User review rating method settings

When you configure the user reviews integration, the rating blocks for the rating methods used (Stars, Sliders, Multi Stars or Sliders) will use default settings as defined in the main GD Rating System Pro settings page. But, if you want different rating method settings for user reviews integration, you need to use Rules panel.

Add new rule

Open the Rules panel under Rating System menu, and you will get the options to add new rules, and see the existing rules. To add new rule for the post type you have enable User Reviews for, find the post type in the Item Type list (if it is for Products, find Post Types -> Products) and the rating method you want to use for the User Reviews find it in Object Type list (if you used Stars Rating, find it under Methods -> Stars Rating). With both selected, it will look like this:

Click Override Settings, and the plugin will create a new rule and all the settings for it will be copied from the default WordPress settings for the selected method. And, you will get the new screen where all these settings will be displayed.

How the rule is used

If the rating for the selected rating method is displayed for the post belonging to the selected post type, the plugin will use the settings from this rule, and it will ignore global settings. That means that you can set the rating method quite differently, including different styling (colours, templates…), and even change number of stars the rating block will have. But, a very important thing to know is that it is not recommended changing the number of stars once you configure everything. The plugin does have the recalculation feature for such case, but you may end up with weird ratings as the result.

Configure the rule

The rule settings page is the exact copy of the main/global settings page for that rating method. The only difference is a single new option on top of the page controlling the activity of the rule. If that option is enabled, the rule is used, if it is disabled, the rule is not used.

Very important settings are part of the rating block. You can change the number of stars and voting resolution for the selected post type only. But, more important is the number of votes. By default, it is set to ‘Single vote with revote’. But, for user reviews, it is recommended to switch that to ‘Single vote only’ or ‘Multiple votes’:

• Single vote only: user can leave one review only.
• Single vote with revote: user can leave as many reviews as he wants, but only the last review rating will be counted, and all reviews will be visible.
• Multiple votes: user can leave as many reviews as he wants, and each review rating will be counted.

Options for Quick Revote and Disable Rating has no effect on the user reviews.