Product reviews in Go

What it does

Configuration

Nothing is required. Config holds two switches, which become the Plugins screen’s defaults; the screen holds the same two and wins.

The module reads its Config struct, not the environment. The variable names are the ones the package’s own example or the reference binary uses; in your own main() you choose where each value comes from. Where a setting has a panel label, the admin’s settings drawer can hold it too, and a value typed there wins over Config.

Setting it up

1. Install the modulePass reviews.New to gocommerce.New, as below, or start the reference binary with -reviews. It adds one table, and the plugin starts switched on.
2. Choose the policyUnder Product reviews on the Plugins screen: approve on sight or moderate, and whether only buyers may review.
3. Draw the form and the listThe storefront posts product_id, name, email, rating, title and body to POST /x/reviews, and reads GET /x/reviews?product_id= for the approved reviews and their summary.
4. ModerateThe Reviews screen lists reviews by status. PATCH /api/admin/x/reviews/{id} sets the status or the reply; DELETE removes the review.

import (
	"github.com/itswadesh/gocommerce/core"
	"github.com/itswadesh/gocommerce/ext/reviews"
)

app, err := gocommerce.New(cfg, reviews.New(reviews.Config{}))

How it works

• Held, then shown

  A new review is pending unless auto-approve is on. Only approved reviews reach the storefront and count toward the summary; a rejected one stays in the admin list.

• Verified by the orders

  The badge is set when the review is posted, from an order carrying the product under the reviewer’s email, compared lower-cased, in the confirmed, partial, shipped or delivered status.

• No email on the storefront

  The public list carries the name, rating, title, body, badge, reply and date. The email stays on the admin side, masked on a demo store or for an agent key, where search stops matching it.

• A honeypot for bots

  A hidden website field that a person never sees. A request that fills it is answered as if the review were accepted, and nothing is kept.

• A file both ways

  The export streams every review, newest first, with its product’s slug and title. On import a row with an id updates that review, and a blank cell leaves its column alone; a row without one is a new review, found by product_slug.

• Row by row, with a rehearsal

  Each imported row is its own transaction, so a row naming a product that is not here is a row error and the rest still land. ?dry_run=1 checks every row and rolls each back. A file is read up to 32 MB.

What it does not do

Read these before an order depends on it. No store is known to run GoCommerce in production yet, so these come from the code, not from anyone’s experience.

• A honeypot, nothing moreThe module has no captcha and no rate limit of its own, and does not stop one email posting several reviews of one product.
• Text and stars onlyNo photos and no helpful votes. A shopper cannot edit or withdraw a review after posting it; an operator can only change its status or reply, or delete it.
• Nobody is toldThe module sends no notice when a review is waiting. Pending reviews are found on the Reviews screen.
• An import is believedA file’s status is applied as written, so an approved row goes live without moderation; a row with no status is pending. A file with a verified column is taken at its word, because a store moving in carries verifications its orders here cannot show. Without the column, the store’s orders decide.
• Sample reviews show until erasedThe sample shop adds one approved review to each sample product, written by a sample customer whose sample order bought it. They are flagged as samples and erased with the rest of the sample shop, which the package says to do before opening.
• The file has no buttonExport and import are API routes, GET /api/admin/x/reviews/export and POST /api/admin/x/reviews/import. The Reviews screen does not offer them.

Related modules

Each is a directory under ext/, imported the same way. Where this one fits in the store: What modules add to a direct-to-consumer store.

• Product video showcases in Go Put a store’s own YouTube and Facebook videos beside the products they show: no video hosting, a live label the store sets, and counts down to orders.
• XML sitemaps for a Go store Publish a storefront sitemap from the live GoCommerce catalogue: products, collections and CMS pages, the storefront URL and paths, and the 50,000-URL limit.
• Ecommerce wishlist in Go Let GoCommerce shoppers save products to a list kept by a token, guests included, and see which wished-for products are out of stock. Settings and limits.
• Abandoned cart emails in Go Remind shoppers about baskets they left in a GoCommerce store: a sequence of emails per kind of basket, a counted link back, and the order each one brings back.