Documentation
STRUCTURE
1. REQUIREMENTS
2. INSTALLATION
2.1. via SHELL (recommended)
2.2. via FTP
3. THE ADMIN PANEL
3.1. WEBSITE SETUP
3.2. CATEGORIES
3.3. USERS
3.4. STATIC CONTENT
3.5. REVIEWS
3.6. COMMENTS
4. CHANGING THE LAYOUT
NOTE: If you want to try out Free Review Script there is a fully working demostration website at http://demo.freereviewscript.com and also a backend at http://demo.freereviewscript.com/admin (login information username: admin, password: admin). Feel free to ask any questions using the forum at http://www.freereviewscript.com/community if you happen to encounter any problems.
1. REQUIREMENTS
One of these operating systems:
- Linux/Unix
- Windows 2000/XP/Me/2003
- Mac OS X
One of these webservers:
- Apache 1.3
- Apache 2
- httpd.conf settings. When Free Review Script is installed it will check if mod_rewrite.so is enabled in your Apache configuration.
PHP 5.2.x
- Working PHP sessions
- GD Library enabled
- safe mode turned OFF
- php.ini settings. When Free Review Script is installed it will also check that you have at least the following - PHP memory limit (minimum 8M, recommended at least 64M), PHP time limit in seconds (minimum 30, recommended 600), maximum post size (minimum 2M, recommended at least 32M), maximum upload size (minimum 2M, recommended at least 32M), and maximum input time in seconds (minimum 30, recommended 600).
PHP.INI MINIMAL SETTINGS
======================================================
safe_mode = off
register_globals = off
memory_limit = 16M
max_execution_time = 30
max_input_time = 30
post_max_size = 2M
upload_max_filesize = 2M
======================================================
PHP.INI RECOMMENDED SETTINGS
======================================================
safe_mode = off
register_globals = off
memory_limit = 64M
max_execution_time = 600
max_input_time = 600
post_max_size = 32M
upload_max_filesize = 32M
======================================================
Database:
- MySQL 4.1+
Write access required on a few directories that will be specified later on in the docs.
2. INSTALLATION
Before proceeding to the installation you should first make sure your server meets the REQUIREMENTS (1.1). If so there are a few ways to install Free Review Script depending on your specific situation. If you have shell access (ssh) to your server you should read INSTALLATION via SHELL (1.2.1). If you don't know what ssh is or if FTP is your only option you must install Free Review Script following INSTALLATION via FTP (1.2.2).
2.1. via SHELL
Step 1: Login to your shell account via SSH and change directory to your public html folder by: "cd 'your-public-html-directory'"
Step 2: You can install Free Review Script in your public html directory (in this case www.yourwebsite.com will display the review script) or create a subdirectory ("mkdir 'your-subdirectory'; cd 'your-subdirectory';") where you would proceed with installation (in this case www.yourwebsite.com/your-subdirectory will display the review script).
Step 3: In your ssh window issue a command like the following: "wget http://www.freereviewscript.com/downloads/freereviewscript-v.1.0.tar.gz". Extract the files using the following command: "tar -zxf freereviewscript-1.0.tar.gz".
Step 4: Once the files have extracted, you need to change permissions of the following directories: "chmod -R 777 app/tmp; chmod -R 777 app/config;"
Step 5: Create an empty database. Depending on your host you may use a web application like PHPMyAdmin, or your host control panel.
NOTE: Some hosts only allow you to use one database. Then you will have to use that database and the username and password the host provide for that database. In this case you will have to make sure in the installation wizzard to provide a table prefix "revscri_" or whatever you choose.
Step 6: If you are installing the application in a sub-directory it is MANDATORY to edit the 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot/.htaccess' and replace the line "RewriteBase /" with "RewriteBase /your-subdirectory/"
Step 7: In your browser type the URL: http://www.yourwebsite.com/index.php?url=/install or http://www.yourwebsite.com/your-subdirectory/index.php?url=/install depending to where you have placed the script and follow the installation wizzard.
2.2. via FTP
WARNING: FTP is not the recommended way of installing as it may suffer file upload corruption. You should use Installation via SHELL if you can and FTP as a last option.
