I’ve been looking for some current code on how to ask someone to rate the app. Does anyone have a link to any tutorials or articles?
Would this code store the review and then be displayed on the Apple Store? I wasn’t sure how this works.
Thanks
Lori
Hi Lori. On how to show the ratings screen, our official answer would be to use native.showPopup()'s “appStore” option. See: https://docs.coronalabs.com/api/library/native/showPopup.html#appstore
However, this will just take you to the app store’s page. The user still has to click to the Ratings and Reviews tab and for many that’s too big of a barrier to get people to rate. There are URL’s for each store that allegedly go directly to the Rating and Reviews page. I don’t have the URL’s handly, but you would just use system.openURL() to do the work.
Now for your other question, The stores (Apple and Google) keep track of the ratings and reviews on your side. Nothing is stored in your app. When you release a new version (at least for Apple), the ratings and reviews kind of reset. The ratings for the old version are there, but you have to do an extra click to see them.
Rob
On iOS I believe this URL will take you straight to the review page:
where xxxxxxxx is your application’s iTunes ID.
For Google Play this should work:
market://details?id=com.yourcompany.yourgame
where com.yourcompany.yourgame needs to be replaced with whatever you use for your games package name (e.g. com.lgalcott.myfirstgame)
The Google Play URL will just take you to the store listing, as the review stuff is a bit further down on the same page.
Thank you both for the info!
Lori
I was planning on using a “Rate It” button in my settings menu along with the URL’s from Alan QuizTix above.
What do I need to do so that it will follow the URL and then return to the game once they have finished the rating?
Thanks,
Lori
There’s nothing you can do to make it go back to the game automatically afaik. Once you switch to another app (i.e. App Store or Google Play) you don’t have any control over what they do, and so have to hope that they have an “automatic return” in place (like the Facebook app does), or a way for the user to manually return.
On Android, it should go back to the game when the user presses the back button a couple of times (maybe even just once but I can’t quite remember).
As of iOS 9 there is a little “return to <YOUR GAME>” button in the top left corner if you redirect from one app to another. If the user presses that it will go back to your game.
Is there an example of the code I need to get it to follow the URL? I assume it would be a function (event) but I wasn’t sure how to make it go to the URL.
Thanks for the quick response.
Lori
Sorry, I thought you had that bit. All you need to go to the URL is to call this:
system.openURL( "your\_URL\_here" )
So for iOS (make sure you change the YOURITUNESIDNUMBERHERE bit to the app ID supplied by Apple):
system.openURL("http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=YOURITUNESIDNUMBERHERE&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software&mt=8")
and for Google Play:
system.openURL("market://details?id=com.yourcompany.yourgame")
where the com.yourcompany.yourgame part is replaced with the package ID for your app.
One thing to keep in mind while testing is that the links might not work fully until the app is live (because there is no store listing in the app store you are redirecting to). If that is the case it should still redirect to the App Store / Google Play, but you’ll get a “page not found” or something similar.
If you set yourself up as a test user on Google Play and submit an alpha/beta build, and you’ll then also be able to use openURL to go to the store listing. Just make sure you don’t upload an apk to “production” until you are ready for it to go live.
Apple have made recent changes with things like Testflight so maybe there is a way to test this, but I’m not sure off the top of my head.
Thank you so much! That is exactly what I needed.
I appreciate you help and have a most wonderful day.
Lori
Hi Lori. On how to show the ratings screen, our official answer would be to use native.showPopup()'s “appStore” option. See: https://docs.coronalabs.com/api/library/native/showPopup.html#appstore
However, this will just take you to the app store’s page. The user still has to click to the Ratings and Reviews tab and for many that’s too big of a barrier to get people to rate. There are URL’s for each store that allegedly go directly to the Rating and Reviews page. I don’t have the URL’s handly, but you would just use system.openURL() to do the work.
Now for your other question, The stores (Apple and Google) keep track of the ratings and reviews on your side. Nothing is stored in your app. When you release a new version (at least for Apple), the ratings and reviews kind of reset. The ratings for the old version are there, but you have to do an extra click to see them.
Rob
On iOS I believe this URL will take you straight to the review page:
where xxxxxxxx is your application’s iTunes ID.
For Google Play this should work:
market://details?id=com.yourcompany.yourgame
where com.yourcompany.yourgame needs to be replaced with whatever you use for your games package name (e.g. com.lgalcott.myfirstgame)
The Google Play URL will just take you to the store listing, as the review stuff is a bit further down on the same page.
Thank you both for the info!
Lori
I was planning on using a “Rate It” button in my settings menu along with the URL’s from Alan QuizTix above.
What do I need to do so that it will follow the URL and then return to the game once they have finished the rating?
Thanks,
Lori
There’s nothing you can do to make it go back to the game automatically afaik. Once you switch to another app (i.e. App Store or Google Play) you don’t have any control over what they do, and so have to hope that they have an “automatic return” in place (like the Facebook app does), or a way for the user to manually return.
On Android, it should go back to the game when the user presses the back button a couple of times (maybe even just once but I can’t quite remember).
As of iOS 9 there is a little “return to <YOUR GAME>” button in the top left corner if you redirect from one app to another. If the user presses that it will go back to your game.
Is there an example of the code I need to get it to follow the URL? I assume it would be a function (event) but I wasn’t sure how to make it go to the URL.
Thanks for the quick response.
Lori
Sorry, I thought you had that bit. All you need to go to the URL is to call this:
system.openURL( "your\_URL\_here" )
So for iOS (make sure you change the YOURITUNESIDNUMBERHERE bit to the app ID supplied by Apple):
system.openURL("http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=YOURITUNESIDNUMBERHERE&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software&mt=8")
and for Google Play:
system.openURL("market://details?id=com.yourcompany.yourgame")
where the com.yourcompany.yourgame part is replaced with the package ID for your app.
One thing to keep in mind while testing is that the links might not work fully until the app is live (because there is no store listing in the app store you are redirecting to). If that is the case it should still redirect to the App Store / Google Play, but you’ll get a “page not found” or something similar.
If you set yourself up as a test user on Google Play and submit an alpha/beta build, and you’ll then also be able to use openURL to go to the store listing. Just make sure you don’t upload an apk to “production” until you are ready for it to go live.
Apple have made recent changes with things like Testflight so maybe there is a way to test this, but I’m not sure off the top of my head.
Thank you so much! That is exactly what I needed.
I appreciate you help and have a most wonderful day.
Lori