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Ajax Ratings Pro

http://mt-hacks.com/ajaxrating.html

Refer to the above URL for documentation on this plugin. The following documents additions made since version 1.261.

Requirements

This plugin is compatible with Movable Type 4.x, 5.1+, and 6.x and has the following minimum requirements:

Upgrading

Version 1.3+ is converted to a config.yaml style plugin. Be sure to remove the old AjaxRating.pl file when upgrading.

The upgrade process itself may not go smoothly with this change. You should expect to see an upgrade notice from MT twice: once to install the config.yaml style plugin, and a second time to migrate and update data.

Version 1.3 also changes its table names, shortening them for compatibility with Oracle. This change won't require any modification to your templates. The change does require you to work with the database: the old table mt_ajaxrating_votesummary will need a new column created: ajaxrating_votesummary_vote_dist as type text. This must be done before the new plugin is installed.

Plugin data is stored differently with the config.yaml style, so you will need to re-set Ajax Rating Plugin Settings, at both the System and Blog level.

Configuration

In System Overview > Plugins > Ajax Rating Pro > Settings, you'll find an option to Enable IP Checking. This checkbox provides an easy way to restrict votes by IP address. Disable during development for easy testing.

Tag Reference

The following template tags are available in Ajax Rating for both static and dynamic (php) publishing.

AjaxStarRater

This tag will output a star rater like the one shown above. To rate entries, it must be used in an Entry context (i.e. between <MTEntries> and </MTEntries> tags or in the Individual Archive Template. A good spot is just after the <MTEntryBody> tag.

Supported arguments

  • type

    • Required when rating a blog but generally recommended otherwise. With Ajax Rating Pro, you can also specify the following types:

      • entry (default)
      • comment
      • category
      • author
      • tag,
      • trackback (alias: ping)
      • ...or anything else (see "rate anything" above).

  • max_points

    • Required for all types except entries and comments. This argument specifies the number of stars that will be displayed.

  • id

    • (Advanced), This argument enables you specify a specific object ID number that you want to rate. If you use the tag in the correct context, you don't need to include the id argument. But if you want to place a rater outside of the relevant context, or if you want to rate a non-MT object (see "rate anything" above), then you must specify the id of the object. Normally, you don't want to use this, so forget I mentioned it. ;)

Examples

This creates a star rater for the entry in context:

<mt:AjaxStarRater type="entry">

This creates a star rater for the blog in context:

<mt:AjaxStarRater type="blog">

This creates a 5-star rater for the blog in context:

<mt:AjaxStarRater type="blog" max_points="5">

In an author or commenter is in context (e.g. the author on an author profile page, the comment author in a comment context, the entry/page author in an entry context, etc), this creates a star rater for your mom (or, rather, the author in context) with 10-stars (because she deserves nothing less):

<mt:If tag="CommenterID">   <mt:CommenterID setvar="user_id">
<mt:ElseIf tag="AuthorID">  <mt:AuthorID setvar="user_id">
<mt:Else>                   <mt:Var name="user_id" value="">
</mt:If>
<mt:If var="user_id">
    <mt:AjaxStarRater type="your_mom" id="$author_id" max_points="10">
</mt:If>

AjaxThumbRater

Instead of a star rater, this tag will display a thumbs up/down (or plus/minus, etc.) rater. With this type of rater, there are images for voting an item "up" or "down". A vote "up" is equal to 1 point, a vote "down" is equal -1 point.

Supported arguments

  • type

    • See AjaxStarRater for details.

  • id

    • See AjaxStarRater for details

  • report_icon

    • This optional argument will display a third button—a "report" button—when used with comment raters. Visitors to your site can click this button to report the comment (for abuse, spam, profanity, etc.). When a comment is reported, an email is sent to the author of that entry, along with a link to edit the comment in question.

AjaxRaterOnclickJS

In addition to the convenient star and thumb raters, you can create your own rater. This tag makes it easier. To enable a rating button (or text link), you need to specify a javascript onclick event. This tag fills in the details.

Supported arguments

  • type

    • See AjaxStarRater for details.

  • id

    • See AjaxStarRater for details.

