[53]New Plugin: Comments

[CMPguy]

Background:
Joomla is a wide open content management system that allow an administrator to make a site broad in nature. I have seen school sites, news, blogs, along with lots of different types. On many of these sites, I have noticed that many use comment plugins to allow other users to add comments to articles.

Proposal:
I would like to see a comment plugin that comes standard with Joomla 1.6 to allow for more user interaction. This is a feature that should be added with the already implement plugin for ratings.

How will it work:
-A simple user interface to allow a user to add comments to an article.
-Works with HTML
-Available with "smileys" in .png format.
-Control of how many comments to be allowed on a page
-Give the administrator ability to ok comments before posting
-Allow administrator to disable comment plugin to allow a comment plugin of their choice to be used

Implementation:
Unfortunately, not being a developer myself, I have no clue as to how to implement it but there are already many plugins available. We could use this plugin to include ratings so that only one plugin will control user's thoughts on an article.

Effects on:
-Users: Not much. Giving the admistrator choice to allow comments on their articles "out of the box" could be a welcomed addition
-Other Extensions: May have a problem with working with other comment plugins but in all actuality, you really shouldn't have two comment plugins working at the same time.
-Performance: Very little effect being that many sites already use comments plugins already and if you don't want the plugin, it is simple to disable it

[snicers]

I agree, a native comment function like in other CMS (drupal) or in wordpress will make live very easy.

The good commenting systems available at the moment include closed source like the mxcomment or are only available for money. The other comment plugins lack in security integration or are not developed any further (akocomment).

In my opinion it's a shame that such an old feature isn't integrated in 1.5. It is simpley a prerequesite for a web 2.0 website to have this.

[geminorum]

I certainly agree too! the available systems are commercial or not developed anymore. and above of all they are so complicated. however this somehow became a tradition on Joomla, but it can't take the place of a native core comment system and I have no idea why it's so unnecessary after this major improvement on the framework. I think the key is to be so simple in the front end and more secure on the back end.

after all, I almost wrote one, but as my extension got any further i more convinced that it must be a native Joomla system. i'll work on mine, but still believe the native system is much better.

[LocaLizeR]

Yepp, there is a commenting solution for Joomla! 1.5 It seems for me that yvComment released under GNU/GPL has escaped your attention

[geminorum]

Yepp, there is a commenting solution for Joomla! 1.5 It seems for me that yvComment released under GNU/GPL has escaped your attention

you're right but the yvComment is actually, as the developer says is a plugin. it's uses an article category as comment table and not flexibility for the back end. sorry, i used to grow so much hope on Yuri Volkov's but the structure cause so much disappointment. yet I'm so looking forward to yvComment.

[yvolk]

Yepp, there is a commenting solution for Joomla! 1.5 It seems for me that yvComment released under GNU/GPL has escaped your attention

you're right but the yvComment is actually, as the developer says is a plugin.

yvComment is, actually a 'commenting solution' and not 'plugin only'. It has plugin AND component plus it uses some additional (and optional!) plugins for Smileys, BBCodes etc... so it may be very simple or not - it's your choice.

it's uses an article category as comment table and not flexibility for the back end.

This is not really so: yvComment may use: Articles (Content) table OR it's own table - this is configurable by user.

...And it has all features, about which CMPguy asked

[dkarlovi]

IMHO a good solution would be to make the comment support generic as I have previously proposed, you have a new field comment_id in article content (table jos_content) and a global configuration "Comments on/off", also can enable comments per section, category or article.

This would enable authors to write their own complete comment systems or just write a plugin for a bridged forum you already use (for example, phpBB) without each commenting system having to reinvent the wheel.

When Joomla sees that comments are on, it alters the query in com_content to include comment count(*) and the comment_id field itself (true, to find out the comment count, you'd need to know the table which holds them so the user would need to supply those too), this should be enough for the comment plugin authors to handle everything else, the "glue" is in the plugin.