VERY IMPORTANT!!! Please upload the files on your FTP Server using BINARY TRANSFER MODE!
Step 1: Download the latest stable release from http://www.freereviewscript.com
Step 2: Unzip the downloaded file to a directory somewhere on your computer and remember where you saved it.
Step 3: Using your FTP client, upload the all files in the exact same structure to the root or an installation folder you create. Placing the files in your public_html folder will make your site available to users at http://www.yourwebsite.com if you place it in a sub-directory it will be available at http://www.yourwebsite.com/your-subdirectory.
Step 4: For the script to access folders properly, you need to change permissions on the following folders: "installation-folder/app/tmp", "installation-folder/app/config".
Step 5: Create an empty database. Depending on your host you may use a web application like PHPMyAdmin, or your host control panel.
NOTE: Some hosts only allow you to use one database. Then you will have to use that database and the username and password the host provide for that database. In this case you will have to make sure in the installation wizzard to provide a table prefix "revscri_" or whatever you choose.
Step 6: If you are installing the application in a sub-directory it is MANDATORY to edit the 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot/.htaccess' and replace the line "RewriteBase /" with "RewriteBase /your-subdirectory/"
Step 7: In your browser type the URL: http://www.yourwebsite.com/index.php?url=/install or http://www.yourwebsite.com/your-subdirectory/index.php?url=/install depending to where you have placed the script and follow the installation wizzard.
3. THE ADMIN PANEL
The Admin Panel is the core of the Free Review Script. This is where you will work from. Here you can setup different website options, manage reviews categories, reviews, comments, static content of your website (welcome page, contact page, about us, extra pages etc.).
You can login to the Admin Panel by accessing URL : http://www.yourwebsite.com/your-subdirectory/admin. The default login information for accessing this area is username: admin, password: admin.
IMPORTANT! We strongly recommend to change the password, first thing after you first login into the administration area.
Let's take a quick walk-through of each part of the Admin Panel:
- WEBSITE SETUP: In this section you can manage some general features of your website, provide license information in case you purchased the product, or change the Administrator's access password.
- CATEGORIES: Here is where you setup the reviews categories you want on your website. There is an unlimited level of subcategories meaning every category can have its own child sub-categories without any limitation.
- USERS: This is where you can manage the users that have placed different comments regarding your products.
- STATIC CONTENT: In this section you will be able to setup the content of some static pages like About Us, Contact Us (gennerally available) or setup as many static pages as you wish and even specify where the links to these pages are supposed to appear on the frontend of your website. Also in this area you will be able to set the wording for some block contents on homepage and contact us page. Here is where you will be able to manage articles on your website and even publicity ads.
- REVIEWS: Under this menu you will manage the products you offer for reviewing. You can set the link to your product, a descriptive image of it and even GoogleMaps Directions.
- COMMENTS: Through this menu you will be able to manage the submitted comments, enable/disable them or edit their content.
3.1. WEBSITE SETUP
SETTINGS
Categories Setup - available options under this dropdown are "On" or "No categories". You would select "On" in case you want to categorize your reviews (for example lets suppose your website is about Restaurants Reviews you will have categories like Traditional / Italian / Chinese etc. in this case you would leave Categories Setup set to On) or "No categories" if you only have some products without any categories (for example your website offers Hosting Companies reviews and in this case you wont have any categories only lots of Companies that follows to be reviewed in this case you would leave Categories Setup set to No categories).
Commenting - available options under this dropdown box are "Off", "On - Registration required", "On - No registration required". If for any reason you dont want to receive any more comments for your reviews this should be set to "Off", if you want to receive comments for your reviews but only from registered users you should set this to "On - Registration required" (this would require users first to register on your website and only after they completed registration they're allowed to post comments), if you want to let anybody submit a comment you would set this option to "On - no registration required".
NOTE: You dont have to worry about comments posted by bots, you are protected by a captcha security image that will only allow human users to post a comment.
