W-Shadow.com

The WordPress.org plugin directory has a neat rating system that lets users rate plugins both on overall quality and on compatibility with specific WP versions. However, its usefulness is stymied by poor integration with WordPress itself. To try to remedy that, I’ve created a plugin that lets you vote on plugins directly from your Dashboard.

Here’s a screenshot (click to enlarge) :

To begin, you’ll need to enter your WordPress.org account credentials in Plugins -> WordPress.org Account. This is necessary because only registered users can vote on plugins in the official plugin directory. When that’s done, the plugin will add the star rating widget and the “Works” and “Broken” buttons from the WordPress.org directory to each plugin listed in the “Installed Plugins” tab, allowing you to rate and vote on them without leaving the Dashboard.

The plugin will also attempt to retrieve your past ratings from WordPress.org and pre-fill the rating widgets with your current votes.

Download

vote-for-plugins.zip (17 KB)

Requirements

• PHP 5
• WordPress 2.9+

Installation

1. Upload and activate.
2. Go to Plugins -> WordPress.org Account and enter your WordPress.org user name and password.
3. Go to Plugins -> Installed Plugins and cast yer’ votes 🙂

Known Issues & To Do

• When you first install “Vote For Plugins” it doesn’t know which of your plugins are listed in the official directory (and thus can be voted on) and which aren’t. So it tries to err on the side of optimism and may initially add the rating widgets to some plugins that can’t actually be rated.
• Fetching past ratings takes longer than it should.
• Voting on several plugins at a time would be handy.