Example

This would output a single voting text link for each entry:

<a href="#" onclick="<$mt:AjaxRaterOnclickJS type="entry" points="1"$>">Like</a>

AjaxRatingTotalScore

This will display the total score for the item being rated (i.e. adding up the values of all of the ratings for that item).

AjaxRatingAverageScore

This will display the average score for the item being rated.

AjaxRatingVoteCount

This will display the number of votes or ratings that have been submitted for this item.

AjaxRatingEntryMax

This will display the maximum number of points (stars) for rating entries, as specified in the plugin settings for that blog.

AjaxRatingList

A general purpose container tag for displaying listings of "top rated" items in the MT database.

Supported arguments

  • type

    • See AjaxStarRater for details.

  • sort_by

    • Determines which metric is use to rank the results. Allowed value are:
      • total (Default) - Sorts by total score
      • average - Sorts by average score
      • votes - Sorts by number of votes

  • sort_order

    • Defaults to descend (highest rating first), but you could also specify ascend to show the worst rated items first.

  • blogs

    • By default, the listing contains only items from the blog currently in context. To include items from multiple blogs, you can specify a comma-separated list of blog IDs or all for all blogs.

  • show_n

    • Use this argument to specify the number of items you want to list (the default is 10).

  • hot

    • A boolean attribute which, when enabled (hot="1"), will generate a list of recently "hot" items, that is, a listing based on recent voting activity only. Otherwise, the listing will be based on "all time" ratings data.

Examples

This creates a listing of a blog's 10 all-time highest rated entries, based on total score:

<mt:AjaxRatingList>

This shows the same listing but based on average score so that more trafficked/rated entries don't dominate the listing:

<mt:AjaxRatingList sort_by="average">

Same as above except for the worst rated entries (cue: sad trombone):

<mt:AjaxRatingList sort_by="average" sort_order="ascend">

This creates a listing of the 10 comments receiving the highest number of recent ratings:

<mt:AjaxRatingList type="comment" sort_by="votes" hot="1">

This creates a listing of the top 10 best blogs on the system:

<mt:AjaxRatingList type="blog" sort_by="average">

AjaxRatingEntries

Same as <mt:AjaxRatingList type="entry">. Same arguments as AjaxRatingList, but the type argument is not required.

AjaxRatingComments

Same as <mt:AjaxRatingList type="comment">. Same arguments as AjaxRatingList, but the type argument is not required.

AjaxRatingPings

Same as <mt:AjaxRatingList type="trackback">. Same arguments as AjaxRatingList, but the type argument is not required.

AjaxRatingCategories

Same as <mt:AjaxRatingList type="category">. Same arguments as AjaxRatingList, but the type argument is not required.

AjaxRatingBlogs

Same as <mt:AjaxRatingList type="blog">. Same arguments as AjaxRatingList, but the type argument is not required.

AjaxRatingAuthors

Same as <mt:AjaxRatingList type="author">. Same arguments as AjaxRatingList, but the type argument is not required.

AjaxRatingTags

Same as <mt:AjaxRatingList type="tag">. Same arguments as AjaxRatingList, but the type argument is not required.

AjaxRatingCommentMax

This will display the maximum number of points for rating comments, as specified in the plugin settings for that blog.

AjaxRatingDefaultThreshold

This will display the default threshold for viewing comments, as specified in the plugin settings for that blog.

##MTIfAjaxRatingBelowThreshold

This is conditional tag whose contents will be displayed if the comment is below the default threshold, as specified in the settings. Note that this tag does not apply to user-specified thresholds (more on those later).

AjaxRatingRefreshHot

WARNING: You should not use this tag if you have a busy site with high-volume voting activity.

This a special tag, it displays no output. It simply triggers the process of calculating the list of "hot" items. Note that "hot" list are not tabulated when the listing tags are rebuilt. For performance reasons, this process happens separately, usually via an MT scheduled task that runs automatically (approx) once every hour. If, for some reason, you want to manually refresh to the "hot" list, you can place the AjaxRatingRefreshHot tag into an index template and rebuild it (be sure to uncheck the "rebuild this template with indexes" box!). Again, this should be used carefully on busy sites, and usually not at all. The "hot" list can also be refreshed via an included cron script (more on this later).

