Setting Up Recipe Ratings

Recipe Card Blocks PRO includes a built-in rating system that lets visitors rate your recipes directly on your website. You can customize who can rate, how ratings are submitted, and how the star ratings appear on your recipe posts. This guide explains all settings available under the Ratings panel so you can configure the system to fit your needs.

Setting up the Rating Feature

The Rating Feature section controls the core functionality of recipe ratings. Here you can enable the rating system, define who can vote, select how visitors submit their ratings, and adjust the basic appearance of the rating stars. These options determine how users interact with ratings across all recipes on your website.

Access the settings of the Rating Feature in Recipe Cards → Settings → Ratings → Rating Feature.

Options in this section:

• User Rating – Allows visitors to rate recipes directly using the star rating system.
• Comment Ratings – Adds a rating field to the comment form so visitors can rate a recipe when leaving a comment.
• Who Can Rate? – Choose who is allowed to submit ratings (everyone or logged-in users only).
• User Ratings Mode – Select between Instant Rating (submitted immediately), Modal Rating (requires confirmation via a popup) or Comments Rating (clicking on the rating stars will jump the user to the comments section).
• Rating Stars Color – Customize the color of the rating stars to match your theme or brand.
• Reset Ratings – Clears all existing ratings across all recipes. This action is irreversible, so use it with caution.

Click Save Changes to save all the settings you’ve changed.
Click Reset Settings to reset the settings to their default values.

Setting up the Ratings Display

The Rating Display section determines where and how rating stars appear on your recipe posts. These options allow you to integrate the visual star ratings into your layout without manually editing each individual recipe.

Access the settings of the Rating Display in Recipe Cards → Settings → Ratings → Rating Display.

Options in this section:

• Automatically Add Rating Stars – Inserts rating stars before or after the post content automatically.
• Automatically Add Rating Stars in Post Meta – Adds rating stars to the post meta (requires a theme that uses a .entry-meta container).
• Position – Defines whether rating stars appear at the top, bottom or top and bottom of your post.

Click Save Changes to save all the settings you’ve changed.
Click Reset Settings to reset the settings to their default values.

Setting Up the User Ratings Modal

These settings are unlocked if you choose the Modal Rating option as User rating mode in the Rating Feature section (see above).

The User Ratings Modal enables a confirmation popup when visitors submit a rating. This section is only active when using the Modal Rating mode. You can require additional details, customize the text shown in the modal, and improve the quality of submitted ratings.

Access the settings of the User Ratings Modal in Recipe Cards → Settings → Ratings → User Ratings Modal.

Options in this section:

• Require Name – Forces visitors to enter their name before submitting a rating.
• Require Email – Forces visitors to enter their email before submitting a rating.
• Force Visitors to Leave a Comment – Require a comment when a visitor gives a low rating, or keep comments optional.
• Modal Title – The text displayed at the top of the rating modal.
• Submit Button Text – The text shown on the submit button inside the modal.
• Thank You Message – The message shown after the rating is successfully submitted (HTML supported).
• Submit Button Color – Customize the color of the modal’s submit button.
• Spam Protection – Uses Akismet to filter spam rating submissions (requires the Akismet plugin installed and activated).