Customize rating icons for SharePoint 2010

 

• 2 images for displaying rating:
  ratings.png
  
  ratingsrtl.png
  
• 2 images for hovering/selecting rating (enlarged):
  ratingsempty.png
  ratingsnew.png

You can find these images in the 14 hive, images folder.
Make your custom icons (16×16), I prefer (the free) Paint.NET program. Just open the original icons, save them with another name and make your own of them.

How to change these images by SharePoint Designer

How to change these images by a feature

Create an empty SharePoint 2010 project with Visual Studio 2010 and add a site collection scoped feature.
Add a SharePoint Images Mapped folder and add your images to this folder. Note: Visual Studio adds a subfolder with the name of your project to your and SharePoint’s images are not messed up, nice!

Add an event receiver to your feature to set the properties of the images.
Uncomment the FeatureActivated method and add code:
SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;
SPWeb web = site.RootWeb;
//preserver original ones
web.AllProperties[“ratings_imagestripurl_original”] = web.AllProperties[“ratings_imagestripurl”];
web.AllProperties[“ratings_newratingiconurl_original”] = web.AllProperties[“ratings_newratingiconurl”];
web.AllProperties[“ratings_emptyiconurl_original”] = web.AllProperties[“ratings_emptyiconurl”];
//set new ones
web.AllProperties[“ratings_imagestripurl”] = “_layouts/images/ITIdea.CustomRatings/RatingsFC.png”;
web.AllProperties[“ratings_newratingiconurl”] = “_layouts/images/ITIdea.CustomRatings/RatingsNewFC.png”;
web.AllProperties[“ratings_emptyiconurl”] = “_layouts/images/ITIdea.CustomRatings/RatingsEmptyFC.png”;

web.Update();

Uncomment the FeatureDeactivating method and add code:
SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;�
SPWeb web = site.RootWeb;�
web.AllProperties[“ratings_imagestripurl”] = web.AllProperties[“ratings_imagestripurl_original”];�
web.AllProperties[“ratings_newratingiconurl”] = web.AllProperties[“ratings_newratingiconurl_original”];
web.AllProperties[“ratings_emptyiconurl”] = web.AllProperties[“ratings_emptyiconurl_original”];
web.AllProperties.Remove(“ratings_imagestripurl_original”);
web.AllProperties.Remove(“ratings_newratingiconurl_original”);
web.AllProperties.Remove(“ratings_emptyiconurl_original”);

web.Update();

Deploy and activate the feature and recycle the application pool.
The new custom rating icons are visible and ready to use!
When you deployed the feature, check the Site Options in SharePoint Designer and you will see the original and newly added properties:

After deactivating the feature the original images are set again (and iisreset).