Website Title: Here you will complete your website's title. Under this script the HTML page titles are generated using the website's title and the current page title. For example if you have set as Website Title "My Website" and "My homepage" as homepage title (we will discuss later in this documentation about setting homepage title) the homepage HTML title will appear as "My website - My homepage". So depending on what you will set here all the frontend HTML page titles will be completed with this value.
Receiving Email Address: This is the email address were you intend to receive all Contact Us emails. This email address must be valid.
Logo: This is where you can upload the logo for the website. Though any dimension you provide will be resized to fit the design, we recommend the size for this logo to be maximum 400px width and maximum 60px height.
Header: Leaving this file not uploaded the website wont display a banner. However if you want to upload one the website will fit it into the design, though we recommend minimum 995px width. (the recommended size for the header would be 995px width and 200px height)
LICENSE
The script will always display in the bottom part of the layout "Powered By: Free Review Script, Provided By: Logo Design | Web Design". If you want to remove this part from your website you will have to purchase the product at http://www.freereviewscript.com/services. After purchasing it you will be provided a serial number which you will have to complete in this field found under this menu. This is the only way to remove the two lines at the bottom of the website.
ADMIN PASSWORD
Here you will have to provide the old administrator account password, and confirm the new one, after all these the new password will be applied for this account.
3.2. CATEGORIES
CREATE
In order to create a new category you have to first select the Parent Category if you are creating a sub-category or leave this field to No Parent Category if you are creating a main category, specify a name for the category and a description, these will be displayed in the front end page of the category, complete html page title (this will be the page title displayed in the browser top bar, it follows the website name provided with installation), html meta keywords (very importat for search engine optimization you have to complete the most defining words that would describe this category), html meta description (a very short description of the category also important for search engine optimization). Next you have to complete the review topics these are the elements on which the users will have to provide star ratings for the reviews that you are going to create under this category. And finally you have to provide properties for this category, meaning some descriptive fields for the reviews that will be a part of this category.
MANAGE
Under this menu item you will find the categories, by default this list will contain only the main categories. You will have to select from the top filter one category to view its sub-categories. In this list there are displayed the number of reviews under this category, the number of comments about the reviews of the category, a drop-down where you can select the order in which the categories would appear on the frontend in the right categories menu, the creation date and two images linking to EDIT CATEGORY and DELETE CATEGORY.
NOTE: Deleting a category will erase all the reviews under it and all the comments of these reviews so please pay attention when you delete one.
CSV IMPORT
This is an option to import multiple categories without having to manually create them one by one. For being able to do this you have to provide a CSV (comma separated values) file. For using this, first of all you have to select the main-category under each you wish to import your list. If you are trying to import main categories you have to leave this dropdown on "Select category". Next step you have to provide the format of your CSV file. In the left dropdown you have all the possible values a category can have, in the right dropdown you have the list of items you selected as present in your CSV file. You will be able to move these fields from left to right and vice-versa using the > button and the < button. You will also have to set the order in which the fields are available in your CSV file using the buttons Up and Down for each field you have selected. Next you will have to provide the number of reserved fields for the review topics. For example if you provide in your CSV file 2 columns completed with the review topics for each category this value will have to be completed with 2. If it happens that you have categories with 5 review topics for example and some with 3 review topics you will populate this field with the value 5. This works the same for category properties also.
3.3. USERS
CREATE
You can use this to create members that will submit reviews on your website or other administrator accounts. For doing this you must specify the group of the user you want to create, the username (must be unique), the name of the user, the user's email address, and a password. You have to check the Active box in order to activate the account. Later on if you want to disable an account you will have to search the user in the MANAGE, select to edit his details and uncheck the Active box.
MANAGE
This is the list of users created in the application. For each user you have the option to change the password, edit the details or delete the user.
NOTE: Deleting a user will erase all the comments submitted by him.