[sapoku]

I totally support this!!!
I´m new to joomla, and test a lot of CMS sistems before. And one of the foirst thing that i notice it was the lack of an add comment at a botom of an content.

I tried some of the comment solutions, but none of them shows an interface of my taste.
I woud only ask, if these feature is implemented, to please alloud the use of the wysiwyg editor set as default on joomla (JCE, tiny or other).

[ewel]

Having a general comments solution, or at least a framework for it, integrated in the standard installation would be excellent. I think yvComment would actually be a good starting point to look at because it has the ability to integrate with the articles manager. If the articles manager had a button to filter out comments from the list of articles it would be better, and better still would be a plus sign next to each article to expand the list of comments for that article. In ways like this, integration of a comments solution, and integration of that into the articles manager would be a great advantage because it would allow other plugins to act on comments like they do on other content - and that should encourage development.

[trichnosis]

another person is here who think comments must a core feature

[epleste]

I agree with the 'provide core support for commenting' approach suggested by dkarlovi.

Currently for J1.5 you've got nice neat little comment plug-ins like yvComment (OK it's the only one so far), but looking at other extensions that currently only support J1.0 you've got ones like mXcomment that does everything except create the content for you.

You don't want to stop these developers from updating this extensions to newer versions of Joomla! or make them have to hack the core code to get the same functionality out of their extensions.

[sapoku]

I still belive that comments shoud be a core feature, but reading the previus post, i kind of agree that the external development shoud not be stoped. Beside, having more flavors to shoose maybe something good.

So what do you think if the comments, come as a core feature using the default editor and his options. But also at the control panel, set an option to disable the core feature.. so external developments maybe installed with out core hacks.

Also, started to think about his... if comments are developed as core feature, with the ability of use the default editor (JCE, etc)... Joomla becomes a blogging solution out of the box!!!!

Reading a lot of comparisons, one of the debted topics was the lack of a good bloging solution in joomla. Maybe here´s the solution!!.

[epleste]

I think that a comment should be just that, one or two lines that a user can provide feedback on an article.

You start letting users have a full wysiwyg editor and you are going to get people going nuts and posting complete articles in response to articles.

I think that trying to provide such differing functions such as comments and blogging in the one function is going to lead to doing both poorly.

[sapoku]

mmmm...
Theres still the option of review an artible before its publication, feature that shoud be avaible also with comments, that will help in control the size of comments. Also, we have not yet spoked about aditional configurations or core settings.

As you pointed out, it woud be a nice feature to have aditional control over the amount of data that a single content an a single comment may have.

As i see while i write this review.... heres no limit on the amount of data that can be writed.
-------
I think that we shoud seek flexibility, and the only way to do that its to generate a comment core feature with all the posiblities. And then start to generate settings to manage all these posibilities.

At this point i see the next set of settings (Default - Optional value). At the control panel (Global options).
- Comments = On - Off
- Max_Characters = Off - Number
- Multimedia = On - Off
- Smilies = On - Off
- Default joomla editor = Yes - No
-

And at the article, these same options shoud be present. As all other options are avaible. By the use of Global, or by the use of an optionalo parameter.

As you see, with these settings added, an user may shoose to keep using it´s own flavor comment.
Also, if the user wants a full bloging system, it get it working out of the box.
And if only want small comments to be allowed, he also got that.

[dkarlovi]

As you see, with these settings added, an user may shoose to keep using it´s own flavor comment.
Also, if the user wants a full bloging system, it get it working out of the box.
And if only want small comments to be allowed, he also got that.

As I see it, if Joomla goes with "abstract comment support" way I suggested, this would be a great sample implementation. So, you get the comment support stuff in core and implement commenting with your suggested options as a plugin which ships with Joomla and uses the core support. This has many merits, for example if one writes a gallery component, he/she could just provide a hook to enable commenting of images from the exact same system, be it the Joomla default commenting plugin or a phpBB3 commenting plugin. That's what I call flexible.

