Help Docs

Rate It SmartStack Manual

Introduction

The Yabdab Rate It SmartStack allows RapidWeaver users to add a simple, self contained Five Star Rating System to a Stacks v1.3+ page ( http://www.yourhead.com ). Site visitors can submit ratings to a published page. Ratings are stored on the web host and a tallied summary of votes are displayed in the form of a simple 5-star graph.

Rate It SmartStack requires a web host with PHP5+. (MobileMe hosting is not supported)

Installation

When you purchase the Rate It SmartStack, you'll receive a file named: YDSSRateIt.stack.zip

Double click on this file to uncompress the stack. The uncompressed file will be named YDSSRateIt.stack

Make sure RapidWeaver is NOT open, then double click YDSSRateIt.stack. This will automatically install the stack to /user/Library/Application Support/RapidWeaver/Stacks

Installation is now complete and you can launch RapidWeaver.

Setup

It's important to understand the overall process that the Rate It SmartStack uses to store and publish votes and results. This brief overview walks you through the entire process.

You can add a Rate It SmartStack to any Stacks page. It's important to note that the Rate it SmartStack must be PUBLISHED to function. You will not see any voting options in RapidWeaver Preview mode. It's also important to make sure that the stacks page containing the SmartStack is named with the proper .php extension. Most hosts will not execute php code on a page unless it's named properly. To modify this, go to the Page Inspector and look at the General settings. You'll see the page named something like index.html or page0.html. Remove the .html extension and replace with .php. Index.php or Page0.php, for example, are fine.

To configure the SmartStack, select the stack in Preview mode and select the i icon on the left hand side of the selected stack. This will bring up the Stacks inspector.

The top of the Rate It SmartStack inspector offers several options to configure the look of your published comments.

The bottom of the Rate It SmartStack inspector is where you'll need to provide the stack some information about your hosting account. The stack needs this information to save vote information to your web host. Ratings are stored NOT as part of your RapidWeaver project, but rather on your published site.

The following information is REQUIRED to configure this stack:

  • FTP Username: The ftp login username for your host
  • FTP Password: The ftp password for your host
  • FTP Root: The default directory for web published files (typically just / or /www but verify your host's requirements.
  • Data File: Hidden file that will be created to store votes. Will be placed in this Stack page's /files/ydssdata/ folder. For security purposes, you a file name that only you know and can not be easily guessed. We recommend using a file name with random numbers/letters.
  • Rate Options: The labels you wish to display next to your star icons. Please provide 5 values separated by a comma. for example: Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent

Note: FTP Information is available from your web host and will vary. Use the FTP info provided by your host

You can also provide custom text for:

  • Button: Text that will appear on the voting submission button. For example, Vote, Submit, Rate, etc.
  • Title: Text that will be displayed in the stack above the rating options.

Do not use any html, javascript or css in your custom text. Use only plain text.

If you wish to limit the number of votes a single user may submit, enable the Limit Votes checkbox. then select the number of votes that will be allowed from an individual IP address using the vote limit slider.

Once you've provided all the required information, you're ready to publish your page.

Script Setup

Once your page containing the Rate It SmartStack is published, it's important that you open up your browser and navigate to the page containing the Rate It SmartStack. The FIRST time the page is viewed in a browser, it runs a setup script behind the scenes and does a two things:

  1. Utilizes the FTP info you provided to connect to the host and create the hidden Data File (which you named in the setup) in the page's /files/ydssdata folder
  2. Sets permissions to be writable on the hidden Data File

Be patient, it may take a few seconds the very first time to get everything setup.

If you receive the error “Failed to Login to FTP Account” this means that one or more components of your FTP information are not correct in the stack. Please confirm your ftp username, password and root path with your host, then republish.

Once the setup script has completed you'll see the rating stack available to use on the page.

Note: Keep in mind that votes are stored ONLY on your web host - they are located in XML file in the hidden Data File. If you manage your web files via FTP and delete the page containing the Rate It SmartStack, you will delete all previous votes as well.