Plugin Review – WP Comment Remix
08. Jun, 2008 
12 Comments - Leave your comment
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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Author Info
So far, I have enjoyed the new features added to my commenting section thanks to this plugin. However, I wish it was integrated with the comment ajax edit plugin so all of the commenting actions were on one line. Have reply and quote above the other options seems weird to me. I’d rather have a forum post layout of options where everything is on one line, do you know if this would be possible to do?
Also, the popup to type in your reply to comments from the admin panel has a user interface issue in that, when I select the text area to type in my reply, I don’t see the text cursor blinking on and off which would let me know if I have the text box selected or not.
As for comment tags, I don’t find them useful at all. I’ve used the trackback sorter and a few other options but I think I agree with a few other commenters on the plugin authors website that this plugin needs to tap into a few MASS options such as mass ignore which would be really useful for those who just installed the plugin. Nothing like seeing thousands of comments that are in need of reply.
@Jeff,
Yeah, the mass ignore is “badly” needed. I emphasize this in my video review about to be published. I also mention the tags feature.
Integration with AEC would be nice. Perhaps I can add a hook into my plugin that will make this possible.
good information
and plugin updates.
thanks
Preetam Purbia
Hi, I just wanna introduce my plugin ‘tag from comment’ which allows post tag with comment. See my article here http://zakirdaq.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/wordpress-plugin-tags-from-comment-to-your-wp-post/
Thanks,
Zakir
I am using this plugin. This is very nice plugin.
Use wp-super-cache plugin This is also very nice plugin.
The newest WordPress plugin helped me a lot for commenting and reading appreciation. These all happens by WP Comment remix…Thank you very much for posting this blog
I think Its a great pluging. Make easier moderate comments on you WP blog. Why blogger doesnt have anything similar? Because google knows if they would created something as good as WP will need buildings for all the terabites they would need
Since the question about plugins, I’m looking for the plug into the operating microformat “hreview” reviews, used also by Google. Someone knows this plug?
It’s realy a good info.
I appreciate that.
thanks and help me more.
thank for the info, it´s a very interesting plugin. I´m looking for one like this several days. I´ll try it in my network.
thanks
great plugin. I’ve used it on a few of my blogs.