User Reviews

Adding User Reviews

A user can review any post, page or custom type in four ways from the frontend:

Add Rating Element

This allows the user to click on the rating icons (stars for example) within a post to a give it a rating.

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select Page from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. From the left side find the Add Rating element and drag it into the page.
  4. If you want to allow the user to add multiple ratings to the post under the Criteria option click the Add Item button, give each criterion a title and weight.
  5. Set the minimum and maximum rating allowed.
  6. Under the Advanced Controls toggle you can choose who can add a rating to the post as well as other advanced options.
  7. Under the Style tab you can control the appearance of the rating icons.

Up/Down Voting Element

This allows the user to vote up or down a post.

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Page” from the Type dropdown. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. From the left side find the Up/Down Voting element and drag it into the page.
  4. Under the Advanced Controls toggle you can choose who can vote on the post as well as other advanced options.
  5. Under the Style tab you can control the appearance of the up/down icons.

Comment Form

This allows the user to add a review via the comment form.

Creating Form Rating Field

This creates the rating icons field in your comment form so the user can add a rating.

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Item Loop” from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. From the left side find the Add Rating element and drag it into the page.
  4. If you want to allow the user to add multiple ratings to the post under the Criteria option click the Add Item button, give each criterion a title and weight.
  5. Set the minimum and maximum rating allowed.
  6. Under the Advanced Controls toggle you can choose who can add a rating to the post as well as other advanced options.
  7. Under the Style tab you can control the appearance of the rating icons.
  8. Save your template.

Displaying Ratings in User Comments

This displays the rating the user has given within the user’s comment.

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Item Loop” from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3.  From the left side find the Show Rating element and drag it into the page.
  4. Select “Comment Rating” from the Source dropdown menu.
  5. Change the maximum rating to match the one set in the comment rating field that you created above.
  6. Save your template.

Displaying Rating Breakdown in Comments

This displays a breakdown of all the user ratings above the comments.

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Item Loop” from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3.  From the left side find the Show Rating Breakdown element and drag it into the page.
  4. Change the maximum rating to match the one set in the comment rating field that you created above.
  5. Save your template.

Adding Templates to Comment Form

Now you’ve created the rating template you can add them to your comment form.

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Page” from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. From the left side find the Comments element and drag it into the page.
  4. Under the Review Controls toggle enable the Allow Comments option and then select the rating field template you just created from the Form Rating Field Template dropdown menu, select the rating display template you created from Comment List Rating Template dropdown menu and select the rating breakdown template you created from the Rating Breakdown Template dropdown menu.
  5. Save your template.

Post Submission Form

This allows the user to submit a post to the site which can be a review.

Creating Rating Icons

  1. First you need to create the rating icons for your comment form. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Item Loop” from the Type dropdown. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. From the left side find the Add Rating element and drag it into the page.
  4. If you want to allow the user to add multiple ratings to the post under the Criteria option click the Add Item button, give each criterion a title and weight.
  5. Set the minimum and maximum rating allowed.
  6. Under the Advanced Controls toggle you can choose who can add a rating to the post as well as other advanced options.
  7. Under the Style tab you can control the appearance of the rating icons.

Add Rating Icons to Post Submission Form

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Page” from the Type dropdown. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. From the left side find the Form element and drag it into the page.
  4. Select “Post Submission” from the Form Type dropdown menu.
  5. To add a rating field select “Rating” from the Data dropdown menu and then select the rating template you just created from the Rating Template dropdown menu.
  6. Under the Advanced toggle you can set the Default Sub Post Type to “User Review” which can then be used to differentiate these posts from other types of posts on your site.

Creating A Review Post Template

This is for user review posts e.g. a user has submitted a user review via the post submission form.

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select Page from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. Now you can drag and drop elements from the elements panel on the left into the area marked Drag widgets here.
  4. You will probably want to insert the Post Title, Post Meta and Featured Item elements to display the title, meta data and featured image for your review post respectively.
  5. To display your ratings insert the Show Rating element and select “User Rating” from the Source dropdown menu.
  6. Change the maximum rating to whatever you want (make sure it’s not lower than the ratings you given in your review posts).
  7. The Average Rating options show the average of all your ratings if a review post has multiple ratings.
  8. The Criterion Rating options show individual ratings if a review post has multiple ratings.
  9. There are more advanced options under the Advanced toggle.
  10. You can control the appearance from the Style tab.
  11. You can also add the Good/Bad Points and Summary elements if you have added this data to your review post.
  12. Now go to GhostPool Core > Display Conditions, scroll down to the Pages section click the Add Another button, select the template you just created and under the Condition dropdown menu select “User Review Post”. Now when you visit your user review posts, it will use this template.
  13. Save your template.

Creating A Review List Template

To create a page that shows a list of user reviews such as your homepage or a category do the following:

Creating Item Loop

  1. Go to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Item Loop” from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. Now you can drag and drop elements from the elements panel on the left into the area marked Drag widgets here.
  4. You will probably want to insert the Post Title, Post Meta and Featured Item elements to display the title, meta data and featured image for your review post respectively.
  5. To display your ratings insert the Show Rating element and select “User Rating” from the  the Source dropdown menu.
  6. Change the maximum rating to whatever you want (make sure it’s not lower than the ratings you given in your review posts).
  7. The Average Rating options show the average of all your ratings if a review post has multiple ratings.
  8. The Criterion Rating options show individual ratings if a review post has multiple ratings.
  9. There are more advanced options under the Advanced toggle.
  10. You can control the appearance from the Style tab.
  11. Save your template.

Creating Page To Show Item Loop

  1. Go back to GhostPool Core > Template Editor and click Add New.
  2. Give your template a title and from the Template Settings panel on the right select “Page” from the Type dropdown, click the Publish/Update button to save these changes. Finally click the Edit with Elementor button.
  3. Now you can drag and drop elements from the elements panel on the left into the area marked Drag widgets here.
  4. You will probably want to insert the Archive Title element to display the title if this is a category page.
  5. Insert the Items element into the page and select the item loop you just created from the Primary Item Template dropdown menu.
  6. You now need to tell the Items element to display your reviews. You have a variety of options to do this under the Query toggle.

Post Subtypes: Will display only posts with the subtypes you select – in this case select Review to only show review posts.

Tax Query: If you’ve added your reviews to categories you can choose to only display items from those categories. Under the Tax Query option click Add Item, leave the “Category” taxonomy selected (or change it if using a different taxonomy) and then enter the slug names of the categories your reviews have been added to (slug names are lowercase names with no spaces).

Meta Query: If you’ve assigned specific custom fields (meta key and values) to your reviews you can choose to only display items from those custom fields. Under the Meta Query option click Add Item and enter your key and value.

Current Query: If you’re displaying this page on a taxonomy (e.g. a category page) you can enable the Current Query option and it will automatically display any items added to this taxonomy.