Sunday, August 12, 2007

Recent Comments

Not great, but better than nothing.

Bret or David, if you want to paste the code for the plug-in you used in the comments for this post, I'll try it out.

Otherwise, this is what we got.

Comments are grouped by post, in the order that they appear on the main page, so a comment made on the third post down will show up in the "recent comments" not at the top of the list, but at the top of the sub-group within the list that corresponds to the third post down. (Tip: Scan the list for dates. The more recent the date, the more likely to be a new comment. And if you move your cursor across the date, the link info contains the name of the corresponding post).

Further complicating things is that I can't get the sub-groups to break, or label themselves, despite hours of completely ignorant Frankensteinian tinkering with the template HTML.

UPDATE: I got the code for the plug-in from Hackoshere, but for whatever reason I can't get it to work...

So rather than the code, it appears that what I really need are detailed instructions and hand-holding. Any help appreciated.

17 Comments:

Blogger erp said...

bret, re: a post below. Thanks, I did notice the comments option at GGTW and have it on my feeds. I've also entered the world of widgets and find it fascinating. Thanks to you and everyone else who has taken the time to answer my dumb questions. It's been very much appreciated.

May I take the opportunity here to say I've enjoyed adding the GGW to my first reads, but I have a small request of you and all the other posters and commenters at the PJA, pls give readers a thumb nail sketch of who you are. You all follow the "no self reference" rule so stringently, I sometimes can't quite place your comments in context.

August 13, 2007 8:28 AM  
Blogger Bret said...

oroborous,
I'm gonna email you the template code I use. It doesn't paste well into comments or blog posts since it is, after all, html code and is interpreted. I could escape all the commands, but that'd be a pain and I'm likely to make a mistake. I'll use the email in your blogger profile (the aol one).

erp,
I absolutely don't follow the "no self reference" rule. Indeed, I try to include as many personal anecdotes as possible to add a human element to my posts.

I'm working on a history of great guys but need to get permission from the co-blogger (Howard) on what I can say about him and I just haven't got around to talking to him yet.

August 13, 2007 10:14 AM  
Blogger David said...

Here it is, with square brackets substituted for angle brackets, but I'm not sure it will help much:

[font size="1"][script style="text/javascript" src="http://home.planet.nl/~hansoosting/downloads/showrecentcomments2.js"][/script][script style="text/javascript"]var numcomments = 5;var showcommentdate = true;var showposttitle = true;var numchars = 0;var standardstyling = true;[/script][script src="http://davidssecretblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentcomments"][/script][/font]

August 13, 2007 1:13 PM  
Blogger erp said...

bret, I'll look forward to reading your profiles.

David, I substituted the square brackets for the angles.

Now do I paste it in the "Add a Page Element" section of the blogger template?

August 13, 2007 1:57 PM  
Blogger erp said...

Obviously I meant I substituted the angles for the square brackets.

David, get back blogging. We need you.

August 13, 2007 2:07 PM  
Blogger Bret said...

erp,
David's blog (and my blog and The Daily Duck) use the old blogger templates. Yours uses the new blogger template. For you, I'd suggest going straight to the source and following their instructions:

http://hackosphere.blogspot.com/

Then click on "
Customizable recent comments widget (using JSON feed)" and follow the instructions.

After you get that to work, I'll leave a comment to one of your posts with instructions on how to set up a comment feed. Hopefully, oroborous will have also succeeded by then.

August 13, 2007 2:39 PM  
Blogger erp said...

Will do, but what is it we're doing so I'll know what I'm looking for.

August 13, 2007 2:50 PM  
Blogger Bret said...

erp,
Whatever you've done already is good !!!EXCEPT!!! you needed to change the part that read "http://davidssecretblog.blogspot.com..." to "http://etrp.blogspot.com...".

Right now I think you have a list of David's Secret Blog's Recent Comments on your blog instead of your own.

August 13, 2007 3:03 PM  
Blogger erp said...

I pasted in the script and the comments appear, but they start at June 26. I believe that's because when David stopped blogging. Help. I couldn't make head nor tail of the information at http://hackosphere.blogspot.com/.

I was impressed that one of the commenters translated it into Vietnamese.

August 13, 2007 3:05 PM  
Blogger Bret said...

erp,
How about making a post on your blog so I can comment there and not further clutter up the usually pristine Daily Duck?

August 13, 2007 3:24 PM  
Blogger erp said...

Excellent idea. Sorry for hogging the comments.

August 13, 2007 3:47 PM  
Blogger Oroborous said...

Thanks, guys - I'll see if I can get it to work tonight.

August 13, 2007 4:58 PM  
Blogger erp said...

Oroborous, Is your clock off? In the comments list, my last comment shows August 13, 2007 8:28 AM. I don't that's correct.

August 14, 2007 6:57 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Oro

Thanks for making the site changes. I like the recent comments functionality. Is there some way to limit it by number? I'm just concerned that it takes up too much screen real estate, and pushes all the links way down the page.

August 15, 2007 6:57 AM  
Blogger Oroborous said...

Complainta are being addressed, albeit slowly...

August 15, 2007 8:08 AM  
Blogger Bret said...

Recent comments section is beautiful!

August 16, 2007 5:09 AM  
Blogger Oroborous said...

Thank you.

Many thanks to both you and to David, for providing the info that I needed.

August 16, 2007 5:12 AM  

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