Bamajr,
Thank you very much for review and your very concise and specific feedback. User evaluation like what you have provided is something we rely upon iteration upon iteration, to be certain we are taking steps in the right. So again, thank you for that.
So the image support is currently in development and is more or less complete, it is simply commented out currently because I did not have time for sufficient testing to feel comfortable pushing it with the last update. A white screened site for one of our users tends to be a worse scenario than a delay in added functionality This feature, however, should be polished and pushed in a matter of weeks.
Secondly, the custom styling issue is certainly something that needs to be addressed. A simple refactoring of specific element classes perhaps coupled with a style guide walkthrough in the dashboard could at the very least make adding custom styles far more accessible to anyone familiar with css. Would this suffice, or is this a scenario for which you would like to see the addition of custom styles built into an interface the Rich Reviews Dashboard?
Finally, with your suggestion of simply displaying review excerpts that link back to the full review text. Is this along the idea of making reviews themselves a custom post type, that act as free standing posts? So each excerpt in a list style display would effectively link back to page containing only the contents of that review, and maybe accompanying product/subject info and review form of the same category? This is an interesting prospect that I have not yet heard.
Let me know if you have any further thoughts,
Thanks,
Charlie Maxwell
[NM_Developer]
Thread Starter
bamajr
(@bamajr)
- I’m certainly willing to wait on a complete dev/test process, as long as this is on the radar. I too would agree, a white screen or downed website is far more detrimental than waiting for new features to be thoroughly tested.
- I’m a huge fan of the way Gravity Forms handles styling with their Design and Layout Guide and CSS Ready Classes. So yes, a style guide would make a huge difference. Rocket Genius uses a mix of CSS Ready Classes, applied via the Gravity Forms UI, and direct style editing. Yes, I could simply build a reviews system with Gravity Forms, though I’m not sure it supports Google Compatible, Rich Snippets (honestly haven’t looked into this much, yet).
- No, I’m not referring specifically to use of Custom Post Types, though that may be an option. I’m looking for a way to create a single page, that lists the complete texts of all approved reviews, without having to click on “Read More” (We’ll call this the “Reviews Page”). Then, I would like to see a way to display a sepcified number of characters, on a different page, where the “Read More” link would actually link directly to the full review text, on the “Review Page” and not simply expand the review, for the entire review text. I hope this makes sense.
An additional thought, may be to build all of this plugin’s functionality into a Gravity Forms “Add On” so that your unique approach to reviews and Rich Snippets is available through the Gravity Forms UI.
bamjar,
Thanks again for the thorough response. Topic 3 is now clear to me, and this would be a very simple implementation, and i’m sure we can get an option for that type of setup developed out on a short timeline. As far as 2 and your additional thought go, we are in the process of integrating with Woo Commerce and a few other platforms, which are a priority at the moment, so an integration for a Gravity Forms add on would certainly be topic to explore down the line. However, we are currently in the process of refactoring our database structure to support fully modifiable form fields. With serialized storage of the form options, we are moving to allow the appending of custom fields. Opening the door for multiple rating values to evaluate separable aspects of a single product/service, as well as unrestricted text, radio, and select inputs. Hopefully, we will be able to make our UI as approachable as that of Gravity Forms. The idea for a Gravity Forms add on is none the less a very good concept, and we will certainly keep that in mind.
Thanks again for all of your feedback,
Charlie Maxwell
[NM_Developer]
