This release continues to improve on code optimization and speedup and also introduces new features and very important bug fixes. There are still few things left to complete as planned in the 1.0 release cycle, and all that should be done with next 1.0.5 version. Roadmap contains the list of planned changes.

Main problem with last few versions was a bug with cookie chacking code. So, all blogs that were using cookies to prevent duplicated voting suffered from the same problem. I have spend few days debuging and testing this feature, and now it should be working fine. Also, among fixed bug is a rare bug that could case vote not to be saved, bug that caused rendering of invalid rating and invalid CSS.

Also, complete saving votes handling code is rewritten and it works faster now with few less mysql queries executed.
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New version is here. But before I go into details about new release, I would like to introduce new page on this blog. As you might have noticed, there is a page called Calendar. This page shows my public calendars from Google Calendar. And this calendars will show release dates and other important events regarding blog, wordpress plugins and themes I am working on. You can add that events to your own Google Calendars as a reminder.

And now back to GD Star Rating plugin. As you will notice, a number of new features are added, many other are improved, and bugs are fixed. I know that there are few bugs left, but important thing now is that 90% of reported bugs are not bugs at all. I will refer you again to a wiki page I have added to Google Code project website (take a look at it here) with a list of things that can cause rating plugin to stop functioning. Please, go through this list before report a bug, as I said 90% of bugs are not actually plugin bugs.

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I have compiled a list of potential problems that can cause GD Star Rating to stop working. I will try to update this list as soon as I identify the problem that is not related to the plugin but with something else. List is located on the Wiki on Google Code project page:

http://code.google.com/p/gd-star-rating/wiki/PotentialVotingProblems

Please, if you have some problems with GD Star Rating, first check this list, and eliminate the problems listed before you post a comment or forum topic. I don’t have much free time, and this will help to avoid repeated anwsers to the same problems.

Also, check user guide, many useful things are listed there.

New version is here. First of all, I have fixed all bugs I have found related to rating rules. But, the most problems are coming from the fact that I have added some improvements with previous version that required for blog admins to review settings of the plugin and check if things are ok. Anyway, I have fixed things I have found so far to be problem.

So, please review the settings after updating plugin, check if things are set as they should be. If you still have problems, please use the forum and describe the problems in more details, include your settings (screenshots will work) so I can hunt the bugs. Also, check the user guide it’s very detailed.

This version includes some very important new features, and also partial implementation of features planned fo the future versions announced in roadmap for the plugin development. So, read on to find out what’s new.

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This release has some very important bug fixes related to time restrictions, auto inserting rating into comments and votes deletion. So, I strongly reccomend to update your blogs with this version.

Also, there are couple of new things. First is new widget that will display average blog rating calculated on the basis of all posts. You can see it in the sidebar on this blog. I have added more options for better control of restricting votes with logged IP addresses and cookies. And, more options are now by default hidden on the settings panel, making it easier to use. And if you need some of the hidden options, you can turn them on from general tab.

As always, all comments and bug reports are welcomed. Next version will be released sometime next week.