AjaxRatingUserVotes

The tag AjaxRatingUserVotes is a block tag that outputs a list of the recent objects voted on by a specific user. Starting in 1.4.1, the sort order is most-recent vote first -- note that the sorting it based on when the vote was made, NOT the date of the object. This tag is well suited to an Author archive or user profile page.

AjaxRatingVoteDistribution

The tag AjaxRatingVoteDistribution is a block tag that will provide insight to the votes received on an object. Within this block tag, access the score and vote variables to understand the voting distribution, as in the following example:

<mt:AjaxRatingVoteDistribution>
    <mt:If name="__first__">
    <ul>
    </mt:If>
        <li><mt:Var name="score"> stars received <mt:Var name="vote"> votes.</li>
    <mt:If name="__last__">
    </ul>
    </mt:If>
</mt:AjaxRatingVoteDistribution>

As you'll notice, the loop meta variables are also supported, including __first__, __last__, __odd__, __even__, and __counter__.

AjaxRatingTotalVotesInBlog

The tag AjaxRatingTotalVotesInBlog is a function tag that will return the total number of ratings on Entries in the current blog.

(Optional) JSON Output For Voting Script

(Advanced Feature) Staring in version 1.4.1, the voting script (mt-vote.cgi) can send its responses in JSON format. To request JSON format responses, POSTs to the voting script must include a format parameter set to json (&format=json).

Example responses:

success:

{
    "obj_id": "64246",    # object id of object
    "status": "OK",       # OK indicates a successful save
    "vote_count": 29,     # number of votes for this object
    "score": "5",         # score for this vote
    "total_score": 126,   # sum of scores for all votes.
    "obj_type": "entry",  # type of object, usually 'entry'
    "message": "Vote Successful"
}

error:

{
    "status": "ERR",
    "message": "You have already voted on this item."
}

Get Votes Endpoint

The endpoint mt-getvotes.cgi returns the vote summary information for any given object. Data must be submitted through a POST request and must include blog ID (blog_id), object ID (obj_id), and object type (obj_type). Optionally, the format parameter can be set to json; it is text by default. Example:

http://myblog.com/mt/plugins/AjaxRating/mt-getvotes.cgi?blog_id=7&obj_type=entry&obj_id=123&format=json

Generates a JSON response such as:

{
    "obj_type":"entry",
    "obj_id":"123",
    "status":"OK",
    "vote_count":"1",
    "total_score":"5",
    "message":"Vote summary retreived."
}

Many objects can be retrieved by specifying a comma-separated value for the obj_id argument. (Note that the specified object IDs must all be of the same object type.) Example:

http://myblog.com/mt/plugins/AjaxRating/mt-getvotes.cgi?blog_id=7&obj_type=entry&obj_id=123,124,125&format=json

Generates a JSON response such as:

[
    {
        "obj_type":"entry",
        "obj_id":"123",
        "status":"OK",
        "vote_count":"1",
        "total_score":"5",
        "message":"Vote summary retreived."
    },
    {
        "obj_type":"entry",
        "obj_id":"124",
        "status":"OK",
        "vote_count":"9",
        "total_score":"25",
        "message":"Vote summary retreived."
    },
    {
        "obj_type":"entry",
        "obj_id":"125",
        "status":"OK",
        "vote_count":"3",
        "total_score":"4",
        "message":"Vote summary retreived."
    }
]

Data API Interface

Starting with version 1.5.0, Ajax Rating extends the Data API interface of Movable Type 6 with the following endpoints:

GET /ar/:obj_type/:obj_ids
Fetch vote summary for object(s)
GET /ar/:obj_type/:obj_ids/list
List votes for object(s)
POST /ar/:obj_type/:obj_id/vote
Vote on an object
GET /ar/:obj_type/:obj_id/vote
Get your previous vote on an object
DELETE /ar/:obj_type/:obj_id
Remove your vote on an object
GET /ar/votes/:vote_ids
Get vote(s) by vote ID(s)
DELETE /ar/votes/:vote_ids
Remove vote(s) by vote ID(s)

Authentication

All endpoints employing the POST and DELETE request methods require authentication with Movable Type. The only GET requests which requires it is /ar/:obj_type/:obj_id/vote, used to get your previous vote.

