Ryan Hellyer

WordPress plugins are a fun thing to maintain as a hobby, and one of the most enjoyable aspects is when you receive those great five star reviews 🙂 To encourage this, I decided to use some code created a while back by Rhys Wynne. The idea is that we should prompt users to review the plugin, but we don’t want to pester them with messages about it. So Rhys’s code only asks the user after one week, and provides a link to opt out if they desire.

I’ve improved on this implementation a little, by making it only prompt once per network. On a multisite network, Rhys’s original code was prompting me to provide a review for every site, which was a tad irritating. With my version, only one administrator is asked to review and only once for their entire network of sites. The latest version also only displays the notice on the plugins page rather than the entire network, as some users had mentioned that the notice was distracting.

I also wrapped it up into a class, so that you can simply drop it into your projects, and added a prettier looking button and improved some of the text.

You can read about the original code by Rhys on his blog.

This is what the plugin review notice looks like in the admin panel.

Implementation

Simply copy the following class into your plugin and instantiate it via the code shown below the class.

After you have included the class, instantiate it with arguments corresponding to your own plugin.

<?php
/**
 * DotOrg_Plugin_Review Class File
 *
 * This file contains a class that prompts users to review a WordPress plugin
 * on WordPress.org after a specified period of usage.
 *
 * @package    Unique Headers
 * @version    1.0
 * @author     Ryan Hellyer <ryanhellyer@gmail.com>
 * @copyright  Copyright (c), Ryan Hellyer
 * @license    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html GPL
 */

// Bail out now if the class doesn't exist.
if ( class_exists( 'DotOrg_Plugin_Review' ) ) {
	return;
}

/**
 * Plugin review class.
 * Prompts users to give a review of the plugin on WordPress.org after a period of usage.
 *
 * Heavily based on code by Rhys Wynne
 * https://winwar.co.uk/2014/10/ask-wordpress-plugin-reviews-week/
 *
 * @version   1.0
 * @copyright Copyright (c), Ryan Hellyer
 * @author Ryan Hellyer <ryanhellyer@gmail.com>
 */
class DotOrg_Plugin_Review {

	/**
	 * The plugin slug.
	 *
	 * @var string
	 */
	private $slug;

	/**
	 * The plugin name.
	 *
	 * @var string
	 */
	private $name;

	/**
	 * The time limit at which notice is shown.
	 *
	 * @var int
	 */
	private $time_limit;

	/**
	 * No debug option.
	 *
	 * @var string
	 */
	public $nobug_option;

	/**
	 * Fire the constructor up :)
	 *
	 * @param array $args The arguments.
	 */
	public function __construct( $args ) {

		$this->slug = $args['slug'];
		$this->name = $args['name'];
		if ( isset( $args['time_limit'] ) ) {
			$this->time_limit = $args['time_limit'];
		} else {
			$this->time_limit = WEEK_IN_SECONDS;
		}

		$this->nobug_option = $this->slug . '-no-bug';

		// Loading main functionality.
		add_action( 'admin_init', array( $this, 'check_installation_date' ) );
		add_action( 'admin_init', array( $this, 'set_no_bug' ), 5 );
	}

	/**
	 * Seconds to words.
	 *
	 * @param int $seconds The number of seconds.
	 */
	public function seconds_to_words( $seconds ) {

		// Get the years.
		$years = round( $seconds / YEAR_IN_SECONDS ) % 100;
		if ( $years > 1 ) {
			// translators: %s: Number of years.
			return sprintf( __( '%s years', $this->slug ), $years );
		} elseif ( $years > 0 ) {
			return __( 'a year', $this->slug );
		}

		// Get the weeks.
		$weeks = round( $seconds / WEEK_IN_SECONDS ) % 52;
		if ( $weeks > 1 ) {
			// translators: %s: Number of weeks.
			return sprintf( __( '%s weeks', $this->slug ), $weeks );
		} elseif ( $weeks > 0 ) {
			return __( 'a week', $this->slug );
		}

