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ViArt User's Guide (Version 3.6)
Please, see the list of all new features and fixed bugs that were made to all ViArt PHP Shopping Cart releases from version 2.1.1 up to the latest 3.5 version.
28.6. Configuring articles reviews
28.6. Configuring articles reviews
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Overview

Within ViArt's Artcles module it is also possible to rate and review articles which makes it a blog-alike functionality. This can be a useful feature to share opinions and discuss the topic.

Reviews Settings

First of all, make sure that the review option is enabled. This can be done in Articles > Reviews Settings.

On General tab there are the following options:

  • Allowed to See Reviews - You can choose whether users will be able to see articles reviews.
  • Allowed to Post Reviews - This option defines who will be able to leave reviews for the articles.
  • Auto Approve Reviews - This option allows to display reviews on the website at once after submission.
  • Random Image Validation - This is the so called CAPTCHA feature that allows to protect reviews from spam bots.
  • Reviews per page - This is the number of reviews that will be displayed on one page.

  • Number of Reviews per User - This is the total number of reviews one user is allowed to post. If you leave this field blank that it means reviews quantity is unlimited.
  • Reviews Period - You can specify for what period of time the above mentioned "Number of Reviews" restriction will be active. For example, if you put in Number of Reviews per User '30' and in Reviews Period '1 month' then user will be able to post up to 30 reviews every month.
On Predefined Fields tab you can select the fields that will be shown in the review form and which of them will be required. See below their implementation on the website.

On Notification Email tab you can set up the administrator and user notifications on submitting a review (see section 5.4.2.2).

Articles Reviews

The overall review management is performed at Articles > Articles Reviews section. There you can see all existing reviews.

For easier navigation there are available different filter options: by name or e-mail, by period of time (From Date To Date); by rating; by recommended/ not recommended and by approved/ not approved parameters.

In the right corner you can see the statistics of the incoming reviews. Clicking on one of the date links (Today / Yesterday / Last 7 days / This Month / Last Month) automatically works as a filter for reviews. The same goes for Approved / Not Approved stats links.

Below search and stats sections you can see all existing products reviews which are automatically shown with newest on top. You can filter reviews in ascending or descending order by clicking on ID / User Name / Summary / Average Rating / Review Added / Approved links.

Ticking the checkboxes near reviews you can Update multiple reviews to Approved or Not Approved status or delete them by clicking Remove Selected button.

To see the full review information click on Edit Review.

  • Article Type - This the type of articles that got a review.
  • Article Title - This is the name of the article the review was written for.
  • Review Date - The date when this review was submitted.
  • IP Address - This is defined automatically and is used to prevent submitting multiple reviews by one user.
  • Approved - When it is set to 'Yes' then this revew is displayed on the website.
  • User Name - This is the name of the author. Note that it may differ from his/her login name.
  • User Email - This is the e-mail of the user. In case user notifications are activated in Products > Reviews Settings then on this address will be sent a notification after review submission.
  • Does User recommend? - This is user's reply to question "Would you recommend this product to others?".
  • Rating - Shows how the customer rated this article.
  • One-line Summary and User Comment - These fields contain information about the article left by user.

Rating notes

Note: When rating an article, your customers will have to choose from 'Bad', 'Poor', 'Average', 'Good' and 'Excellent' meaning '1', '2', '3', '4' and '5' correspondingly. You can edit these values at the System > System Static Messages section (see section 4.5.8). Then based on the total amount of ratings system generates the Average Rating and displays it in the form of stars on Articles Listing pages and in Reviews section on Article Details pages.

Note: There is a special block in CMS called [Article Type name] (Top Rated) e.g. News (Top Rated) for which system takes products according to the Top Rated Settings in System > Global settings.

Note: If you want to disable Average Rating from the articles listing page then you either need to turn off review feature completely (uncheck 'Allowed to See Reviews' and 'Allowed to Post Reviews' in Articles  > Reviews Settings) or comment out one string in the file 'block_articles_list.html', like this:

<!-- <a href="{reviews_url}"><img class="{rating_image}" src="images/tr.gif" alt="{rating_alt}" align="top" border="0"></a><br>--><!-- end reviews -->

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