Plugin Demo: Hosting with Reviews

This is a complex demo for setting up the website for the review of hosting companies and implementing the user reviews too. This demo shows a lot of customization related to the main plugin and User Reviews and Multi Ratings Addons.

Check out the demo page to see the information about the customization done. And, you can download the full demo to test on your development server, to make changes and learn more about the plugin customizations process.

Installation Process

Important

The demo must be imported into a new and empty website! Importing into the existing website will cause problems or cause data loss. Most of the installation is done through WordPress, but some things have to be imported into the database directly due to the issue in WordPress related to the import of comments metadata.

Install plugins and theme

• Install the theme First from WordPress.org repository.
• Install the GD Rating System Pro (version 3.7 or newer).
• Install the Multi Ratings Addon (version 2.5 or newer)
• Install the User Reviews Addon (version 3.2 or newer)
• Install the demo plugin (gdrts_demo_hosting_plugin.1.2.zip).
• Install the demo theme (gdrts_demo_hosting_theme.1.2.zip).

Activate plugins and theme

• Activate the GD Rating System Pro, Multi Rating and User Reviews addon from the Plugins panel.
• Activate the Demo Hosting Website plugin and First Hosting demo theme.

Import XML data

• Open WordPress -> Tools -> Import.
• Find WordPress Importer tool, and Install it if it is not there
• Run WordPress Import tool.
• Import the demo data from the XML file (gdrts_demo_hosting_data.1.2.zip – extract XML is in the archive).
• When you start importing, make sure to enable the option to import the attachments.

Import plugin settings

• Open Rating System -> Tools -> Import Settings
• Import the GD Rating System Pro settings (gdrts_demo_hosting_settings.1.2.zip – extract settings file is in the archive).

Import database data

• You can use PHPMyAdmin or other similar tools.
• Download gdrts_demo_hosting_db_comments.1.2.zip and gdrts_demo_hosting_db_ratings.1.2.zip.
• Extract both to get two SQL files. These files are using database prefix wp_. If your website uses different prefix, make sure to change wp_ in both files with your prefix.
• Import both SQL files and they will overwrite existing tables and replace them with the demo data.

Demo Contents

The Plugin

The plugin used for this demo contains various customizations. Main entry file is core/demo.php. This file does a lot of things:

• registration of the new post type ‘hosting’ – action init.
• registration of the new templates path inside the plugin ‘templates’ directory – filter gdrts_default_templates_storage_paths.
• registration of the new templates path for User Reviews Addon inside the plugin ‘templates’ directory – filter gdrts_ur_load_template_storage_paths.
• add an extra field to the user review form – action gdrts_ur_default_form_before_rating.
• show extra field value inside the review items – action gdrts_ur_review_item_default_after_content.
• save extra field value – actions gdrts_ur_edit_comment and gdrts_ur_save_comment.
• change multi stars rating text for rendering – filter gdrts_render_single_multi_stars_rating_args_rating.
• change multi stars review text for rendering – filter gdrts_render_single_multi_stars_review_args_rating.

Extra Templates

There are 4 extra templates included:

• gdrts–multi-stars-rating–single–hosting-archive
  used for the hosting archive, for a single hosting item, simplified to show only overall rating value.
• gdrts–multi-stars-review–single–hosting-archive
  used for the hosting archive, for a single hosting item, simplified to show only overall rating value.
• gdrts-review-embed-full-hosting
  show only author review block
• gdrts-review-embed-users-only-hosting
  show only user reviews block

The Theme

The theme adds page template for displaying tables with the list of best hosting companies based on author review and user reviews: template_best.php loading two templates content-best-ratings.php and content-best-review.php. The theme also implements single and archive hosting company templates, and they load content-hosting-archive.php and content-hosting-single.php templates.

Plugin Settings

Once you import GD Rating System Pro settings, it will configure the plugin.