Stellar is a star rating plugin for WordPress. This plugin can create and save ratings for each WordPress entry, whether it is a Post, Page or Product. Flexible settings make it possible to create a rating of any capacity 3 stars, 5 stars, 10 stars, and even 12 stars. And of course, choose any icon from the huge library of predefined icons or even upload your own SVG icon for rating.
Installing a Star Rating for WordPress
To install the plugin, read the article Installing WordPress Plugin. Installing the plugin takes only a few seconds.
To open the plugin settings slick Settings below plugin name on the plugins page
or in the WordPress Sidebar menu go to Stellar
In the plugin settings, there are several tabs responsible for various groups of plugin settings.
General settings
Stellar already has initial settings allowing you to use it without additional configuration. But you can change any default settings so that the plugin better suits your WordPress site or theme.
Post Types
Select the post types, including custom post types, where you need to add the rating display. The available types are in the drop-down list.
Position
Position selector sets wherein the Stellar will be displayed. You can choose one option:
- Before title
- After title
- Before content
- After content (Default)
- Shortcode [stellar]
Rating points
This setting sets how many points (rating icons) will be used on your site. You can choose from 1 to 12, and you can also change your choice in the future – all existing ratings will be recalculated for the new score system.
Stellar Icon
This setting sets the icon for the rating. Using IconsPicker, you can select one and 2000+ icons from a predefined library. To do this, click on the button Icon Library.
Or you can download your own SVG icon. To do this, click Upload SVG and upload the icon using the standard Media Library interface.
Icon size
This setting sets the size of the rating icons. You can select a value between 10px and 60px.
Notes
We recommend that you do not make the icons too small; this can complicate the interaction with the plugin on your mobile phone and lower the position of the page in the search results
Icon space
Adjusting the Icon space increases the indentation between the icons. You can select any number in the range from 0 to 50px
Default Icon Color
Icon color in Normal state
Active icon color
Icon color in Active state
Hover icon color
Icon color in Hover state
Layout
The layout setting is needed to control the position of the Stellar icons block relative to the container. And also to establish the arrangement of the button block relative to the description block.
Description
This is the section of the standard WordPress editor where you can write description text. The description is very important that your users know what to do.
Results
On the results tab, you can configure everything with regard to storing the display and processing of rating results on the front-end and back-end.
Current user rating
The option allows displaying the latest rating of the current visitor on the page.
- Hide user voting – hides the current user’s rating
- Show as stars – display the current user rating in stars
- Show as text – display the current user rating with custom text.
Results on front-end
Shows or hides the overall page rank on the frontend. The rating that this setting display is shown in X.XX format, as a number in two decimal places. You can choose between:
Results text
The phrase or line of text to be displayed next to the rating scale.
- Hide results
- Before rating icons
- After rating icons
Total voters on front-end
The option allow to hide/display the total number of voters on the current page.
The voters number can be displayed in different positions, with custom text:
- Hide votes count
- Before rating icons
- After rating icons
Valuation on front-end
This setting displays a hint with the numbers of the user’s current vote. Data is displayed in the format rating/points. You can choose between:
- Hide valuation
- Show as tooltip
- Show before rating icons
- Show after rating icons
Rounding for icons
The setting allows you to enable/disable rounding of rating values to painting icons partially or completely.
- Up – rounding the value up
- Do not round – do not use rounding and get partially painted stars
- Down – rounding the value down
Display results before voting
The toggle to enable/disable voting results display before a new user votes.
Session control
The toggle to enable/disable the track sessions. If the option is enabled, it allows users to change their rating only during one session.
Voting limit
This sets the limit of votes from one IP address. You can select any number in the range from 1 to 10
Limit exceeded message
A field that allows you to change the message text when the user exceeds the vote limit.
Results in the admin area
This parameter defines the format for displaying the results in the admin panel. Results will be displayed in the posts/pages list. You can choose between:
- Amount
- Amount/Total
Reset rating
The data reset button resets all rating data for all posts. Use this button after the site debugging is completed to reset the debug rating data to 0.
Please note that the Data reset cannot be undone.
Rich Snippet
This setting adds schema markup to the page HTML code. Schema markup allows you to display page rating data in Google search results.
Your data will be converted to a 5-star rating system regardless of what type of rating you choose in the plugin settings.
SEO microdata
The option allows you to enable the schema markup by default or add the Advanced Schema Markup using the JSON+LD structure.
JSON+LD Markup
Add a markup structure depending on the data types you want to use. Read more about it and find examples in the article https://developers.google.com/search/reference/overview
Once you finish setting up the markup, you can check it for correctness using the tool https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool
Advanced Shortcode markup
The option is available when the shortcode position is selected in the General settings. It adds the schema markup for all posts that have at least one rating and the Stellar Shortcode is called on the page.
Shortcodes
New shortcode support is available since version 2.1. The shortcode allows you to display a list of top-rated posts.
[stellar top="10" for="page" cols="4"]Where the parameters:
- top – number of posts/pages displayed. This parameter is required for the shortcode. The default value is “4”.
- for – the type of posts to be displayed in the list. This parameter is required for the shortcode. Note: the specified type must match the post type in WordPress.
- cols – number of posts list columns, the parameter is not required. Can be set from 1 to 12 number of columns. The default value is “1”.
The shortcode below allows you to vote and display the voting results of a certain post/page on another page.
[stellar id="10"]Where :
- id – a post/page identifier whose results you want to display. You can see the post ID by hovering the post title in the posts list.
Posts display style settings in the top-rated list
Gutter
Specify the gutter between the elements of the post block in the list.
Post image
The toggle to enable/disable the display of the images in the posts list. When the toggle is enabled, there are new options that are available:
- Image size – select the post image size from the available options: Thumbnail, Medium, Large, Full
- Equal image – allows you to set the same height for all post images.
Post title
The toggle to enable/disable the display of the title in the posts list. Here you can select one of the available Post title tags from the list. Depending on the selected tag, the text display style will be changed. These tags also help to make your page more SEO friendly.
Post excerpt
The toggle to enable/disable the display of the post excerpt on the list.
Post rating
The toggle to enable/disable the display of the post rating on the top-rated list. Here you can select Rating icon size.
Shortcodes of Average ratings
New shortcode support is available since version 2.1.7 The shortcode allows you to display the average rating across the site and the average rating for a specific post type.
The shortcode below displays the average rating for the entire site, calculated based on the ratings of all posts and pages on the current site:
[stellar overall="1"]The shortcode below displays the average rating for the specific post type:
[stellar average="page"]Where the parameter:
- page – name of the post type for which you want to get an average rating.
Numerical value of the rating and voters
The shortcode for displaying the numerical value of the rating.
[stellar-rating]
Where :
- you can use parameter id – a post/page identifier whose results you want to display. You can see the post ID by hovering the post title in the posts list.
[stellar-rating id="3"]
The shortcode for displaying the number of voters
[stellar-count]
Where :
- you can use parameter id – a post/page identifier whose results you want to display. You can see the post ID by hovering the post title in the posts list.
[stellar-count id="3"]
Save Changes
Do not forget to click Save Changes after changing the Star Rating for WordPress settings. After clicking this button, the settings will be saved and applied to all pages of the website.