The Reader Appreciation Project

One of the things I’ve constantly struggled with is replying to comments.

Sometimes a post is old, and someone decides to leave an off-hand comment. Do I reply, or just leave it be?

Or, someone has made a well-versed comment, but all I can think of is, “Nice comment.”

I’ve created some code (if you’re using WordPress) that takes the guess work out of this. If a reader would like a reply, they can explicitly say so.

The Concept

Right below the comment form is a drop-down box that lets the reader choose if they desire a reply or not.

Once they leave the comment, you are sent a normal comment e-mail with the reader’s preference included.

Here are some screenshots to demonstrate:

On a Blog

In Your E-mail

You can also view live implementations here:

• Ronald’s Blog
• Bes’s Blog

The Code

The code is rather simple, so I’m not going to release it as a plugin.

All you’re required to do is insert the code into your WordPress theme’s functions.php file.

Here is a download link.

When viewing the source, you can customize the IDs (for CSS), as well as text.

If customizing, be sure that the “SELECT” tag ID/Name matches the ID in line 13 of the code.

Conclusion

Giving the reader the option to weigh in on his/her preference is a concept I have yet to see elsewhere.

Please feel free to try it out and/or weigh in here on your thoughts.

Ajax Edit Comments has a new home at AjaxEditComments.com, with full updates & news.

I’ve been looking for a new author for Ajax Edit Comments for some time now.

With the help of Jeff from WP Tavern, I was able to find a new author.

Ajay Dsouza, who I assume needs no introduction, has decided to take over the plugin.

I’ve swarmed Ajay with diagrams and e-mails explaining the plugin, so hopefully updates will come soon.

Thank you to everyone here at raproject who has supported this plugin and made it one of WordPress’s most popular. A big thank you to the translators, and everyone who has given feedback in the forms of posts, bugs, support, and more.

If you have a moment, please give Ajay some love and write about the new home for Ajax Edit Comments (http://ajaydsouza.com/wordpress/plugins/wp-ajax-edit-comments/).

In order to minimize confusion, the existing Ajax Edit Comments pages will now redirect to Ajay’s website.

Thanks again for your support.

WP Categories and Posts now has a new page and author. Please visit the new WP Categories and Posts Page on the Phill McDonnell website.

WP Categories and Posts was one of my first plugins I wrote for raproject.

It was quickly overshadowed by Ajax Edit Comments, and I didn’t really touch it after that.

Phil McDonnell approached me last week about taking it over, and I was pleasantly surprised at his eagerness.

We spent a few days exchanging details, and I helped him get it listed on WP Extend.

Features Planned

Here are some of the features Phil plans to add:

• Add the number of posts to each category, like Rants (5), Poetry (3), etc.
• Parameter to limit the number of post displayed
• Parameter to show/hide date display
• Parameter to show/hide parent category name

And here are the features you suggested that may make the cut:

• Create an admin menu with user-definable settings. Ideally a user shouldn’t have to program in a function, but include something like <!–cats_and_posts(args)–> in a page or post.
• Maybe an AJAX implementation which could collapse/expand the index for posts older than a certain date?

Much thanks to Phil for taking this plugin over. Hopefully this neglected plugin will get some nice updates.

If you have any more feature requests, please comment here and I’ll refer Phil to this page.

Visit the Categories and Posts page hosted by Phil.

One Side Note

The plugin page for Categories and Posts hosted here will automatically redirect to Phil’s new plugin page. My apologies in advance for any inconvenience.

Ajax Edit Comments has a new home at AjaxEditComments.com

Today marks the first major release in some time for Ajax Edit Comments.

Here are some of the changes in 2.2.

• Feature: De-link comment option for admins.
• Feature: Ability to move comment-editing interface above or below the comment.
• Feature/Bug Fix: Edited comments are checked against comment blacklist.
• Feature/Bug Fix: Anonymous users can no longer edit comments that are marked as moderated.
• Misc: JavaScript should leave less of a footprint.
• Misc: Comment Editor is completely stand-alone. Hopefully this will resolve some conflicts.
• Misc: Updated jQuery script to 1.2.6. *crossing fingers*

Please head over to WordPress Extend and download your own copy.

If you have any issues with the new version, please leave a comment below.

Ajax Edit Comments has a new home at AjaxEditComments.com.

This weekend I released an update to two of my plugins hosted here.

Ajax Edit Comments

The first update was for Ajax Edit Comments. Oliver from the cforms-ii plugin approached me and asked if I was interested in making our plugins compatible.

Being a huge fan of cforms, I was thrilled with the opportunity and the willingness of the cforms author to assist in compatibility. After hashing some e-mails back and forth, we finally got our plugins to work with each other.

Another feature added to Ajax Edit Comments was the automatic deletion of security keys for every 100 comments. RT Cunningham expressed his frustration with an ever-growing database filled with security keys. After discussing ideas, we agreed that every 100 comments was a good place to delete the comments. In the future I may make this an option that a user can configure, but I haven’t had much demand for it, so we’ll see.