[ircmaxell]

I hole heartedly believe that comments should NOT be in the core. There's a reason for that too. There are a whole bunch of Joomla sites out there. (When I say a bunch, that number is easially in the Millions). Not all of them (infact, I'd say a significant portion) have a need for comments. Infact, some of them don't even use HTML (I've seen a few Joomla backed flash sites). Why should the core be overloaded with these features (why stop at comments, why not pick the best extension from the JED in every category and include that), when not everyone needs them. I strongly believe that Joomla should be ABLE to do whatever you want, but doing it out of the box IMHO is wasteful.

Now, with the JPackage initiative, what will make this easier. Now, people can bundle up their favorite extensions, and create a package to be installed in one step. So if you have 5 extensions that make Joomla better at blogging, package them up and make them available for download... One thing to install (and pick)...

[dkarlovi]

I hole heartedly believe that comments should NOT be in the core. There's a reason for that too. There are a whole bunch of Joomla sites out there. (When I say a bunch, that number is easially in the Millions). Not all of them (infact, I'd say a significant portion) have a need for comments. Infact, some of them don't even use HTML (I've seen a few Joomla backed flash sites). Why should the core be overloaded with these features (why stop at comments, why not pick the best extension from the JED in every category and include that), when not everyone needs them. I strongly believe that Joomla should be ABLE to do whatever you want, but doing it out of the box IMHO is wasteful.

Not more so then (for example) content rating, the "millions don't need it" argument is kinda stretched. The core change would be minimal (most of it in configuration), turning it off would mean you get the exact same behavior you get right now.

Now, with the JPackage initiative, what will make this easier. Now, people can bundle up their favorite extensions, and create a package to be installed in one step. So if you have 5 extensions that make Joomla better at blogging, package them up and make them available for download... One thing to install (and pick)...

Yeah, I for one wouldn't depend on a 3rd party Joomla package, sure you could roll your own Linux distro, but will you support it? Time showed that the answer is in most cases - well, at least till I get something more important in my life to deal with.

[ircmaxell]

Not more so then (for example) content rating, the "millions don't need it" argument is kinda stretched. The core change would be minimal (most of it in configuration), turning it off would mean you get the exact same behavior you get right now.

I think content rating should go bye bye too... http://www.joomlaperformance.com/blog/i ... 44_42.html My views...

Yeah, I for one wouldn't depend on a 3rd party Joomla package, sure you could roll your own Linux distro, but will you support it? Time showed that the answer is in most cases - well, at least till I get something more important in my life to deal with.

I'm not talking about a package including Joomla. I'm talking a package consisting of a group of extensions... For example, you could bundle a commenting extension, an editor, a trackback plugin, and whatever extensions you want to put together into one package... then install that package into a default Joomla install... It's not like installing a linux distro... Think of it like installing Open Office, or Adobe Suite. One step installs a series of programs (in this case extensions) which are designed to work together in a simular method.

There's no difference between that and today going to the JED and downloading the same 4 or 5 extensions and installing them one by one, except in this case, it's one download, one install, and everythings designed (or at least confirmed) to work together...

[dkarlovi]

Not more so then (for example) content rating, the "millions don't need it" argument is kinda stretched. The core change would be minimal (most of it in configuration), turning it off would mean you get the exact same behavior you get right now.

I think content rating should go bye bye too... http://www.joomlaperformance.com/blog/i ... 44_42.html My views...

I agree but that was just an example. To really enable the developer, you must provide core functionality, in this case adding few configuration options where necessary and switching, if the comment system is active, switch from using query A to A' (the exact same query + the comment table join). All other functionality should go to plugins which would use the core hooks, simple as that.

Yeah, I for one wouldn't depend on a 3rd party Joomla package, sure you could roll your own Linux distro, but will you support it? Time showed that the answer is in most cases - well, at least till I get something more important in my life to deal with.