		// Get the days.
		$days = round( $seconds / DAY_IN_SECONDS ) % 7;
		if ( $days > 1 ) {
			// translators: %s: Number of days.
			return sprintf( __( '%s days', $this->slug ), $days );
		} elseif ( $days > 0 ) {
			return __( 'a day', $this->slug );
		}

		// Get the hours.
		$hours = round( $seconds / HOUR_IN_SECONDS ) % 24;
		if ( $hours > 1 ) {
			// translators: %s: Number of hours.
			return sprintf( __( '%s hours', $this->slug ), $hours );
		} elseif ( $hours > 0 ) {
			return __( 'an hour', $this->slug );
		}

		// Get the minutes.
		$minutes = round( $seconds / MINUTE_IN_SECONDS ) % 60;
		if ( $minutes > 1 ) {
			// translators: %s: Number of minutes.
			return sprintf( __( '%s minutes', $this->slug ), $minutes );
		} elseif ( $minutes > 0 ) {
			return __( 'a minute', $this->slug );
		}

		// Get the seconds.
		$seconds = round( $seconds ) % 60;
		if ( $seconds > 1 ) {
			// translators: %s: Number of seconds.
			return sprintf( __( '%s seconds', $this->slug ), $seconds );
		} elseif ( $seconds > 0 ) {
			return __( 'a second', $this->slug );
		}

	}

	/**
	 * Check date on admin initiation and add to admin notice if it was more than the time limit.
	 */
	public function check_installation_date() {

		if ( '1' !== get_site_option( $this->nobug_option ) ) {

			// If not installation date set, then add it.
			$install_date = get_site_option( $this->slug . '-activation-date' );
			if ( '' === $install_date ) {
				add_site_option( $this->slug . '-activation-date', time() );
			}

			// If difference between install date and now is greater than time limit, then display notice.
			$gap = time() - $install_date;
			if ( $gap > $this->time_limit ) {
				add_action( 'admin_notices', array( $this, 'display_admin_notice' ) );
			}
		}

	}

	/**
	 * Display Admin Notice, asking for a review.
	 */
	public function display_admin_notice() {

		$screen = get_current_screen();
		if ( isset( $screen->base ) && 'plugins' === $screen->base ) {

			$no_bug_url = wp_nonce_url( admin_url( '?' . $this->nobug_option . '=true' ), 'review-nonce' );
			$time       = $this->seconds_to_words( time() - get_site_option( $this->slug . '-activation-date' ) );

			echo '
		<div class="updated">
			<p>' .
			sprintf(
				/* translators: 1: Plugin name, 2: Time duration */
				esc_html__( 'You have been using the %1$s plugin for %2$s now, do you like it? If so, please leave us a review with your feedback!', 'spam-destroyer' ),
				esc_html( $this->name ),
				esc_html( $time )
			) .
			'<br /><br />
			<a onclick="location.href=\'' . esc_url( $no_bug_url ) . '\';" class="button button-primary" href="' . esc_url( 'https://wordpress.org/support/view/plugin-reviews/' . $this->slug . '#postform' ) . '" target="_blank">' . esc_html__( 'Leave A Review', 'spam-destroyer' ) . '</a>
			<a href="' . esc_url( $no_bug_url ) . '">' . esc_html__( 'No thanks.', 'spam-destroyer' ) . '</a>
			</p>
		</div>';

		}

	}

	/**
	 * Set the plugin to no longer bug users if user asks not to be.
	 */
	public function set_no_bug() {

		// Bail out if not on correct page.
		if (
		! isset( $_GET['_wpnonce'] )
		||
		(
			! wp_verify_nonce( filter_input( INPUT_GET, '_wpnonce' ), 'review-nonce' )
			||
			! is_admin()
			||
			! isset( $_GET[ $this->nobug_option ] )
			||
			! current_user_can( 'manage_options' )
		)
		) {
			return;
		}

		add_site_option( $this->nobug_option, true );

	}

}

Edited:

1. 2023-10-26
2. 2023-10-20
3. 2015-07-31