Reviews, Videos, Maps, and More
Back on your section dashboard page, look for the “Enhance Your Listings” section highlighted above. This shows all the available data collectors you can add to your listing pages. Collectors with green check marks are those you’ve configured already.
Reviews
Reviews allow users to comment on listings posted within a section. The review collector set-up screen is almost identical to the collector section detailed above. Click the ‘Reviews’ link to start collecting reviews of your listings.
By default reviews collect a listing rating (on a scale from 1 to 5). You may delete this field if you do not wish to collect ratings but you cannot add it back later. Review ratings are automatically averaged for each listing and saved to the item’s ‘Rating’ field at the listing level.
At the top of the review page you’ll see red or green squares indicating whether reviews are being collected or displayed. Click the square to change the review status at any time.
Review configuration works just like section listing configuration mentioned in the previous documentation article. The only difference on the permissions tab for reviews is that you can enable or disable responses to reviews. Users will then have the option to respond to reviews and if notifications are enabled and the original reviewer has chosen to “watch” his review, an email notification will be sent to the original reviewer. It is not possible for users to post responses to review responses.
At the bottom of the page there is a link for removing reviews from your listings permanently. Clicking this link will remove any existing reviews that have been collected and will delete all your review preferences and fields. Use caution!
Photos
The photo collector allows users to post images tied to listings posted within a section.
At the top of the photos page you’ll see red or green squares indicating whether photos are being collected or displayed. Click the square to change the photo status at any time.
Photo posting permissions are similar to listing and review collector permissions. By default users will only be asked to supply an (optional) caption with their photo uploads.
Choose maximum image dimensions for your photos. The “full size” photos should be screen size – we recommend 800×600 for most sites. The original photos in full resolution will be stored on your server. Thumbnail sizes work the same way and thumbnails will be used in category views and on listing pages. We recommend 200×150 for thumbnail dimensions.
You may also allow your registered users to “like” individual photos. Likes will be summed for each photo and you can choose to order photos by the date posted or the most “likes.” The top-rated photo will be used in category pages if you have enabled the photo field in your category view and will also be used as the default listing image.
You may remove the photo collector from a section by clicking the “Stop collecting” link at the bottom of the page but use caution: this will remove all section photos permanently. You can also rebuild your site’s thumbnails if necessary (making them larger, for example) by clicking the “rebuild thumbnails” link.
Map Data
Setting up the map data collector permissions is similar to other collectors. In addition to the familiar start/stop controls and permissions, you’ll also want to choose the city, state, and country fields in your Review App if available. This sets the collector form’s map to the general area where you’ll be asking users to locate items.
Set the map dimensions to fit your template and decide if you’d like to collect multiple points for each listing. For example, there may be more than one parking lot for a mountain bike trail but just one address for a baseball stadium.
Videos
Review App videos are embedded from YouTube.com so there’s no need for you to process and store large video files. Users will simply be asked for the link to the video on YouTube and an optional caption and the video will automatically be embedded on your site.
The first part of the video collector set-up form should be familiar by now: start/stop controls and permissions. Other than that, choose the dimensions you’d like to use for the video display and whether you want to allow users to “like” videos. If you enable likes you can also choose to sort videos in the gallery by likes rather than date posted.
Lists
Lists add a layer of interactivity to your site that will keep users engaged and motivated to submit additional content. You may choose to give users “Wish Lists” or “I Own It Lists” – it’s really up to you!
Click the ‘Add new list’ link and give your list a name and short description – that’s it! Users will see a link on listing pages within this section to add listings to their lists which are in turn linked from a tab on their profile pages. The list page also gives a brief snapshot into your list usage and clicking the list name link will allow you to make changes to your lists. The ‘Delete’ link will remove your list and any user entries so use with caution!
Tags
Tags give your users a way to help you organize your listings. Click the ‘Enable tags’ checkbox to add user tags to this section. Tags may also be used as a filter on category pages and you can use this form to set who is allowed to add tags.
Comments
Choose which media types you’d like to collect comments on (photos or videos) and set the comment preferences. You can also allow users to “like” others’ comments and choose how to order comments.