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Thursday, January 12, 2012

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How to disable Blogger's new threaded commenting

As I wrote earlier today, Blogger has now threaded commenting. There are three ways (that I know) to disable Blogger's new threaded commenting, if you don't want it:

- Don't use embedded comment form,
- Disable per-post comment feeds in your blog, or
- Edit template html.

The easiest way is to change embedded comment form to popup or full page, or disable per-post comment feeds in your blog settings. But if you want embedded comment form and post comment feeds enabled, then you need to edit template. Note: these instructions do not apply to dynamic views.

For the template editing option, this has worked for me:

Open template for editing, and click "Expand Widget Templates". Find this block of code, which is there twice (for mobile and normal viewing), you can search for <b:if cond='data:post.showThreadedComments'>:
        <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;static_page&quot;'>
          <b:if cond='data:post.showThreadedComments'>
            <b:include data='post' name='threaded_comments'/>
          <b:else/>
            <b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
          </b:if>
        </b:if>
        <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
          <b:if cond='data:post.showThreadedComments'>
            <b:include data='post' name='threaded_comments'/>
          <b:else/>
            <b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
          </b:if>
        </b:if>
Change both the blocks to this:
        <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<!--      <b:if cond='data:post.showThreadedComments'>
            <b:include data='post' name='threaded_comments'/>
          <b:else/> -->
            <b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
<!--      </b:if> -->
        </b:if>
        <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<!--      <b:if cond='data:post.showThreadedComments'>
            <b:include data='post' name='threaded_comments'/>
          <b:else/> -->
            <b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
<!--      </b:if> -->
        </b:if>
I.e. comment out the if-elses where "threaded_comments" are included, and include only "comments". Remember to do this twice, for both blocks of same code. To avoid extra javascript loading, search this line:
        <b:include data='post' name='threaded_comment_js'/>
and change to:
<!--    <b:include data='post' name='threaded_comment_js'/> -->
Save template. Now you should have the "good old" comments back with embedded comment form, and any modifications and hacks that were made to comments system.
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16 comments:

Anonymous said... [reply]

Do I just copy and paste what you have have? Or do I have to edit the words to say just comment?
TY so much for the added fix as the first two options worn work for me.

Anonymous said... [reply]

@ChatterScene.com

This worked and I was able to get posts to show on IE and embedded below... Still nulls out the custom comment counter script I found. You wouldnt happen to know how to fix that ...lol
But wanted you to know that it indeed did embedd my comments again... TY so much

Realitytvkids.com ~ Administrator said... [reply]

i don't see how code 1 is any different from code 2

MS-potilas said... [reply]

@Realitytvkids.com (Administrator)
Hi, there are those <!-- and --> marks added. Those are html/xml comment marks, and practically means same as deleting all code between <!-- and -->. I chose not to delete code but to use comment marks, so that if wanted, the code can be restored easily just by removing the comment marks.

Pinching Abe said... [reply]

Got it! Thanks for the solution. Works great for me.

Sethisto said... [reply]

Worked like a charm! thanks!

Sethisto said... [reply]

Aw, actually it looks like it removes the pages, so you are stuck on the first 200 comments

Dennis Bournique said... [reply]

@ SethistoConfirmed. After modifying the template the "New, newest" links are gone and I can only see the first 200 comments.

MS-potilas said... [reply]

Hi,

I think the current 200 comment "limit" is a bug that came along with the Blogger threaded comments update. The changes described here don't affect the comment paging code, they just disable the threaded commenting. I'm sure Blogger will fix the comment paging, because not everyone is going to switch to threaded comments (and hopefully they don't force it).

To test, if it is the template changes (which it should not be), you can change the template code back, and disable the new threaded commenting by disabling per-post commnt feeds (or using other than embedded comment form).

Unfortunately I'm not able to test this myself right now (not enough comments in any post).

Dennis Bournique said... [reply]

@MS-potilas Thanks MS-potilas, I changed the template code back to the original and switched to using the Blogger full page comment comment form and the "Newer, Newest" links returned and are working.

I guess we will just have to hope that Google fixes this some day. I want to use threaded comments but the "Load More..." pagination scheme is a step backwards in usability that I don't want.

Mama Spark said... [reply]

This was so helpful!! It worked like a charm! Now can you tell me why sometimes when I visit another blog their "create a link to this post" links a million of my blog posts to their blog without my doing anything??

MS-potilas said... [reply]

@Mama Spark
Hi, great it helped.

About the links, I think you may be seeing so called backlinks. Backlinks may be created to a site, when you link it to your site. By default in Blogger backlinks are disabled, but in Wordpress (another blogging platform) they are enabled. Here's an article about backlinks: What are backlinks and how do I use them?.

Kristin Aquariann said... [reply]

Hi! I tried to go backwards by taking out the and put the threaded comments back ... and the home page looks fine, but when I click on an individual post, it doesn't load anything in the middle, just the sidebars. Help?

MS-potilas said... [reply]

@aquariann
Hi, threaded commenting has currently a bug, so that posts with comments cannot be opened in Internet Explorer, only open blank screen. If you're using Internet Explorer, you're probably seeing this. On Chrome, for example, it should work. But anyways, you might want to wait that they fix the bugs in threaded commenting before starting to use it.

Kristin Aquariann said... [reply]

@MS-potilas Thanks; I'll try it again in a couple weeks! I'm using Firefox 3.6.25.

Pinching Abe said... [reply]

Thank you. I was stuck at 200 and then changed my comment form and my newer, newest came back. Phew! I don't know what I'd do without your help with this new change. :( I am beginning to hate Blogger because every time they force a change, it screws something up on my blog and it is a lot of work to get it back to normal.

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