Small update to my threaded comments hack v2

If you have my threaded comments hack v2 installed, and it stopped threading the comments, it is because Blogger changed the navbar iframe src attribute handling. Seemed to happen yesterday. To fix that, edit the template and find line 235 of the hack, which used to be:

var cfeedbase = 'http://'+window.location.hostname+'/feeds/'+$("#navbar-iframe").attr("src").match(/targetPostID=([^&]*)/)[1]+'/comments'

and change it to:

var cfeedbase = $('link[href$="comments/default"]').attr("href").split("/default")[0];

(all in one line)

The source code has been updated in the hack's article.

Make "Post a Comment" link bigger

Because of problems with the embedded comment form I decided to change my blogs' commenting use separate comment page. Other option would have been a popup window, which I don't like.

But the Post a Comment link is so small, will people notice it at all? To compare with embedded form:

It looked so small, that I decided to enlarge my link. :)

Here's how I did it. Open template HTML, select Expand Widget Templates. Update 2013: Select "Jump to widget" "Blog1". Search for a block that looks like this:

          <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
            <a expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><data:postCommentMsg/></a>
          </b:if>

And change it to this:

Data provided by Pastebin.com - Download Raw

Now the link is bigger (<H4>) so people will notice it easier. See this article's Post a Comment link here.

"# comments" link in index page hack

I changed this blog's commenting to use full page comment form. With embedded form there are problems with cookies across different domains, I could fix them but my readers might not. So I decided to use the only good option: full page. (some might also like popup window, I don't)

With embedded form commenting, when you view articles in index, suppose you have 5 comments in a post, then there is a link 5 comments which opens the post and jumps to comments section (#comments). This is nice.

But with full page comment form the link 5 comments don't open the post and comments, but the commenting page instead. I think it is better to open the post and comments, and there user can click Post Comment link if he wants to post a comment. When there are 0 comments, the link still may open the commenting page directly.

This can be accomplished quite easily. Open you templates html for editing, click Expand Widget Templates. Find code that looks like:

            <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
              <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>
            </b:if>

That code should be inside <b:includable id='post' var='post'> block (there's another one for mobile devices, block <b:includable id='mobile-post' var='post'>, that one I didn't touch, you can, if you want). Replace that previous code by:

Data provided by Pastebin.com - Download Raw

We insert three adjacent things into original code, highlighted red, old code is black (no need to do anything about this snipped, this is just for clarification):

    <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
1.   <b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 0'>
      <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></a>
     <b:else/>
2.    <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.url + &quot;#comments&quot;' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>
3.   </b:if>
    </b:if>

Now it works the way I want. I'll install this hack on this blog, except on this particular post, so you can test it – this post works like it was before, all others work like this hack. Instructions are not too detailed, so you should know your way around before trying to apply to your blog.

References:
Blogger Help: How do I leave comments on a blog?

Blog commenting - embedded form problems suck

There are issues with Blogger's embedded comment form, sometimes you just cannot post the reply, something to do with cookies and the fact that embedded form iframe runs in different domain (blogger.com) than the blog. This morning I run into this problem: could not post a comment into my own blog (this one).

I don't understand why they at Blogger cannot map the comment-iframe.g which is shown in iframe in blogger.com domain to the blog domain, so iframe could show (for example) http://yabtb.blogspot.com/comment-iframe.g?blogID=2509274430802200281&postID=[...] instead of http://www.blogger.com/comment-iframe.g?blogID=2509274430802200281&postID=[...] This would solve the cookie problem, I think.

I could of course do the tricks needed (logging out, clearing cookies, what ever), but I don't expect that all my commenters can (well on this blog they might, and should). So I decided to change commenting to use own page (because popups suck, too :) ). The separate page for commenting is actually quite good, I just wish one could style it to make it look like your blog.