3.4. STATIC CONTENT
STATIC PAGES
Under this menu you will find the list of all static pages in the website. By default the website contains the About Us and Privacy & Terms of Use static pages. These 2 cannot be deleted as they are incorporated in the default layout of the frontend, but you can change anything related to their content by clicking the Edit icon. Near the title of the list there is the "CREATE NEW" link which brings you to the create form. You can create as many static pages as you wish but pay attention about this, because creating too many might break the aspect of the frontend pages. When creating/editing a static page you will have to provide the HTML page title that will be displayed in the browser's top bar or as a title in search engines, HTML meta keywords (very importat for search engine optimization you have to complete the most defining words that would best describe this page), HTML meta description (a very short description of the page also important for search engine optimization), the title of the page displayed in the content of it (based on this name the URL to this page will be automatically generated using some rules - for example a title like "My Static Page" will generate an URL similar to http://www.yourwebsite.com/p/my-static-page/), the HTML content (the content of the page), and finally the Menu Position (selecting top menu will place a link to this page in the Top Menu bar, select bottom menu will place a link to this page in the bottom part of the website).
NOTE: You will be able to delete only the static pages created by you.
CONTENT BLOCKS
There are only two block contents on our website: 1. The text over the contact form where you can place whatever content you wish and also specify the page title, html meta fields for this page and 2. The content on the homepage over the Top Reviews box here you will also be able to specify the page title, meta fields and content for the homepage of your website.
ARTICLES
By default you have no articles created in your website but they are turned On in the Settings area of this menu, also the limit of articles per page is initially set to 10. However you can at any time set "Display Articles" option to Off which will temporary disable and hide the articles in the frontend no matter if you have articles created or not. For an article you will also have to provide the title, the content the html page title and the meta fields. You can also temporarily disable one article by unchecking the Active box in the edit form.
ADVERTISEMENTS
Before creating an ad we recomment you to first set the Thumbnail settings under Advertisement Settings area. This will be the size your ad image will be fit to. For not breaking the layout of the frontend we have limited the width of an ad to minimum 80px and maximum 200px and also the height to minimum 80px and maximum 600px. Anyway for the best layout look the recommended size of the thumbnail is the default one that comes with the script installation of 135px width and 130px height. As in articles settings you can set here whether they should be displayed in the frontend or not by checking the field "Display advertisements". Next you have to set the order in which these ads should be displayed you have to options here Settable by admin or Random. Leaving this field set to "Settable by admin" will add an extra column in the Manage advertisements list with a dropdown which will set the order you preffer. You can also specify how many ads should be displayed at a time. To create an ad you have to provide a title for it, a description, a link where it should redirect the user after clicking the ad and an descriptive image of it.
IMPORTANT: Allowed image types are Jpeg, Gif and Png. All images will be resized based on your Thumbnail settings.
3.5. REVIEWS
SETTINGS
Before starting to create or import your reviews into the application you might want to set some values around here. First of all the same
with the advertisements you must specify the Thumbnail settings for the images in your reviews the width limit in this case is between 80px and
250px and the height limit is between 80px and 400px. The recommended thumbnail size is though: width 125px, height 125px. Next you have to
select whether you Allow user start ratings or not, based on your selection the stars for each review topic of the reviews will display on the
frontend giving the users the possibility to rate it, or not, leaving them only to submit a comment about the review. Next Allow Image Upload
with Reviews should be set to On if your reviews will contain descriptive images or Off if you dont wish this feature. Setting GoogleMaps
Directions to On will display the GoogleMaps on the frontend, Off will disable it, though you will still be able to provide directions to your
subjects only if set Off they wont display in the front. Reviews order reffers to the order of the top reviews in the top review board.
By default all reviews are ordered by the user ratings but still you can leave the top review board be ordered by this or you can specify the
order they should appear in. You must also set the number of reviews displayed per page when view All reviews in the homepage or All reviews in
a specific category. You can also set here whether the Top reviews box containing the name of these reviews should be displayed or not. And also
you can specify the maximum number of reviews in this box.
CREATE
To create a review you must select the order this review will be a part of, specify the review's name (based on this name the URL will be generated),
the html page title and html meta details, a descriptive image but not mandatory, complete the properties if the selected categories have any. You
also may check if the current review is a top review, and you also have the option to complete directions to the current item. Completing the
GoogleMap directions can be done in two ways:
- Zooming in the map and moving it to the correct location and after that clicking on it. Doing this way after you click the correct location
the details as country / state / city / address will populate based on what you have selected.
