Table of Contents
Comments
The Comments System is an Blogging style Extension, written for BIGACE. Can be used with and without installed News Extension.
Key features:
- Stops spam using Captcha
- Additional use of the Akismet service for spam protection
- Creating of Comments for unregistered and registered user
- Administration of new Comments (edit, activate, delete)
- New Smarty TAGs for tasks like counting and fetching comments or a spam counter
- A lot of configuration settings to customize for your need
- Send emails on new postings/moderated comments waiting activation
- Configurable RSS feed, displaying latest comments
- Simple to integrate. Just activate the Plugin and include one Smarty template
Downloads
- BIGACE 2.6: Version 1.6 - 06 May 2009
- BIGACE 2.5: Version 1.5 - 22 March 2009
- BIGACE 2.4: Version 0.8 - 06 April 2008
Installation
- Download (see below) and install the Comments.zip
- Go to User/Permissions
- Assign the comments.* Permissions to your Administrator account and to all required Usergroups (see below)
- Activate the Comments plugin at Extensions → Administration → Plugins
- Reload the Administration, you see the new Extension entry “Comments”
- Configure your Comments System if required (see below, default options are pre-configured)
- Open your Content Template and add {include file='Comments-Listing-Form.tpl'} where you want Comments and Formular to appear
- Do not forget to activate Akismet, to prevent comment spam! (read more to know how it works)
Permissions
Names:
- comments.activate
- comments.edit
- comments.delete
Descriptions:
- Allows to activate pending Comments
- Allows to edit pending Comments
- Allows to delete pending Comments
Configuration
1.) Configure your Comment System at System/Configurations (you need the “admin_configurations” Permission to open it).
Go to Package “comments”.
Names:
- auto.activate.unregistered
- auto.activate.registered
- allow.html
- css.use.internal
- email.required
- email.send.moderator
- email.recipient.moderator
- email.send.posting
- email.recipient.posting
- email.from
- gravatar.enable
- gravatar.size
- rss.latest.template
- akismet.wordpress.api.key
- akismet.auto.activate.positive
- akismet.auto.delete.negative
- use.captcha
- ask.for.homepage (since 1.3)
- rel.nofollow (since 1.3)
Descriptions:
- whether logged-in users can post comments directly
- whether anonymous users can post comments directly (only for intranets! Don't use on public websites: SPAMMERS will find you!)
- if TRUE, users will be able to embed <HTML> in their postings (again, not a good choice for public websites!)
- default: TRUE - loads the included “Comments” Stylesheet. Looks okay on white pages, meant as example; you should create your own style.
- if you set to false, people do not need to include an email address
- if TRUE, emails are sent for new postings waiting for activation (moderated comments)
- comma separated list of recipients for the “moderated comments” email (example: “foo@bar,foo1@bar1”)
- if TRUE, emails are sent for new activated postings (see config keys 1 and 2)
- comma separated list of recipients for the “new posting” email (example: “foo@bar,foo1@bar1”)
- the address, used as “FROM” value in above mentioned emails
- default: TRUE - whether Gravatars are shown (TRUE) in your comments or not (FALSE)
- size of the gravatar images
- the template, used for rendering the RSS feed
- the wordpress API key, to activate you akismet account
- if (akismet) positiv marked comments should be activated automatically
- if (akismet) spam marked comments should be deleted or kept for manual control
- indicates if a captcha is used in the comment formular
- whether the homepage input field is shown or not
- whether comments are linked with attribute rel=“nofollow” or not
Smarty TAGs
The Comment System comes with some specialized Smarty TAGs.
Please visit their page for further information:
- {comment_counter} - count amount of activated Comments for one Item
- {comment_format} - …
- {comment_spam} - …
- {comments_latest} - to fetch the latest comments at your site
- {comments} - a multipurpose TAG for reading existing and creating new comments
- {gravatar} - creates the valid URL, used for displaying a Gravatar image
- {link_trackback} - …
RSS Feed
The Comments Extension commes with an RSS feed, which is linked from the HTML metatags automatically after activating the Comments plugin. You can also link to it by using {link_comments_rss}.
If you want to customize the default values (you should do so to personalize the feed!), you have to edit the Template Comments-RSS-Latest. Even better, you could create a Template Copy and assign this new template as your RSS Template at the Comments configuration (see above).
Changelog
Version 1.6:
Please update all links to your RSS feed to /plugins/comments/rss.php or use Smarty TAG {link_comments_rss} and then delete /addon/rss/comments.php.
- added trackback support
- check for and do not allow duplicate comments
- moved Comments Admin Plugin
- moved RSS feed to /plugins/comments/rss.php
- using admin styles
Version 1.5:
- Remove comments on item delete
- Fixed utf8 + sitename in rss feed
- Allow moderation of existing comments
- Improvements for 2.5 including comment_filter, admin_menu filter
- Added config to choose whether the homepage input field is shown or not
- Send comment in moderator email
Version 1.2:
- fixed order in {comments_latest}
- fixed posting bug in IE (thanks Rienie)
Version 1.1:
- fixed column length problem for utf8 for column “language”
- enabled “post” attribute to disable/enable interactive mode
Version 1.0:
- added Captcha support
Version 0.9:
- Submit and delete false-positive spam to askimet via Administration
- fixed false feedback for none-spammer
Version 0.8:
- added Askimet support
- auto activation of positive comments
- auto deletion of negative (spam) comments
- nice feedback message for spammer
- added spam counter and Smarty TAG
Version 0.7:
- added Gravatar support
- new config for de-/activating gravatars
- new config for gravatar size
- added default gravatar image
- added RSS feed to display latest Items
Version 0.6:
- send emails on new posting
- send emails on new posting waiting for activation
- config keys for both actions + email configurable recipient addresses
- added anchors in include for quick links
Version 0.5:
- first public release / download deleted - wrong database indizes
OPEN TASKS
Edit this list if you have any ideas how to improve the Comment System:
- [Admin] edit existing comments (at least find them by itemid)
- [Admin] show eaten-spam counter
Download History
- BIGACE 2.5: Version 1.2.2 (29.08.2008), Version 1.2.1 (17.08.2008), Version 1.2 (12.08.2008), Version 1.1 (03.08.2008), Version 0.9 (25.05.2008)
- BIGACE 2.4: Version 0.6 (27.03.2008)
