FAQ

What is Rating-Widget?

Self-Hosted Stars Rating System for your Blog or Website. i.e. a control which enable rating elements of content in your site by its readers - which we host for free.

Why should I use it?

It's a super-effective way of getting instant feedback from your readers, on the quality of your site content. Whether it's a blog post, web page, image or what ever piece/element of your website that you want rated. Plus it's absolutly free!

How is Rating-Widget different than some other rating widgets, like starrating.org?

It's the best one! The Rating-Widget is without registration, fully customizable, cross-browser & multi-language supported - including Right-To-Left languages support, and off course we host it for free.

How do I sign-up/register?

You don't. That's the beauty of Rating-Widget. Just customize your thumb or star rating widget in 5 sec, copy-paste the code - and voula! your Rating-Widget is on.

What's the deal with this "user-key"?

The user-key is our way to differentiate between users.
Using the combination of the user-key and the rating-widget-unique-id we can identify the right Rating-Widget's ratings instances.

Why should I save the user-key? you promised that there's no registration?

There is no registration! and it's not mandatory to save the user-key. It's only a recommendation. Moreover, if you'll check the embeded javascript code you'll find out that the user-key is passed as a parameter to the Rating-Widget initialization function. So if you already copy-pasted it, it's automatically saved.
If you'll want to add another Rating-Widget to your Blog or Website in the future, you can just add new rating container - <div class="rw-ui-container rw-urid-rating-widget-unique-id"></div> at the page where you want the widget to appear, and copy the same javascipt element which you've already copied at the first time, immediately before the </body> tag.

I've lost my user-key, what should I do?

Don't worry, it's not critical.
First of all, if you already embeded the Rating-Widget somewhere in your site, just open the source code and find the key - search for "RW.init(", the user-key is the 32 chars string that comes immediately after. If you find it - GREAT! Otherwise, generate new user-key in our homepage by clicking on the "Yes" button, and you are good as new.

If there is no registration and password, can't someone else use my user-key?

Yep, that's correct. We do use some technics hiding your public user-key, but practically if someone will find it, he would be able to add instances of Rating-Widget with your user-key, and even add active star ratings to his site. Sorry, but that's the truth. That's the compromise we made to make easier implementation for you. We do supply a secure version for our Pro Version users.

How to configure my server for Rating-Widget?

You don't. The widget is self-hosted, meaning all the thumb & star rating system's data is automatically managed by us, in our servers (for free).

Will Rating-Widget slow down the site?

No, not if installed correctly. If site speed is a big concern and you've got other essential JavaScripts loading, just place Rating-Widget right before the closing body tag </body> It doesn't care if it's last in line, and this way it won't slow you down.

What exactly does the Rating-Widget JavaScript code do?

It replace all rating containers divs inside the HTML markup with a beautiful ratings. The Rating-Widget's code snippet grabs the user's Rating-Wiget from rating-widget.com and then loads the most recent ratings states into the page in a <div> at the rating containers divs.

How can I change the default stars style with something else?

It's very easy, just select the "Custom" button in the color section, and follow the instructions which will appear in the new window.

Um... I don't buy all this free BULL****, what do you getting of it?

First of all, just to let you know, we've developed this widget because we couldn't find one that will suit our needs (Right-To-Left support and more...). Then, we realized that we are probably not the only one who faced the same issue. So we thought to ourselves, "maybe we should add some cool features and make the best Rating-Widget ever?", and that's exactly what we've done!
Secondary, you are right, there is always an interest. By spreading the Rating-Widget over the net, more ratings data is collected in our servers - this way we can tell what web content is currently HOT. This is worth something, don't you think?!

What is Rating-Widget's official privacy policy?

The official policy is something like: At Rating-Widget, THERE IS NONE. Rating-Widget does not ask for or require any of your personal information. By design, there is simply no way to insure only you will use any given Rating-Widget instance.

Is there a way to remove the "Post", "Comments", "Pages" titles in the WP Top-Rated Widget?

YES! Open the main plugin php file (rating-widget.php), search for:
echo '<p style="margin: 0;">' . ucwords($type) . '</p>';
and just delete or comment this line and you are ready to go!

What is my `unique-user-key`?

If you are already using Rating-Widget ratings system there are several different ways to find your unique-user-key:

Open your browser and load any page in your site that contains Rating-Widget control. Then, open the source-code of the page and search for RW.init(. Inside this scope you'll find 32 chars string that will look like uid:"abcd1234efgh5678abcd1234efgh5678" - abcd1234efgh5678abcd1234efgh5678 is your unique-user-key.
For the WordPress Plugin users there are 3 ways:
1. Open the "Advanced" settings of the Rating-Widget in your WordPress Admin Dashboard page and you'll see your key in the API Details section.
2. You'll need to find your keys-pair file (key.php), which placed in your-blog-root/wp-content/plugins/rating-widget/lib/key.php. Open the file and you'll find the 32 chars key next to the defenition of WP_RW__USER_KEY. Make sure this line isn't commented, otherwise it's not your key.
3. If you can't find the file or the line was commented, you'll need to load the from your WordPress options table by executing the next query: SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name='rw_user_key'

How can I stop the paying subscription?

In order to stop a paying subscription, please send us an email:

Address: stop-subscription@rating-widget.com.
The email must be sent from the same address you've provided during the subscription process.
The key.php file must be attached to this email so we can identify that it's really you (impersonation prevention).

The WordPress plugin don't work, where are my ratings?

Make sure your theme's footer.php calls wp_footer(). The star ratings system's javascript is loaded on this action.
More info here - http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development#Plugin_API_Hooks

The ratings on the Top-Rated Widget are not being updated, what's wrong?

Check out if you have any active caching plugins in your WordPress (e.g. WP Super Cache), they might cause this affect.

The WordPress plugin don't show ratings on my comments, what's wrong?

First, make sure you've enabled the ratings for comments in your admin's dashboard. Once you sure it's enabled, but still doesn't work, a common cause can be that your theme isn't using comment_text() to display the comments text. A common mistake by theme developers is the use of get_comment_text() instead of comment_text(). Try to switch between those and it should fix the issue. If you are awesome, contact the theme developer and let him know about the issue so he can fix it for everyone else.

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