As a side note, Ajax Edit Comments is approaching the 50,000 download mark. It’s an incredible milestone, and one I’d like to thank you all for. So, thanks for your support of this plugin in the form of translations, links, word-of-mouth, donations, and just plain using it. I’m still impressed when I comment on a random blog and it has the plugin installed.

WP-Grins Lite

WP-Grins, written by Alex King, was ported over by me to the jQuery library. For those not familiar with jQuery, it’s a far less bandwidth-intensive library compared to Prototype. The end result was WP-Grins Lite.

Several commenters chimed in with feedback, and so far the results have been very positive. Alex King informed me that he planned to port all his plugins over to jQuery, and I would be grateful if he released WP-Grins Lite as his official version.

The update I released for this plugin resolved some WP 2.6 (curse you!) issues, and fixed a rather peculiar bug on a blog where it was loading the JavaScript four times (weird).

So What’s Next?

As far as programming goes, I’m starting to take more client work, which is nice, but means I have less time to work on side projects such as the two listed above.

I am looking forward to WordPress 2.7 and the comment API. For the first time, users could have comment management at the desktop or mobile level. I will be following this closely, and who knows, you might see something from me here.

Conclusion

For all who have downloaded, or used either of the above plugins directly or indirectly, thank you. Thank you for putting up with me, and for helping me make better plugins.

A while back, when I released the new commenting section for this blog, one of the requests was the inclusion of smilies.

I installed WP Grins, but the overhead of the Prototype library was immediately noticable on the site.

Since I was already using jQuery here, it was apparent I wanted to port the plugin over.

I worked on a “lite” version on Friday, and talked to Alex King to see if it was okay to give you guys a download. He mentioned that he would be happy to do an update to the existing plugin, but had to do his own internal testing to make sure the lite version wouldn’t break blogs.

Until Alex is able to make an official release, I’m going to post a download link here for you all to check out.

Download Link

Here is the download link for WP Grins Lite.

The only difference between this plugin and the original is the use of the jQuery library.

Installation Instructions

Unzip the “wp-grins-lite.zip” file and copy the “wp-grins-lite” folder into your WordPress plugins directory.

From there, just activate the plugin in your admin plugin options.

WordPress Versions

This plugin has only been tested on WP 2.5, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work for 2.2+ installations.

Conclusion

WP Grins Lite is simply a port from the Prototype library to jQuery. The functionality should still be the same, but the footprint lighter.

Andrew Rickmann, friend and fellow RA Project contributor, has released a new plugin called Fun With In-Context Comments for WordPress 2.5.

The plugin allows you to add questions to your comment section, which readers can optionally answer.

Applications

The applications for such a plugin are enormous. If you’re running a political blog, you can ask questions on current issues.

If you’re running a celebrity blog, you can ask questions based on a certain celebrity.

And, most importantly, if you are writing a support-type post, you can ask users for their browser, operating system, and whatever else you can possibly think of.

Brief Overview of Features

When you head into the WordPress 2.5 Comments panel, you’ll see an option for “Global Contexts”. From there, you can specify a number of options. You can also add questions, which you can then optionally add on any post or page with comments enabled.

Global Contexts – Adding a Question

The neat thing about this plugin is you can also add questions from a post, which will only apply for the post in question. This makes the plugin both flexible, and completely post independent.

Post Contexts – Choosing or Adding a Question

From a commenter’s point of view, you are presented an optional question when leaving a comment, which will then show up in the comment.

Leaving a Comment

And the final feature I’ll mention: It’s fully compatible with the latest version of Ajax Edit Comments.

Compatible with AEC 2.1

Future Versions

Andrew mentioned to me that he’s planning on adding a feature to tally how many people have answered a question in a particular manner, which is very similar to a poll.

Conclusion

Fun With In-Context Comments is a nice way to unobtrusively ask readers a question, which will hopefully put a reader’s comment in the context of a post.

The plugin will help with support issues, and will also assist readers when filtering comments based on a particular answer.

As a sidenote, Andrew’s plugin is also part of the WeblogToolsCollection plugin competition. If you have a moment, please check out his plugin over there and give him some feedback.

I also have the plugin installed here if you’d like to try it out on this post.

Ajax Edit Comments has a new home now.

Ajax Edit Comments 2.1 is ready for release. For the download, please visit the Ajax Edit Comments 2.0 page.

Feature Additions

• Option to disable icons.
• Option to disable Gravatars.
• Added auto-scroll to comment.
• Option to customize title text and URL
• Option to remove “clearfix
• Option to specify stylesheets.
• Option to remove “More Options” from editor.
• Added additional languages.
• Added numerous plugin hooks so that AEC can be extended for other plugins and/or modules.

Bug Fixes

• Save/Cancel buttons re-styled for other browsers.
• Fixed issue where Admin couldn’t enter blank e-mail address.
• Fixed NextGen Gallery incompatibility.
• Fixed issue where AEC JavaScript was loading in unrelated admin panels.

Feedback?

If you have any issues, or have additional feature requests, please feel free to leave a comment.

Please note that test comments will periodically be removed.

