rating always shows 5 stars in a table view of a content type but does display correctly for individual nodes

I can't reproduce, could you provide a sample URL or provide more information about your configuration? A list of the exact steps you used to create your type and view (maybe just an export of the view) would be helpful. Thanks!

fivestar_value_display_handler use the fivestar_stars_? setting when it calls theme_fivestar_static, so it always defaults to 5 stars.

I made a few changes to the function that fixes the problem. Is this a "proper" way to grab the node type in this context? I'm new to Drupal.

function fivestar_views_value_display_handler($op, $filter, $value, &$query) {
  if ($value === NULL) {
    return $value;
  }
  else {
    $mysql = "SELECT type FROM {node} WHERE nid=%d";
    $type = db_result(db_query($mysql, $query->nid));
    $stars = variable_get('fivestar_stars_'. (!isset($type) ? 'default' : $type), 5);
    return theme('fivestar_static', $value, $stars);
  }
}

What I meant to say was that fivestar_value_display_handler DOESN'T use the fivestar_stars_* settings...

Thanks henrrrik, I see the problem now with your explanation.

I'm a little nervous about a SQL query per row, just for the number of stars. I'm suggesting this change (http://drupal.org/node/167781) to VotingAPI's views integration which would allow you to enter into the 'option' field the number of stars you wish to display. If the option is not set, we could fall back on doing the SQL queries as you suggest. What do you think?

That sounds reasonable.

I committed this fix a while ago but didn't wire up the necessary line to actually display the new stars! Here's the code I settled on:

    // Determine number of stars to display
    if (is_numeric($query->options)) {
      $stars = $query->options;
    }
    elseif (isset($query->node_type)) {
      $stars = variable_get('fivestar_stars_'. $query->node_type, 5);
    }
    else {
      $type = db_result(db_query("SELECT type FROM {node} WHERE nid = %d", $query->nid));
      $stars = variable_get('fivestar_stars_'. (!isset($type) ? 'default' : $type), 5);
    }
    return theme('fivestar_static', $value, $stars);

So it will look first for an option (the VotingAPI patch finally got the green light I believe), then if you've included the node_type field it will use that if available. Finally, if nothing else it'll make the SQL query per row as a last-ditch effort to find the node type. Thanks for your help henrrrik on this and sorry it took so long. It'll be in the 1.9 release, which is growing closer every day.

Excellent. Thanks!