New RC3 version is now available. This version adds some of the time restriction functionality, mostly still unusable, but getting there. Also, MySQL4 related problems are (hopefully) fixed. There are some small overall changes and fixes. Import from WP-Post Rating plugin is added, but right now without some more testing I am not 100% sure that import will always work. So, please report errors if you find any.

Also, there is an important update to code that’s saving votes. I have added check to see if the vote is valid. There was a case that someone changed ajax request with voting data and sent vote value of 1000. Now something like that can’t happen.

This post is mainly about some of the features that have gone through changes recently, and until I complete user guide, maybe they are not that easy to use.
Read the rest of this entry »

RC release had few bugs so here is the new version. Problem with PHP4 and scandir() function is solved. Problem with widget post title rendering, first comment disabled rating and rendering of post review stars are fixed. I have removed user guide from this release and you can download it from my blog so I can keed the plugin package smaller. Since I will be working on some new features that require some more jQuery, I have added jQuery.ui.datepicker code along with translations for all currently available languages in the plugin.

If more critical bugs are discovered, you can expect more such releases. Also, if you want you can use SVN from Google Code page to get latest version of development code to test it if you like.

The first development cycle is almost over. This release candidate introduce few new features, and announces some more changes that will be available in 1.0.0 stable release. At this point I had no time to update documentation, so if you are confused by some of the (new) options, please visit a forum and ask whatever you need to know.

I will try to go through all changes made for this release, and beleive me, the list is very extensive. For full changelog, you can check Google Code plugin page.

Read the rest of this entry »

Another day and the next release is ready. New in this version is introduction of import data panel where you can find tabs for importing recorded data from other rating plugins. This version has import from Post Star Rating plugin, and the next will have import from WP-PostRatings. I have tested the import, and it should be working ok, but again it’s possible that some bugs are still there, because I have tested this only with last official plugin version. Import is designed to imoprt data only once, but there is a reset button for all imports. I will add test that will determine if the plugin is already used, but that’s for the next version.

Also, there are new trend icons added from FamFamFam and Crystal icon sets. Setup page is expanded and now contains descriptions for each function. Few bugs are fixed, most important is very nasty bug with trend display in the widget.

If everything goes OK, by the end of the week, last pre-1.0.0 version will be released, some sort of Release Candidate. It will have redesigned StarRater shortcode, unified ratings rendering and few onther improvements. And then, 1.0.0 is just days away.

And here is another release of the plugin. And there are more new features in this one. The most important new features is trend calculation. Trends can be displayed only in widget right now, but for the next version I will rewrite StarRater shortcode and it will have all the features that are now build in widget and few more extra things. Plugin is compatible with latest WordPress 2.7 development version. But, since 2.7 version is changing a lot, some other problems can happen.

Trends can be displayd as a text or as a image. There are new sets of icons for this, and they can be customized like the stars. For now there is only one set available, but I will add more. There are a lot of fixes included, and I have tried to resolve problems reported so far. Unfortunalty some bugs I couldn’t recreate and therefore I couldn’t fix. Also, some bugs are related to upgrade problems from older versions, so usually problems are solved with database tables reinstall from Setup page.

Also, please be patient if you find some bugs, it’s still under development. Plugin is getting more and more complicated. Only database related code is over 1000 lines long, and bugs are still bound to appear. Also, I recommend using Google Code where you can find daily updated latest plugin version via SVN.