Software

Free Information Review System (IRS)

Update!

We've completely re-written IRS into a robust user-generated content management system called Review App. With Review App you can collect reviews, photos, tags, and more and manage it all using a slick admin interface. Read more at ReviewApp.com.

Description

This set of PHP scripts allows you to set up your own information sharing and review website similar to sites like singletracks.com. Information review systems differ from traditional messageboard and forum setups in that they are more organized and easier to search for specific content. This set of scripts allows you to register new users and edit existing reviews and posts. Users will be allowed to post new information or reviews and you can decide if you want to require registration before posting either. You can use these scripts to allow your users to review restaurants, consumer products, or even movies or books. Take a look at some of the current uses of IRS listed below.

Samples

These scripts are meant to be extremely bare bones to allow you to customize the look to your own website. Additionally you may find it necessary to add additional fields to keep track of important information. Take a look at some of the sites I've created using these scripts. Note: these are live sites, please do not "test" them by adding reviews or new content; please use our demo page to try the features of the Information Review System.

BBQ Review: No modification whatsoever beyond adding the word BBQ to page titles, headings, etc.
Trail Runs: Added fields for trail length and directions
Mountain Bike Trail Review: My original creation. All the supporting scripts were written from scratch; the information review system available for download is a pared down version written to mimic many of the features developed on singletracks.
By Owner Vacation Rentals: This IRS implementation allows vacation property owners to post details about their properties (for a fee) to advertise to potential renters. The ability to review properties has been disabled in this version but could easily be added.

Demo

Try out the Information Review System to see how things work. Please no obscene or profane "tests."

Download

Version 1.0

Includes the most basic functionality needed to get started.

Free!

Installation Instructions

Installing the Information Review System is very easy. Just unzip the file and copy the "review_system" directory to your web directory. Grab the "schema.sql" file in the directory and run the SQL commands in your MySQL database (I'll work on automating this step in a future release).

The only thing left to do is to edit your config.php file found in the admin directory. Most of the fields here are pretty self explanatory, and those that are not should have helpful comments. At a minimum you'll need to set the correct information for accessing your MySQL database. Also be sure to set the ID of your own user account so you'll be able to edit and delete posts through the site.

The header and footer files are pretty much wide open so you can plop these pages into any template you have for your site. By adding a stylesheet you can really dress this puppy up, the potential is all yours! If you find the scripts useful, please consider keeping our google ads on the footer and/or the link back to this page. At the very least, please find a place on your site to acknowledge and link back to tripleblaze.com to help us grow.

Use the forum to post questions or bug reports.

Upcoming Feature Additions

Here are a few features that I plan to include but haven't gotten around to yet:

RSS feeds of latest info/reviews
Simple recommendation engine
Wishlists

These will definitely be included in some of the forthcoming versions, along with a smoother installation package. Please let me know if there are particular features you think would be useful as well.