Add-ons client/server support for add-on ratings

[Dugi]

Slowly learning how to do the stuff, I am trying to add an user interface to rate and review add-ons into the game. Here is a small step forward I've made.

Split from here ― shadowm

[pauline]

"Everybody ignored my point about a need for some kind of generalised rating …
I'll have to rely on my last option here - doing it myself.""
There you go ! Congrats, Dugi !
I can hardly wait to see how "rating" is gonna work this way.
pauline

[Adamant14]

I can hardly wait to see how "rating" is gonna work this way.

Me too.

[Pentarctagon]

Slowly learning how to do the stuff, I am trying to add an user interface to rate and review add-ons into the game. Here is a small step forward I've made.

28.png

Out of curiosity, have you spoken to anyone about whether or not this will actually be implemented in mainline? IIRC, the response to previous suggestions has been rather mixed.

[Dugi]

I have discussed it with developers, they told me important information where to start with. Not everybody agreed completely, but I was told to do it. It wasn't even completely my idea, it was fused from my ideas and some developers' ideas.

I'll post more when I'll make more progress, I am still in a pretty early stage.

[vultraz]

I would not recommend a text box. Too easy for people to type things other than numbers in it.

[Dugi]

The text box' content is written into a std::string and then a number is read from the string, and if something goes wrong or the number is out of range, it informs the player that the vote was invalid. I have coded that after posting the screenshot.

[vultraz]

Still, a clickable rating system might be easier to work with.

[Dugi]

I was considering that option, but it would be pretty ugly if there were ten buttons in a column, each of them for one score (also making ratings like 7.5 impossible).

[ChaosRider]

Once you do option to vote for addons you should also give option for authors to accept voting their addons (or not). If author of addon didnt accept voting option, then after clicking (as on your image) button "vote" should be info (or something close to it) "Sorry, Author of this addon didnt allow voting".

[Max]

please don't use a text box, that's just bad...

you can use separate, unlabeled radio buttons, it doesn't have to be ten (most rating systems use 5 out of 5 these days i think). there's a mouse-over event that you should be able to use for a preview (what would happen if the user actually clicked one button). i'm aware that it's probably a misuse of these elements but the result would be just as good as e.g. on sites like amazon.

another option would be to use a slider...

i'm aware that working with the ui is a pain, but from an end-user perspective using a text box to enter a number is sooo last century^^

[Dugi]

Once you do option to vote for addons you should also give option for authors to accept voting their addons (or not). If author of addon didnt accept voting option, then after clicking (as on your image) button "vote" should be info (or something close to it) "Sorry, Author of this addon didnt allow voting".

I was told that the main purpose of add-ons' numerical rating is to allow sorting them quickly by some sort of quality-based rating (it would be gravely inaccurate, but better than nothing). Your suggestion goes completely against that purpose.

you can use separate, unlabeled radio buttons, it doesn't have to be ten

I must agree that this is better than vultraz' suggestion to give there many buttons. I would prefer if there was more than 5 points, because 5 points would be extremely inaccurate (sort of awesome, good, boring, crappy, awful, horrible rating). I'd still like if it was possible to enter decimals.

i'm aware that working with the ui is a pain, but from an end-user perspective using a text box to enter a number is sooo last century

Working with the UI is really hard, a lot of macros and inheritance that are way too hard to get though... I've found the other parts of the task much easier. I might change it later when this discussion will lead to a good result, for now the text box is pretty much enough for the purpose of adding more functionality to the transmission and evaluation of the data.

[vultraz]

Once you do option to vote for addons you should also give option for authors to accept voting their addons (or not). If author of addon didnt accept voting option, then after clicking (as on your image) button "vote" should be info (or something close to it) "Sorry, Author of this addon didnt allow voting".

I was told that the main purpose of add-ons' numerical rating is to allow sorting them quickly by some sort of quality-based rating (it would be gravely inaccurate, but better than nothing). Your suggestion goes completely against that purpose.

What if an addon is incomplete? There should be an option to disable ratings so incomplete or WIP content is not rated badly.

you can use separate, unlabeled radio buttons, it doesn't have to be ten

I must agree that this is better than vultraz' suggestion to give there many buttons. I would prefer if there was more than 5 points, because 5 points would be extremely inaccurate (sort of awesome, good, boring, crappy, awful, horrible rating). I'd still like if it was possible to enter decimals.

I agree that 0.5 ratings should be allowed, but your text box allows for any decimal rating. The simplest solution would be a slider with steps from 0.5 to 5 or 10, depending.

[pauline]

Never guessed I´d ever post in the "Coder´s Corner"
I´m aware that my noobish opinion is inappropriate, but can't help it.

@ ChaosRider
I´d like to understand: Why should authors have the option to "not accept voting their addons" ?
They can´t ban reviews on the wiki-page or on the forums either, can they ?
Isn´t that the point of the rating system: to show which content is good or bad/broken ?
In case it´s about a possible negative rating of "experimental campaigns, still in development":
Maybe the suggested "red-flagging" might be taken into consideration after all.

@ Dugi
Without any intention to discourage your efforts:
Will this user interface somehow handle "outdated" votes, or multiple voting ?

pauline

[ChaosRider]

Cause they are authors of own addons created by them self, and they might be voted only if such a author allow for that (in server.pbl file could be option to write it like a "allow_voting=yes" (or no), still if this file wont have such line it should be written as "no"). Still vote rating is made on addition, you can make your own voting on forum (then you wont need author accepting).