Simple Review
Simple Review is independent of Joomla articles and categories. It is a specialized component designed specifically for writing reviews.
Simple Review contains many features including:
*Community Builder, Kunena, JomSocial integration and phpBB via JFusion (currently limited to comment avatars)
*Star ratings
*Tag reviews with keywords
*User comments and ratings. Support for comments using Disqus.
*A powerful template system
*Multiple categories
*User submitted reviews (beta)
*Top reviews
*hReview support
*Free
*Captcha using Security Images 5 or reCAPTCHA.
*and more...
16/09/2012: Version 4.0.02 Alpha release. Bug fixes and a new module.
08/07/2012: Version 4.0.01 Alpha release. PHP5 strict standards mode. Joomla ini language files.
28/01/2012: Version 3.0.13 release. Supports Joomla 2.5 and includes some minor bug fixes.
7/11/2011: Version 3.0.12 released. Removes the restriction of comments requiring a rating and comment text.
26/09/2011: Version 3.0.11 released. Removes the restriction of reviews requiring a rating.
The component appears under the 'components' menu in the Joomla admin. After adding a review category and reviews, you can then add a frontend link via the Joomla menu manager.
Correct, Simple Review is independent of articles (I will update the description to clarify this).
Since it is independent I am not sure how it can be blamed for your website being blank, especially after being installed.
I hope they keep developing this component as it's a really solid basis for a review engine.
But, I found too many errors and problems. For example, clicking on a category to see the reviews ends up with a 404 screen.
Also, in the config, it references extra fields and lets you select how many, but there isn't a way to define those fields or use them.
This is a great module, and I would like to see a later version. At this point, at least for me, there is too much I would have to change to make it work for my specific needs.
Hi,
I am not sure about the 404 problem as it has been tested to work. Please contact our support forum.
You can define the custom fields when creating your category and you then assign them values when creating a review.
My only issue is with the comments feature. It would be a real bonus to have this extension work with JComments, instead of/as well as having its own comments feature. Cool for a free extension however. many thanks to the developer.
I have found a problem upgrading from v3.0.6 to 3.0.7 - there are no instructions on how to do this, and it appears the wrong download is listed at the website (it is the full component).
Support is not commercial, therefore it is understandable that the developer does not want individual emails. However, we are told to post in the forum - but it is (at time of writing) not possible to register for an account.
So a bit frustrating, despite the usefulness of the component. If I can get these issues resolved I will definitely look to continue using Simple Review.
Hi,
Sorry I posted the wrong upgrade link on the blog (the correct file was on the JoomlaCode homepage), I have corrected the blog post to point to the correct file. You can unzip it and follow the instructions. There are some nice new features, so I hope you can upgrade to 3.0.7 and then to 3.0.8 without issue.
The forum registration is a case of bad timing, I only disabled it yesterday and it will be back up within a week. I was experiencing a very, very large amount of spam. It takes a large amount of time to deal with spam and the new attacks made it impossible for me to keep up and work on the component. I hope you can understand this temporary measure.
Hi,
If you are having any problems with getting user reviews working please follow this guide:
http://simple-review.com/315-user-reviews-beta.html
If that does not help then please visit the forum.
We are working on ways to make editing templates easier as well as providing more prettier templates. Removing the image is very easy and we would be happy to point anyone wishing to do so in the right direction.
Thanks.
The developer says he is currently developing the component so registered users can leave reviews from the frontend of the site, I can't wait.
This is one to keep an eye on!
Hi,
From the sounds of it you forgot to hit the rating button (please update your review's rating if this is the case).
User reviews do work in the current version - but it is in the early stages of development, so please try it out and provide any feedback in the forum.
Thanks.
Good idea but very poorly implemented at this stage (vs3.0.1).
Good the idea of the customizable fields but again... very badly implemented: e.g. you can add fields easely to the frontend but then you have to edit the templates and in order to get it to work properly a lot of manual tweaking is required.
Furthermore, i found it very unstable and quite buggy. Personally I believe this product is currently in a pre-alpha conceptual development stage, definitively not to be used in a production environment.
I believe version 3.0.2 fixed some of the bugs you may have experienced as well at simplified some of the GUI. Myself and others use it on production sites without issues, so if you have any specific bugs/issues then please report them in the support forum so that they can be fixed.
The custom fields must be manually put into a template as the component does not know where you would like to place them in your review. This is comparable to having to specify your module positions in Joomla templates.
I would disagree that a lot of manual work to get them working, all you have to do is put {Review:Field:1} somewhere in your template or review.
Thanks.
Though it still lack few things I find necessary (ability to write reviews for articles and CSV import - these features are planned for future versions), I have to give highest grade.
Just keep up the good work :)
I just have one question if you would be kind enough to help me, the only thing I would like to change is the way the TOP REVIEWS are shown. My site works on a rating system of 1 being lowest and 10 being highest when reviewing games, and because there are so many reviews (hundreds) lots of them have a rating of 10, but it seems as though only the first ones which were rated 10 can be displayed in the TOP REVIEWS section, is there any way of randomizing lots of reviews that all rated their respective games with a 10?
Any help much appreciated, thank you
Thank you for your feedback.
If you post your request on http://simple-review.com/forum I will be more than happy to assist you with this. Thanks.