I'm not talking about a package including Joomla. I'm talking a package consisting of a group of extensions... For example, you could bundle a commenting extension, an editor, a trackback plugin, and whatever extensions you want to put together into one package... then install that package into a default Joomla install... It's not like installing a linux distro... Think of it like installing Open Office, or Adobe Suite. One step installs a series of programs (in this case extensions) which are designed to work together in a simular method.

There's no difference between that and today going to the JED and downloading the same 4 or 5 extensions and installing them one by one, except in this case, it's one download, one install, and everythings designed (or at least confirmed) to work together...

I don't know do you use Linux (I do, exclusively), but the concept you're talking about isn't anything new to me, installing a Linux distro is JUST like that: you select a package to install, that package depends on 3 other packages which in turn depend on 18 other packages which... Then you can handpick packages to install or create metapackages which contain nothing but just claim to depend on a list of packages to trigger their installation.

If you're talking about that sort of thing, you are right: that is far superior then JED, you could go so far to enable the user to browse JED and install right from Joomla admin, that would be lesson learned from package managers.

But don't mix the packaging scheme with already installed extensions, when you install those packages (by what ever means), they need core API hooks anyway to work together, the proposed commenting system is just that.

[numbscot]

I am a relatively new J! user and am neither a developer or a designer. To be honest this is why I am using J! and haven't just developed my own site. I would like to give my view on adding comments not as a developer but as a user.

Because I am not a designer I have joined one of the many J! template sites. For me this is great because I now not only get a website that has the backed technology to be a top class website but it also looks as good as any high end corporate website.

What has this got to do with adding comments to the core build?

Well there are lots of great 3rd party comments out there, some are free some aren't. But what they all have in common is I need to try and hack them to make them match the great Template I have paid for. At the least I need to edit the CSS and in lots of cases hack the code. However if there was a comments system in the core them the Template site I have paid to join would be doing the formatting and integration for me.

This might not seem like a big deal to the developers out there, but considering the number of Template sites there are, I can only presume there are a large number of J! users in the same situation as me.

On top of this it was decided other things were important enough to be in the core (poll, latest news, web links, create pdf). As a user I would put Comments higher up the list of what I want to see!

[dkarlovi]

Well there are lots of great 3rd party comments out there, some are free some aren't. But what they all have in common is I need to try and hack them to make them match the great Template I have paid for. At the least I need to edit the CSS and in lots of cases hack the code. However if there was a comments system in the core them the Template site I have paid to join would be doing the formatting and integration for me.

My proposition doesn't help you then, you'd still need to tweak the look of the comments because the core changes shouldn't contain the actual commenting system, they should only enable extension developers to write one without hacking the core.

Of course, one could write a sample implementation and ship it with Joomla as a plugin but thats another story.

[sunon]

Brilliant idea - please just include migrator for other commenting systems such as JOM Comment or other comment systems that we already are using some of us!

[katim110]

I really hope this feature will be integreerd in Joomla 1.6

[sky-web]

Another function will be set is to use gravatar, wordpress 2.5 is release with this feature

[Frosia]

Most people forget one very, very important feature - ability to edit comments. I mean if user wrote something wrong he would be able to edit his/her post in for example 5 minutes after posting.

[dkarlovi]

Most people forget one very, very important feature - ability to edit comments. I mean if user wrote something wrong he would be able to edit his/her post in for example 5 minutes after posting.

This feature depends on the commenting system itself. For example, if you employ phpBB3 for you commenting system, you'd get this out of the box.

[Frosia]

dkarlovi, agree. But if comment system won't be based on forum integration then this feature could be helpfull.
I hope there would be either native phpbb3 integration as a comment system (i know one, but it's in dev stage and a bit buggy) or very good and simple comment system in new joomla.
Btw, good feture could be comment rating system like in [youtube] (ust example) if post is very low on rating it will be hidden.
Thanks.

[pishisaurus]

I can't believe joomla doesn't already have this

[persxbc]

joomla 1.6 must have a comment component and plugin in its core. no having its the only huge disadvantage between others cms or blogs.
comments are very usefull in any website, readers also want to say their opinion
also take care about the security and spam.