Status Update for GD Star Rating 2.0

It was awhile since my last post about upcoming GD Star Rating 2.0. Unfortunately, my other projects over the past 3-4 months were taking most of my time, and GD Star Rating was once again delayed. I was working on the plugin a bit in the last month, and will soon have much more time for it.

My current development time is mainly occupied by new Pro plugin called GD Products Center. This plugin should be completed in about 10-15 days (well, stable 1.0.0, more features will be added later). As soon as that is done, I am resuming work on GD Star Rating 2.0. In the same time, I will work on a new theme, that will be rating oriented and that theme will be used to develop GD Star Rating 2.0 front end integration and testing. So, from October 24 2011, most of my development time will be dedicated to GD Star Rating 2.0.

If everything goes OK, first public Alpha version will be ready in about 3 weeks, and that is second half of November. Another 2-3 weeks after I will need to finish all planned features, and go into Beta versions release. My current plan is to have GD Star Rating 2.0 Stable out before the end of this year.

As announced before, plugin will remain free, but I will not provide any support for free (with exception of several show/intro videos nd basic documentation). Premium support available right now, will continue to function for new plugin also. Also, as announced before, there are several expansion packages planned: icons sets and other useful extras. And premium support users will get that for free. But, down the road, I plan to offer rating packages that will include premium support, one or more xScape themes and training. Pricing for all that is not yet available.

With all this said, this is not set in stone. I will do my best to keep with the schedule this time, and to release next generation of the best rating plugin for WordPress. Thanks for all the patience and support from plugin users, I hope you will like the new plugin.