
• RSS Feeds for latest 10 reviews
• Facebook Like Advanced (Shows users who liked a review)
• ver.1.1.0 Added a setting to allow or not Audio files (in case that you want to review music). Default is OFF. If you turn on then the users can hear the audio file with the included (simple) audio player.

2.- Installation

1. Download and unzip the file Reviews_XXXX.zip
2. Upload the content of upload folder to the directory where your vB installation is. As a check: reviews.php must be on the same directoru as global.php, forum.php etc. SL Reviews are not working out of vB installation directory.
3. CMOD 777 the directories:
   1. christeris/reviews/photos
   2. christeris/reviews/photos/thumbs
   3. christeris/reviews/photos/tmp
4. Goto Admincp and import product-reviews.xml. Double check before if you have another product with the same name.
5. Set the various settings in Reviews->General settings
6. Set usergroup permissions
7. Check and modify if you want PM templates.
8. Set categories
9. Set Extra fields (in case that you want them).
10. Set Rating Questions
11. *** ATTENTION *** Double check that rating questins are ok before starting adding reviews. After the first review you CAN'T Add/Edit/Delete questions.

3.- SEO URLs

• If you're using vbSeo open the file Reviews_vBSEO_Custom_Rewrite_Rules.txt and add them to your vbSeo installation.
• If you're using .htaccasse file copy the contents of htaccess.txt and add it to your current .htaccess files. If you don't have such file and your server is compatible with such files, upload htaccess.txt to your vB directory and rename it to: .htaccess

4.- CMS Widget / Forum Sidebar block for Latest Reviews

1. Pre-Installation:
   1. Shows latest 5 Reviews. If you want to change the number to another value change at 1st line: $maxreviews = 5;
2. Installation as CMS Widget
   1. Goto Admincp-> vBulletin CMS-> Widgets
   2. Click "Create New Widget" at the list bottom
   3. Set Widget Type: PHP Direct Execution
   4. Give a Title which appears at the widget. eg Last Reviews, or.. Last 5 Reviews etc
   5. Click SAVE
   6. Find in the list the new widget and click configure at the right side
   7. Replace the example code, with the code from Widget_Block_Latest_Reviews.txt
   8. Click Save
   9. Goto Layout and add it in any section you want
   10. Click Save (Layout)
3. Installation as Forum sidebar Block
   1. Goto Admincp-> Forums & Moderators -> Forum Block Manager
   2. Click Add Block
   3. In the next screen "Select block type: Custom HTML/PHP"
   4. Click Continue
   5. Title: Latest Reviews
   6. Content Type: PHP
   7. Content: Copy & Paste the code from Widget_Block_Latest_Reviews.txt
   8. Click Save. The block will be now visible to your forum sidebar

5.- Copyright link

Since the time that DBTech released their Copyright Manager, I've removed my own copyrights. I found their action insulting me to maximum. Their wording "Site is powered by vBulletin AddOns and Modules by Dragonbyte Tech" (and not "Some parts of this site"), means that everything there is their own work, ignoring on the worst way the fact that there are 100's of other coders and designers who are supporting this community for years. So, I'm letting the glory to them. No copyrights from my side.

Enjoy it
Christos Teriakis
aka ChrisTERiS

[CharlieDelta]

Chris can you do a review widget similar to the one you did for the classifieds mod?

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by CharlieDelta

Chris can you do a review widget similar to the one you did for the classifieds mod?

Added to my ToDo list

[CharlieDelta]

Thank you!

[Preech]

Chris is it possible to make the extra items field to use bbcode. I love how I can have one audio file, but we review a lot of mixtapes, and I would like to allow people to preview the whole mixtape without providing a download of that mixtape.

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by Preech

Chris is it possible to make the extra items field to use bbcode. I love how I can have one audio file, but we review a lot of mixtapes, and I would like to allow people to preview the whole mixtape without providing a download of that mixtape.

Only when I'll extend the extra field types. I've in my todo to add the follow types:
1.- HTML editor
2.- BB code
3.- Date
4.- Number
5.- Multiselect list
6.- YouTUBE video
7.- Audio upload
8- URL
9.- Upload image
10.- Upload file
but don't expect them before the end of the next month, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I'll release them in public. I need them for my own use. Also don't forget what I wrote in the main post. My mods are for general use with the basic needing features. The time that I was releasing mods with more features than the standalone PHP script has ended for ever.

[Preech]

Understand, and thanks for the honest answer.

[Burnt]

Seem to be running into a slight problem. Have given people the proper usergroup settings however after they rate one thing it doesn't seem to allow them to rate another thing.

*EDIT* I logged on using demouser3 on your site to rate something on there and each time I'd go into rate no button would show up but it'd say I had rated 9 already in the grey "Your Rating:" box. I had checked and it follows whatever you last rated something so it doesn't separate what you rate on each item.

Cause I went into edit the rating I had of 9 on the Call of Duty and changed it to 10 and it now says "Your Rating: 10" for everything even tho never rated and it doesn't show any rating for the other items..

*2nd EDIT* I deleted the review causing the Call of Duty to show 0 for community after I did that. Then I reviewed it again since it allowed me with demouser3 and now it shows a weird rating of 3.3 even tho 2 ratings are 7 and mine was 10. As you can see by the picture below logged in but can't rate on this even tho its not been rated by this person.

[Christos Teriakis]

Wello, it's impossible to ready your message in my 1024x768 screen resolution, due to wide inline attachment. A general meaning that I got is that you can't rate again. This is true. A user can post only one rating per review. But he can edit it from "My Ratings".

Christos

[Burnt]

No he can only rate on one review total. Not each review. If you rate the Battlefield 2. That user can not rate any other review on the site.

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by Burnt

No he can only rate on one review total. Not each review. If you rate the Battlefield 2. That user can not rate any other review on the site.

I'll check it now.....