- Completing the country / state / city / address and clicking the button "Get coordinates". This would place the map right over the location
you entered in the input boxes.
NOTE: When clicking the map some location details might not be completed correctly please revise the values before submitting the review.
MANAGE
Under this menu the list with all the reviews is displayed. You can filter these records by category, review title and top / regular review.
You can also here set the order for the top reviews in the small "Top reviews box" and in the "Top reviews board" placed on the homepage
and under each category of the website.
NOTE: Deleting a review will erase all comments contained by the review.
CSV IMPORT
To avoid creating reviews manually, one by one, you can use this tool to import all the reviews you need. All you have to provide is a CSV file
with some fields necessary for each review. The import process works exactly the same with the Categories CSV Import described above. The only
thing that differs is that you can provide here an Image Link for each review. The image from that link will be downloaded to the website and
resized to fit the Thumbnail settings.
IMPORT: We do NOT recommend importing large amount of data. This might block the server. If you have many items to import you might separate
them into multiple files and import them one at a time.
3.6. COMMENTS
SETTINGS
It is recommended to adjust these settings right after the installation especially the "Required Approval of Comments" field. If this is set to
On all comments submitted will not appear on the frontend unless you manually approve them. Here you can also set how many comments should appear
on a review details page, enable / disable the Recent Comments Box, and also specify the number of comments in this box.
MANAGE
Here is where you can see all the comments submitted by your website's visitors or registered users. You can filter the comments by category they
were posted in, the review they are about, display only the approved or those not approved, display those active or inactive and also you have
the option to view all comments submitted in a time interval by using the two input dates provided. For each of these review you can mange
the content, the star ratings, you are able to enable or disable them and even delete them.
CSV IMPORT
The comments CSV Import works exactly the same with the Reviews CSV Import and Categories CSV Import unless here we handle some other specific
fields. The main difference is that for reviews and categories you had to select the Parent category where you wish to import the file and here
you have to select the Parent review for which you choose to import the comments.
4. CHANGING THE LAYOUT
NOTE: We recommend basic html and php knowledge for trying to change the layout of the script.
In order to edit your template (design) of your Free Review Script you must edit the files located in 'your-subdirectory/app/views/' folder and/or
files located in 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot/css' and 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot/img'. In the folder 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot/' are
located the external assets used in the templates like css files, images and javascript each located in their separate folder (css, img and js).
In the 'your-subdirectory/app/views/' are all the html files that combined all together and sticked into a layout generate the whole website.
The views folder is divided in 3 parts:
- The main layouts located in the 'your-subdirectory/app/views/layouts' folder. A layout wraps the content of other views and it must have a
declaration of <?php echo $content_for_layout; ?>. This variable contains the html code generated by the view.
- The elements located in the 'your-subdirectory/app/views/elements' folder. An element is a snippet of html code, like a menu or a box that is
reusable and can be used in any place in your template.
- The views are the rest of the folders that represent the pages of the application. They are distributed by controller names and represents
an action from the controller.
The assets folder 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot' has 3 main directories that contain css, images and JavaScript code parts. In the views or layouts
we can add this assets using special functions like <?=$html->css('filename')?>, <?=$html->js('filename')?> and <?=$html->image('filename');?>.
USING THEMES
Creating a new theme for your website is as simple as choosing a name for the theme, for example 'my_theme' and copy all content from
'your-subdirectory/app/views' into 'your-subdirectory/app/views/themed/my_theme' and also copy all content from 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot'
into 'your-subdirectory/app/webroot/theme/my_theme'. After doing this you would only edit the app_controller.php file located in
'your-subdirectory/app' folder and uncomment the lines in the beforeFilter function that are related to theme. And of course take care to replace
the 'demo' theme with whatever you have chosen as a theme name. After this you can start editing your html code in the views folder. And also
you might change some images in the new /img/ folder for keeping the same color scheme as your new layout.
NOTE: It is advised to use the <?=$html->css()?>, <?=$html->js()?> and <?=$html->img()?> functions to include the assets in your template because these
functions will automatically take care of any theme related paths.
GOOD LUCK!