The Reviews integration turns an ordinary WordPress post into an editorial review: a score, a short summary, pros and cons, a breakdown by criterion and facts about the thing being reviewed. You write the article as usual and switch the review on for that post.
It is built for blogs and editorial sites that review products, books, films, software, places or services.
#A review is a post, not a separate content type
There is no second list of "reviews" to maintain. A review is a normal post with review data attached, so it keeps its categories, tags, author and URL, and keeps appearing in your ordinary feeds and archives. Switch the review off on a post and it is simply a post again, with the review data kept in case you switch it back on.
#The integration needs a theme that supports it
The integration itself does two things: it stores the review data on each post, and it draws the scorecard, the summary block with the score, criteria and pros and cons. It deliberately carries no colors or typography of its own.
Everything else is the theme's job. Showing a score on post cards in a listing, placing the scorecard inside the single post layout, building a page that lists only reviews, and giving all of it the site's own look come from the theme's support for the integration.
Installed on its own, the Reviews integration shows very little.
Every jkdevstudio theme that offers Reviews builds on it, and most integrate it fully. Because the listing and layout options come from each theme's own modules, a specific option can exist in one theme and not in another. Your theme's documentation shows exactly what it supports.
The integration keeps growing, and what it can do on a given site depends more and more on which modules that theme uses. See how theme integrations work.
#Turning a post into a review
The review fields sit in a Review panel on the post editing screen. Nothing else appears until you switch on Mark as review.
Turns the post into a review. Every other field depends on it.
The name of what is reviewed, used as the heading of the scorecard.
The badge above the subject name: Product, Movie or show, Book, Service, Software or app, Restaurant or place, Event or experience, or Other with your own Custom type text.
A picture of the subject, shown beside its name.
The score out of 100. You type it yourself, and the site shows it in whichever rating scale you choose.
One or two lines under the subject name, above the score.
Shows who the review is by. Who is credited can be the post author, another user, or someone without an account, who gets a Name, Portrait and Position.
What works, one point per row.
What falls short, one point per row.
A breakdown of the score. Each row has a Criterion, a Score out of 100 and a one-line Why.
Facts about the subject as label and value pairs, such as publisher, price or running time, shown as one line under the scorecard.
The overall score is not calculated from the criteria.
The criteria explain the score; they do not produce it. That leaves the final judgment with the reviewer, so a product can score well overall despite one weak criterion.
#Scores are stored out of 100
Every score is saved on a 0 to 100 scale and converted when it is shown. Moving the whole site from five stars to a ten point scale is one setting, not a re-edit of every review.
The same stored score also decides the rating tier. Scores fall into five fixed bands of 20 points, and each band has its own color and its own word, which default to Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent and Amazing.
#The settings
The integration adds a Reviews page to Theme Options, in four groups.
- Settings
Rating scale (Out of 5, Out of 10, Percentage or Letter grade), Display mode (Label, Stars, Gradient bar or Points bar), and Review column, which shows scores beside posts in the admin post list.
- Rating Colors
One color for each of the five tiers, from Lowest scores to Highest scores.
- Rating Labels
The Rating labels switch and the word printed for each tier.
- Scorecard
What the scorecard on a single post shows and how: the subject name tag and size, the review type badge, the summary, the subject image with its size, position, shape and height, the overall score and the scored criteria, and the pros and cons and subject details sections. The overall score and the criteria each have an Own scale and look switch for a different scale or display mode than the rest of the site.
Your theme can add its own review settings next to these, for example where the scorecard sits in a post or which page lists reviews.
The admin Posts screen also gains a Reviews filter, so you can see every post marked as a review in one place.
#Example: how Verba uses it
Verba is one of our themes built on this integration. It is described here only as an example of what a theme adds on top; other themes use the same data in their own way.
- Scorecard on single posts
The scorecard appears automatically on posts marked as reviews. A Review Scorecard group in Verba's single post settings switches it on or off and sets its placement: before the body, at the end of the body, or in the article footer.
- Scores in post listings
Verba's post listings, whether built with the block, the Elementor widget or the archive settings, can show a Review Score chip on each card. Each listing chooses where the chip goes (on the thumbnail, before the title, after the excerpt or in the meta row) and whether it uses the full display or a simplified one.
- A listing of reviews only
A listing's source can be set to Reviews, and a page can be chosen as the reviews archive, which then lists only reviewed posts.
- A matching look
Scores are drawn in Verba's own style and follow the rating scale, display mode and tier colors from the Reviews settings.
This integration is licensed with the theme, not on its own.
Integrations are premium functionality for customers running a Pro license of one of our themes. They are written against our themes and expect them, and we cannot support or take responsibility for what one does inside somebody else's theme. See how theme integrations work.
#Common questions
Can the overall score be calculated from the criteria?
No. You enter the overall score yourself, and the criteria are shown as its breakdown.
Do I need a separate post type for reviews?
No. A review is a normal post with a review attached, which is why reviewed posts keep appearing in your ordinary feeds and archives.
I changed the rating scale. Do I have to edit every review?
No. Scores are stored out of 100 and converted for display, so every review switches to the new scale at once.
The scorecard shows on the post but the score is missing in a listing
Showing a score on listing cards is a setting on that listing, provided by your theme, and it is usually off by default. Check the listing's card options. If the score is missing everywhere, check that Mark as review is on for that post.
What happens if I deactivate the integration?
The review data stays in the database and only the display stops. Switching the integration back on restores every score as it was.
Can I change how the score chip looks?
The scale, display mode, tier colors and tier words are settings. Beyond those, the look belongs to the theme, and changing it is custom CSS that you maintain.
#Still stuck
Open a support ticket and say what you tried and where it stopped. Your product, your domain, a screenshot and the exact message you saw are usually enough to settle it in one reply.
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