Ajax Edit Comments has a new home now.

I’ve been busy with some fairly sizable updates to the plugin.

Thanks to feedback from various sources including Viper007 and Sean from Pixelwit, I’ve added in a number of updates/changes.

Since there are a fair amount of changes, I’m holding off on an official release and also giving the translators a chance to catch up with some of the changes.

So in the meantime, here’s the download link to the Ajax Edit Comments 2.1 Pre-Release.

Here’s a list of some of the changes.

Added Updated Languages

There were many word additions, so I updated the “po” files for the translators. I also added in the Norwegian language.

Icons Can Be Disabled

Several didn’t like the new icons, so I added an option to remove them. The links will look like AEC 1.x. with this option.

Ability to Disable Gravatars

Gravatars were causing the plugin to not work on some blogs. Also, several users were confused when a silhouette would show up when editing a comment.

Bug fix: Admin Couldn’t Enter a Blank E-mail Address

Admin can now enter an empty e-mail address. If any part of the e-mail field is filled out though, it will be passed through validation.

Save/Cancel Buttons in Editor Interface Re-Styled

Buttons are re-styled for maximum browser compatibility. The icons were also removed.

Can Remove ‘More Options’ From Editor

You can now remove the ‘More Options’ option in the editor interface. Doing this will also give you more textarea room in browsers that support the ‘rows’ attribute.

Added Option to Remove “clearfix”

This style can make or break themes. For those that it breaks, it can now be easily disabled.

Added Auto-Scroll to Comment

If an admin clicked on a comment anchor (yourblog.com/#comment-39302), the page would load, and then the edit links would show up. This produces an offset. The plugin now tries to correct this offset.

You can also disable this in the admin panels, since I imagine a few might find it annoying.

Added Option to Change the Title Text and URL

The Title Text and URL in the editor interface can now be customized. If you’re nice though, you’ll leave it as is

Feedback?

Feel free to try out the pre-release. I’ve tested it out as best as I could. I imagine you’ll find bugs in some of the work I did as there were lots of changes.

Any feedback is appreciated.

The newest WordPress plugin to help with commenting and reader appreciation is that of WP Comment Remix.

Comment Remix enhances your admin comment section, and introduces several post features.

Post Features

Reply, Quote, and Tags

Comment Remix takes your existing comment section and adds the following options:

• A ‘Reply’ link
• A ‘Quote’ link
• Tags

Here’s a quick screen of those in action:

If you click on the reply link, you’ll see something like this in the comment box:

The benefits of the ‘Reply’ option is that the original comment is linked to if others want to read the original comment.

The only issue I’ve found with the ‘Reply’ and ‘Quote’ options is that they are still available if comments are disabled on a post.

On the tags feature, if you click a tag on a comment, only comments with that associated tag are displayed. I’ve been debating with myself how useful this is, since it appears that tags only show up for the particular post I’m on. Also, there is no easy way to edit tags. You’ll have to edit the comment in order to edit the tags for that comment.

Trackback Options

One nice option that Comment Remix has (in the admin panels) is removal of Trackbacks. You’ll find similar functionality in the Comment Sorter plugin I wrote.

In addition to the removal of Trackbacks, the admin has the ability to automatically move Trackbacks to the end of the comment section.

Sort Options

Admin can also specify how the comments are displayed. Comments can be sorted (ascending or descending) by the comment date, or by the commenter’s name.

Other Post Options

Additional post options are the admin’s ability to:

• Disable the ‘Reply/Quote’ links
• Add/Disable tags
• Customize all text displayed.
• Change the number of tags displayed.

Admin Options

The meat of the Comment Remix features come in the admin panel.

Comments Panel Actions

With an interface very similar to Absolute Comments, the plugin gives you the ability to edit, ignore (explained in a minute), reply, quote, and view all comments for a post.

One thing I’d like to see here is better styling of the links.

Reply/Quote Pop-Ups

When clicking on the Reply/Quote actions, you see a pop-up window, which allows you to add your comment and submit.

I’m not quite sure why the author didn’t go with the ‘Thickbox.js’ file, but the pop-up he uses works pretty well.

Once you hit ‘Save Reply’, the new comment will show up at the top of the Comments panel.

In Need of Reply

One absolutely fantastic feature is called the ‘In Need of Reply’ panel.

What this panel shows you is all of the comments that haven’t been replied to.

Once you reply to a comment in this panel, the comment disappears since it is no longer in need of reply.

One feature that is desperately missing here is a ‘Mark All as Replied’, although you can “ignore” comments on an individual basis.

Conclusion

Comment Remix is a very nice plugin that combines a lot of features I’ve seen in other plugins. It’s always nice to have it all in one place, and the admin options (not shown in this review) are quite extensive.

The star feature is the ‘In Need of Reply’ panel, which will help busy blog authors figure out which comments haven’t been replied to.

Comment Remix is still in its early stages, but it’s off to a great start.

As a side note, Comment Remix is also part of the WeblogToolsCollection plugin competition. If you have a moment, head over to the Comment Remix post, cast a vote, and give your say.