OCW Reviews

OCW Reviews helps you collect, manage and display customer reviews directly on your WordPress site — no external widgets, no subscriptions, and no vendor lock-in. Invite customers by email or WhatsApp, track responses with secure tokens, and display approved reviews using flexible shortcodes and a clean card layout. The plugin is fully functional and free. Nothing is locked or time-limited. This is an independent plugin. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by WhatsApp LLC, Meta Platforms, Inc., Google LLC or Automattic. "WhatsApp", "Google" and "Gravatar" are the trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to say what the plugin talks to. Features

• Custom Post Type for reviews and a service/product taxonomy
• Star ratings and optional anonymous display (names are partially masked)
• Reviewer avatars from generated initials, with optional Gravatar (off by default)
• Shortcodes: [rvst_reviews], [rvst_review_form], [rvst_reviews_summary]
• Invitation system via email or WhatsApp with per-invite tracking tokens
• Invitation Log drag-and-drop workflow board (Invited → Reminded → Responded → No response) with an automatic 8-day reminder
• Fully editable email templates (subject, header, body, footer) for invitations, reminders and thank-you emails
• Automatic thank-you email and an automatic reminder workflow
• Setup wizard and tutorial page
• Honeypot and rate-limiting to reduce spam
• Fully self-hosted — the free plugin makes no outgoing third-party calls unless you enable Gravatar

Optional PRO version A separate, optional premium plugin — OCW Reviews PRO — is available from https://onlinecursuswebsites.nl/review-starter-pro and adds extra features on top of this free plugin: CSV bulk import & bulk invitations, automatic review requests from WooCommerce orders, SEO rich snippets (star ratings in Google results), reviewer photo upload, extra card designs, webhooks, and Google Reviews import. It is a standalone download and is not part of this free plugin; installing it simply adds those extra features. Nothing in this free plugin is disabled or gated.

2.10.1

• Fixed: the review form saved the reverse star rating (lighting all five stars stored 1 star). Stars now run 1 to 5 from left to right and save what is shown.
• Fixed: the activation redirect no longer intercepts the first AJAX request after activation, which could make a review submission fail.
• Added: individual invitations can be deleted from the Invitation Log without deleting the linked review.
• Changed: date and service/product are stacked vertically in the modern review card.

2.10.0

• Fixed: the Tutorial and the Upgrade page still called the email template editor a PRO feature, although 2.9.0 made it free for everyone.
• OCW Reviews PRO is now an add-on that installs alongside this plugin instead of replacing it. Both can be active at once; neither deactivates the other any more.
• Shortcodes are now [rvst_reviews], [rvst_review_form] and [rvst_reviews_summary]. The old [review_starter…] names still work, so existing pages are unaffected.
• Hardening pass for the WordPress.org review: everything the plugin prints is escaped on the way out, form input is sanitised, the term-meta save verifies its nonce, and the rate limiter no longer trusts a header the visitor can forge.
• The plugin no longer switches off another plugin for you; it says which one to deactivate and leaves that to you.
• New External services section in this readme: exactly what Gravatar and WhatsApp receive, and what has to happen first. Neither is contacted on its own.
• The translation template shipped empty since 2.3.0 and now actually contains the plugin's strings, so it can be translated.
• Tested up to WordPress 7.1.

2.9.0

• All features are now fully free and functional: editable email templates (invitation/reminder/thank-you), automatic thank-you + reminder workflow, and the drag-and-drop Invitation Log board. Removed all PRO gating from the free plugin.

2.8.2 — 2026-07-09

• Fixed: responded cards can no longer be dragged back into the workflow; existing installs keep their WhatsApp invite text on update.

2.8.1 — 2026-07-09

• Added: a per-invite WhatsApp message box on the Send Invitation page (shown for WhatsApp, pre-filled with your saved text) so you can personalise each invite.

2.8.0 — 2026-07-09

• Added: Invitation Log drag-and-drop workflow board (Invited / Reminded / Responded / No response).

2.7.0 — 2026-07-09

• Added: invitation workflow stages (Invited/Reminded/Responded/No-response) in the Invitation Log with a daily cron and a direct review link on response.

2.6.1 — 2026-07-09

• Fixed: settings cards collapsed to a narrow sliver on several tabs. Rebuilt the two-column layout with flexbox so cards keep a readable width. Clear your CSS cache after updating.

2.6.0 — 2026-07-09

• Changed: Email tab rebuilt — Invitation/Reminder/Thank You order, each with Subject/Header/Body/Footer. WhatsApp tab gets its own short message.

2.5.1 — 2026-07-09

• Fixed: settings cards on the General/Display tabs collapsed to a narrow sliver after 2.5.0. The two-column layout now keeps a readable minimum width.

2.5.0 — 2026-07-09

• Changed: settings UI polish — left-aligned cards, Invitations tab renamed to WhatsApp, and a Parameters + Examples section on the Reference tab.

2.4.1 — 2026-07-09

• Fixed: email fields are saved reliably again — the save no longer re-checks the licence at save time (which could discard edits). Matches PRO 2.4.1.

2.4.0 — 2026-07-09

• Changed: editing email texts and the Thank You / Reminder emails are now PRO features, shown locked with an upgrade link. The free plugin sends invitations with a fixed default English text. From Name/Email stay editable.

2.3.4 — 2026-07-09

• Fixed: rebuilt the duplicate-copy guard so it actually prevents the "Cannot redeclare rvst_activate()" fatal. Core declarations moved to a separate file loaded only after the guard runs. Matches PRO 2.3.4.

2.3.3 — 2026-07-09

• Fixed: redeclaration fatal ("Cannot redeclare rvst_activate()") is now prevented against any duplicate copy, and the legacy "Review Starter" plugin is deactivated automatically. Delete old duplicate copies of the plugin.

2.3.2 — 2026-07-09

• Fixed: fatal error "Cannot redeclare class Review_Starter" when the free plugin was loaded alongside OCW Reviews PRO. PRO already includes all free features, so the free plugin now stands down (deactivates itself) when PRO is active.

2.3.1

• Maintenance release to keep the free plugin in sync with OCW Reviews PRO 2.3.1. No functional changes to the free plugin.

2.3.0

• Renamed the plugin to OCW Reviews.
• Removed all premium/license code: the plugin on WordPress.org is now fully free and self-contained, with no locked features, license checks or update/phone-home calls. Premium features live in the separate optional OCW Reviews PRO plugin.
• Gravatar avatars are now opt-in and off by default (Settings → Display); coloured initials are used otherwise. No third-party request is made unless you enable it.
• Hardened input handling: all request data is unslashed and sanitized, including nonce values.
• Moved the remaining inline admin script into the enqueued admin script.

2.2.2

• Maintenance release.

2.2.1

• The service attribute on [review_starter] and [review_starter_summary] now accepts a comma-separated list, so you can show reviews for several specific products in one shortcode.

2.2.0

• Fully editable email templates and automatic thank-you + reminder emails.
• Added a Getting Started video link to the FAQ.

2.1.0

• Security: hardened outgoing emails against header injection.
• Privacy: documented which personal data is processed.
• Uninstall: collected reviews and services are retained as site content; settings and invitation tokens are removed.
• Compatibility: tested up to WordPress 7.0.

2.0.0

• New Tutorial submenu with progress detection and reset button.
• Refreshed admin design.

1.2.0

• Configurable brand colour + star colour.

1.1.0

• Invitation tracking with a custom database table.
• Token-based mapping from invite to review.
• Invitation Log admin page with resend button.

1.0.0

• Initial release.