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Plugin Review – WP Comment Remix

By Ronald Huereca on Jun 8, 2008.

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.

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