Parameters

All standard parameters supported by the MT Data API may also be used here. For example, limit, offset, sortBy, sortOrder, etc.

All AjaxRating endpoints using the POST request method require a score parameter sent in the body of the request (e.g. score=5 ).

Referenced Objects

AjaxRating allows you to vote on, score and/or rate things, or, OBJECTS. To store, manage, correlate and summarize these votes, each needs two core pieces of information which combine to uniquely identify any object in the system:

  • obj_type - (str) The type of object being voted on
  • obj_id - (int) The ID of the object being voted on

The obj_type is the pluralized form of any of the following:

  • A native MT object type
    • users or commenters
    • sites or blogs
    • entries or pages
    • categories or folders
    • comments or pings
    • etc...
  • Any plugin-defined object type (e.g. photos from the Photo Gallery plugin)
  • OR—using a much looser definition of the word "object"—it can be any string at all!! (but it should be plural for consistency)

This last option is discussed later in the section on Arbitrary Object Types.

Specifying multiple objects

All endpoints which contain plural variables (i.e. :obj_ids, :vote_ids) take either a single ID or a comma-separated list of IDs. All of these endpoints are GET or DELETE requests and allow you to combine multiple requests into a single one.

For example, instead of the following to get multiple votesummary records for entries in the same blog:

GET /v3/ar/entries/1
GET /v3/ar/entries/2
GET /v3/ar/entries/3

You can join those :entry_id values together with commas and send a single, much faster request:

GET /v3/entries/1,2,3

Arbitrary Object Types

Upon receiving a vote, AjaxRating attempts to load the object referenced by the obj_type/obj_id combination in order to cache some of its information in the vote and vote summary records (both detailed below). This is done to both improve performance and provide extra permission checking around known objects.

However, if the obj_type value is not an object_type registered by MT or any of its plugins, this step is simply skipped. Therefore, you can make the obj_type value any arbitrary string making AjaxRating incredibly flexible. What follows are just a couple of examples of how you can put this trick to use.

Event Tracking

Let's say you have an Events blog in which each entry represents an event and acts as a source of information about the event (e.g. start/end times, location, etc). You want to give your logged-in users the ability to show interest in and RSVP for future events and check into current events. This is similar to the model you see with Facebook events.

Upon page load, you should define the following javascript variables:

  • entryId = the ID of the entry in context
  • baseUri = the URL to your DataAPIScript plus the current version
    • Example: http://example.com/mt/mt-data-api.cgi/v3

If the event start time is in the future, you show a dropdown with the following choices:

  • Not interested (default)
  • Interested (objType = "event_interest")
  • Going (objType = "event_rsvp")

When the user switches the dropdown from "Not interested" to either of the other choices, you fire off an Ajax request:

  • Method: POST
  • URL: baseUri + '/ar/' + objType + '/' + entryId
  • Body: { "score": 1 }

When complete, you finish by setting curObjType = objType.

If they switch the dropdown to another choice, you first remove the previous vote with a DELETE request:

  • Method: DELETE
  • URL: baseUri + '/ar/' + curObjType + '/' + entryId

Then repeat POST request above and set curObjType = objType.

When the user refreshes the page or returns later, you can pull their vote with a GET request:

  • Method: GET
  • URL: baseUri + '/ar/' + objType + '/' + entryId + '/vote

While the event is going on, you could change the dropdown in order to allow people to check in:

  • Not interested (default)
  • Interested (objType = "event_interest")
  • Going (objType = "event_rsvp")
  • Check-in (objType = "event_checkin")

Daily Lunch Poll

One could even implement a daily poll for lunch by making the obj_id the date and the obj_type and enumerated set of choices:

obj_type = [ lunch.sandwiches | lunch.pizza | lunch.burritos ]
obj_id   = YYYYMMDD

Automated Tests

There are several unit and integration tests bundled in the t/ directory. Running these automated tests requires at least the following:

With AjaxRating installed in the plugins directory and the MT testing library (t) in the root of your MT directory (MT_HOME, which should be set in your environment), you can run the automated tests like so:

cd $MT_HOME
prove plugins/AjaxRating/t

See man prove for more details.