Well, some might say it's about time and, frankly, I would agree. I've updated my .Text Rating Control to include a few new features and enhancements.
Most notable of the updates are the following:
- The rating control can now be placed on the root of a community blog website, allowing users to rate content directly on the root, rather than from the individual's blog.
- Added a new 'smiley' rating image to complement the star, bar, and dot rating images.
- The 'top rated posts' list can, like the rating control itself, be placed on the root of the blog providing a top rated posts across the entire blog.
- The 'top rated posts' list can now be filtered by post type, allowing you to create a list of 'top comments' vs 'top posts', etc.
- Users' name and url is now saved across ratings so they don't have to reenter the next time (via a cookie).
In addition to the aforementioned items, several other smaller enhancements and bug fixes have been made.
If you're upgrading from the previous version (i.e. 1.0.1.0 or 1.0.1.2) you'll need to update your web.config and add some new sections as well as run a database upgrade script. This information is all presented for you in an attached readme.txt as well as the full help .CHM file.
Thanks all for your continued support. Please let me know how it works for you and what other features you'd like in addition to those already present.
To download the latest version, please click the link on the left.
[UPDATE: 02/07/2005]
Version 1.5.1.0 has been released and is now available for download (and I'm already working on 1.5.2.0).
Updates in 1.5.1.0 include the following:
- Added AllowAnonymousRatings boolean property to RatingSettings class.
- Added RequireComments boolean property to RatingSettings class.
- Changed RequiredFieldValidators on DownloadPageContents to Dynamic rather than Static.
- Updated control to render a single script block and function calls rather than repetitive inline statements.
- Fixed minor window positioning bug.
- Added cookie to store the user's name/url upon rating a post.
Stay tuned for some new, cool enhancements in 1.5.2.0 :)