WP Comment Sorter

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WP Comment Sorter (for WordPress 2.2 and above) is the latest WordPress plugin to assist with the concept of reader appreciation.

How many times have you been to a blog where Trackbacks/Pingbacks were interspersed with the regular comments? Or perhaps you wanted the comments to be displayed with the latest one on the top instead of the bottom. With Comment Sorter, readers can disable Trackbacks and also decide what order they would like to read the comments.

As an admin, you also have the ability to assign global options to your comments that you can’t normally do in the WordPress admin panel. For example, if you want Trackbacks to not show on all of your posts, you can do that without modifying any template files. You can also change the default sort order of the comments.

Download

You can download Version 1.1 of the plugin

Demonstration Media

For screenshots and demonstration videos of the plugin, please see the Comment Sorter Media Page

User Features

  • Prevent Trackbacks/Pingbacks from showing.
  • Sort comments by Date Ascending.
  • Sort comments by Date Descending.
  • Sort comments by Name Ascending.
  • Sort comments by Name Descending.
  • The ability to remember options.

Admin Features

  • Ability to change default sort order of comments without modifying template files.
  • Ability to disable Trackbacks/Pingbacks for all posts without modifying template files (you will still receive Trackbacks/Pingbacks, they just won’t show on a post).
  • Can disable the auto-include of the sorter interface (useful if you only want this to be an admin tool).

Installation Instructions

  • Download the plugin.
  • Extract the plugin from the ZIP file and place the “comment-sorter” directory into your WordPress plugins directory.
  • Go to the Plugins page in your WordPress Admin Panel and “Activate” the Comment Sorter plugin.

The plugin will automatically insert the interface above the first comment section it finds. It searches for the class “commentlist“, which is the default class for a comments section.

If you want to interface to be inserted manually, go to the Comment Sorter options (under “Options” in the Admin Panel) and select “Yes” for Disable Auto Include. From there you’ll want to add this code where you want the plugin to show up:

<?php if (function_exists("raproject_getCommentSorter")) { raproject_getCommentSorter(); } ?>

Customizing the Interface

You can customize the plugin interface by modifying the CSS file that comes with the plugin. The CSS file is located at: “wp-content/plugins/comment-sorter/css”.

Languages

The plugin is available in the following languages:

  • English

If you are interested in providing a translation, please contact me.

Frequently Ask Questions

The Comment Sorter interface isn’t showing or isn’t doing anything. What’s wrong?

Make sure that your comment list has the class “commentlist”. This is the default class for the comments section and some theme authors do not use this.

If the interface fails to show up, you can try inserting it manually using the template tag. Go into the admin panel and set “Disable Auto-Include” to “Yes” and insert the following template tag above your comments section:

<?php if (function_exists("raproject_getCommentSorter")) { raproject_getCommentSorter(); } ?>

Why give readers the option to sort?

Because readers have different preferences on how they want to read comments. Some prefer to read comments without Trackbacks/Pingbacks interspersed. Some prefer to read the latest comment at the top of the comment’s section instead of the bottom.

Why would admin want to disable Trackbacks/Pingbacks?

Not all readers like having Trackbacks/Pingbacks shown with the regular comments.

Does this plugin separate Comments and Trackbacks?

Unfortunately no. There’s no way (from what I’ve seen) to separate Comments and Trackbacks without modifying template files.

This plugin causes other comment plugins to not work. What’s wrong?

When a reader uses the sort options, any plugins that rely on events to modify the comments section will not work. There is not an elegant solution to this problem unfortunately.

If the reader chooses to have the plugin remember their settings, the comment section will be made re-compatible with other plugins after a refresh.

What browsers is this plugin compatible with?

This plugin has been tested successfully on Firefox 2.0, Safari 3.0, IE 6 & 7. This plugin does not work on IE 5.5.

Known Bugs

Firefox Not “Remembering” Options

This is a bug where Firefox is displaying the wrong selected radio box in the sort options. This is a caching issue with Firefox and there is currently no solution.

Ajax Edit Comments Can Cause Plugin to Fail

If you use Ajax Edit Comments to delete or mark as spam a comment, the Comment Sorter will fail if trying to sort. There is currently no solution.

Plugin Support

If you have a bug report, feature request, or support request, please use the RAProject Support Form. You may also join and start a thread at the RA Project Google Group.

Due to the amount of inquiries, I am not able to answer every support request. Support requests with a donation will always be given top priority.

Special Thanks

Special thanks goes out to Bes Zain and Andrew Rickmann. Bes helped out with the initial plugin concept, and Andrew provided invaluable plugin testing.

Changelog

  • v1.1 Released on 03/08/2008
    • Will show the correct comment count if trackbacks are disabled.
  • v1.0 released on 02/09/2008.