Init Review System – Reactions, Multi-Criteria, Guest-Friendly

Init Review System adds a clean and customizable 5-star rating system to your WordPress site. Votes are stored via REST API, tracked with localStorage, and the average score is auto-calculated and optionally displayed with schema markup.

Built to be lightweight, developer-friendly, and easy to integrate into any theme or custom UI. Now with multi-criteria reviews, an emoji reactions system for richer user interaction, native Block Editor support, and read-only Abilities API integration for WordPress 6.9+.

This plugin is part of the Init Plugin Suite — a collection of minimalist, fast, and developer-focused tools for WordPress.

GitHub repository: https://github.com/brokensmile2103/init-review-system

Highlights:

• NEW: Block Editor (Gutenberg) support — 4 blocks, one per shortcode
• NEW: Abilities API support (WordPress 6.9+) — 3 read-only abilities
• 5-star voting via frontend
• Multi-criteria review support
• Emoji Reactions with Login Enforcement
• Average score display
• Optional login requirement
• Optional strict IP checking
• REST API for vote submission
• JSON-LD schema for SEO
• Works with any post type
• Minimal, theme-friendly UI

Features

• Block Editor (Gutenberg) blocks: Review Score, Review Widget, Review Criteria, Reactions Bar — each with a live server-side preview in the editor
• Abilities API (WordPress 6.9+): review score, criteria reviews, and reactions summary exposed as discoverable, executable abilities via wp_get_abilities() and the wp-abilities/v1 REST namespace
• 5-star rating system
• Multi-criteria review scoring (up to 5 custom criteria)
• Emoji-based reactions bar with live counts (requires login)
• REST API endpoint for reactions: /wp-json/initrsys/v1/reactions/toggle
• Reactions stored in both post meta and dedicated user↔post mapping table
• Accessibility-ready with aria-pressed + aria-live updates
• Shortcode-based integration
• Auto-insert blocks before/after content or comments
• Optional login + IP check to prevent abuse
• REST API endpoint: /wp-json/initrsys/v1/vote
• Developer filters and extensible architecture
• No jQuery, only minimal assets loaded when needed

Block Editor (Gutenberg)

Four dynamic blocks are available under their own Init Review System category in the block inserter — no shortcodes needed if you prefer working entirely in the editor:

• Review Score — equivalent to [init_review_score]
• Review Widget — equivalent to [init_review_system]
• Review Criteria — equivalent to [init_review_criteria]
• Reactions Bar — equivalent to [init_reactions]

Each block shares the exact same rendering code as its shortcode, so switching between the Block Editor and shortcodes never changes the output. Block settings map directly to shortcode attributes, and a live preview (via wp.serverSideRender) is shown right in the editor as you configure it.

Abilities API (WordPress 6.9+)

On WordPress 6.9 and above, Init Review System registers three read-only abilities under the init-review-system category:

• init-review-system/get-review-score — average score and vote count for a post
• init-review-system/get-criteria-reviews — criteria breakdown and a page of written reviews for a post
• init-review-system/get-reactions-summary — emoji reaction counts for a post

These are discoverable and executable via PHP (wp_get_abilities()), and — for sites that opt into exposing it — the wp-abilities/v1 REST namespace. Actions that write data (voting, submitting a review, toggling a reaction) are intentionally not exposed as abilities, since an ability can be discovered and invoked directly by an AI agent or automation tool — voting/reviewing/reacting on a visitor’s behalf should never happen without the visitor’s own, in-context action. This integration is fully optional: on WordPress versions older than 6.9, it silently does nothing and the rest of the plugin is unaffected.

Usage

[init_review_system]

Displays interactive 5-star voting block.

Attributes: – id: Post ID (default: current post) – class: Custom CSS class – schema: true|false – Output JSON-LD schema markup

[init_review_score]

Displays average score (read-only).

Attributes: – id: Post ID (default: current post) – icon: true|false – Show star icon (default: false) – sub: true|false – Show /5 subtext (default: true) – class: Custom CSS class – hide_if_empty: true|false – Hide if no reviews (default: false)

[init_review_criteria]

Displays multi-criteria review block.

Attributes: – id: Post ID (default: current post) – class: Custom CSS class – schema: true|false – Output schema markup (default: false) – per_page: Number of reviews to show (default: 0 = all) – paged: Current review page number (default: 1)

[init_reactions]

Displays emoji reactions bar under a post.

Attributes: – id: Post ID (default: current post) – class: Custom CSS class – require_login: Always true (login required)

Filters for Developers

This plugin provides filters and actions to let developers customize auto-insert behavior, schema output, review permissions, and REST API logic.

init_plugin_suite_review_system_auto_insert_enabled_score Enable or disable automatic score output (before/after content). Applies to: Frontend filter Params: bool $enabled, string $position, string $post_type

init_plugin_suite_review_system_auto_insert_enabled_vote Enable or disable automatic voting block insertion. Applies to: Frontend filter Params: bool $enabled, string $position, string $post_type

init_plugin_suite_review_system_default_score_shortcode Change the default shortcode used for score auto-insertion. Applies to: Frontend Params: string $shortcode

init_plugin_suite_review_system_default_vote_shortcode Change the default shortcode used for voting block auto-insertion. Applies to: Frontend Params: string $shortcode

init_plugin_suite_review_system_require_login Force login for submitting reviews, even if disabled in settings. Applies to: REST /submit-criteria-review Params: bool $require_login

init_plugin_suite_review_system_min_len_for_ws_check Adjust minimum length threshold for triggering no-whitespace check. Applies to: Backend + JS precheck Params: int $threshold (default 20)

init_plugin_suite_review_system_repetition_threshold Adjust repetition threshold for detecting excessive word repetition. Applies to: Backend + JS precheck Params: int $threshold (default 8)

init_plugin_suite_review_system_schema_type Customize schema.org type (e.g., Book, Product, Course). Applies to: Shortcode output Params: string $type, string $post_type

init_plugin_suite_review_system_schema_data Modify JSON-LD schema output array. Applies to: Shortcode output Params: array $data, int $post_id, string $schema_type

init_plugin_suite_review_system_after_vote Run custom logic after a single-star vote is submitted. Applies to: REST /vote Params: int $post_id, float $score, float $avg_score, int $total_votes

init_plugin_suite_review_system_after_criteria_review Trigger custom logic after a multi-criteria review is submitted. Applies to: REST /submit-criteria-review Params: int $post_id, int $user_id, float $avg_score, string $review_content, array $scores

init_plugin_suite_review_system_get_reaction_types Customize available reaction types (labels + emojis). Applies to: Reactions system Params: array $types

init_plugin_suite_review_system_reaction_meta_key Customize the meta key used for storing reaction counts. Applies to: Reaction counts storage Params: string $meta_key, string $rx_key

init_plugin_suite_review_system_ttl Set TTL (in seconds) for object cache on review queries. Defaults to 300 (5 minutes) since 1.19. Return 0 to disable caching entirely, or any other value to change the duration. Cache is stored via wp_cache_set with group init_review_system and is automatically invalidated on new review submission and on admin approve/reject/delete. Applies to: REST get reviews, get total reviews Params: int $ttl (default 300, i.e. 5 * MINUTE_IN_SECONDS)

License

This plugin is licensed under the GPLv2 or later. You are free to use, modify, and distribute it under the same license.