Site improvement: Threaded Comments

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Update: after trying this feature for only a couple of hours, it was already turning into a big mess. I found it impossible to follow the discussions or to easily see what the latest comment was, the email notification broke down and the nice, clean look of the site was completely gone (see this screenshot – brrrrr). Thanks for everyone for helping me test this, but it’s bye-bye threaded comments :-)

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    • HolgerB

      So I try it out now ;-)

    • http://www.blender-materials.org Paratron

      Is this a standard wordpress feature?

    • Audacitor

      WITTY REPLY!

    • http://www.cuby.co.nr Cuby

      I’ve give it a test. Only thing is though, won’t this make it harder to tell when a new comment has been made, because it could be anywhere from top to bottom?

      Cheers
      Cuby

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Yeah, that’s a possible drawback. Still, if you just post a new comment (and not a reply) it should still appear at the very bottom of the list. I’ll give that a try now.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      New comment (should be at the bottom of the list)

    • theLichKing

      what’s up Cuby?

    • theLichKing

      i replied to Cuby, it didn’t indent further..

    • http://unclezeiv.kerid.org UncleZeiv

      No, it’s probably an extension. Would it be possible to know which one?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Actually, it did, only I also replied to him so your answer is on the same level.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Yes, of course: it’s ‘Threaded comments’:

      http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-thread-comment/

    • BlenderLovingSquirrel

      How about adding different shades to each level of comment or something, or 2 shades, one for odd threads, and the other for even?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      OMG, this is turning into a MESS! I’ll see if I can improve the layout, but this is even more confusing than it was before :-)

    • dyf

      hahha… good luck with that
      i personally find it ok

    • http://www.dave3d.mad-host.net/index.php ddwagnz

      Nice Work Bart, your next mission is to fix the sessions of logins, i feel im having to re-logging in all the time even though i have cookies enabled and clicked the sexy “Remember Me” box XD

      ddwagnz

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      I’m not aware of any issues with that… it always works fine for me and I’ve never had a single complaint about it (until now ;-). Maybe it’s an issue on your side?

    • http://www.anicator.com AniCator

      There are some problems with the margins.
      The gravatar images aren’t spaced properly like the ones in the top level comments. (I’m using FireFox 3.0.1)

    • colyte

      Messy indeed. And a pain to get a decent and quick overview.

    • http://www.dave3d.mad-host.net/index.php ddwagnz

      It could be, does blendernation have a session timeout, i suppose it would?

    • Redbyte

      Pretty easy to read from my end.
      I like it :) Nice work.

    • Ali

      @Bart: what about OpenID integration? it’s been on the wishlist for a long time :)

    • Zecc

      The screenshot looked ok to me, but I see why you might consider it a mess.

      Ideally it would be possible to select the kind of view you prefer, even change it dynamically from a select box. I’d search for plugins that provide that, but I’m kind of busy right now :/

    • http://www.planetblender.org Nathan Letwory

      oh, yeah, OpenID would be great!

      +1 from me

      /Nathan

    • Sanne

      Ah, at first when I read the topic, I thought “Oh no, threaded comments always seem so messy”, so I’m glad the idea is already done away with. :)

      But still cool you try out new stuff, Bart.

    • http://www.FreezingMoon.org Dread Knight

      Threaded comments where looking fine, ftw guys? Don’t you ever use dig? :\

    • Joeri

      LOL… No… not threaded comments
      Only reminds me of .nl flame wars… lol…
      And funny icons.

    • http://mountuponwingsofeagles.blogspot.com Matt

      Too bad it didn’t work. It was a neat idea.

    • Roger Waggener

      Try http://js-kit.com/

      Simply add a couple of lines of javascript in your post loop and it works like a charm.

      It is threaded, fast, and easy to customize. It also auto-syncs the comments in your WordPress database so you can get rid of it and lose no data.

    • Rob

      Well, thanks for giving it a shot Bart. Your continued effort to improve this site is totally awesome.

    • Gryphon

      Bart wrote:
      OMG, this is turning into a MESS! I’ll see if I can improve the layout, but this is even more confusing than it was before :-)

      Maybe a “quote” button would work better than nested replies… that way the post to which you reply can be copied into your post, shaded differently, and maybe indented or italic or something… That way, if you want to know what the original post said, you don’t have to scroll back up the list to find it, but you can tell it’s a quote, so you can ignore the quote and only read the new part.

      All I’d ask for would be an automatic way to remove existing quotes from a post you’re quoting… Anybody who’s ever used a message board can tell you why.

    • MeneerDePeer

      [quote]test[/quote]

      Interesting test :)

    • MeneerDePeer

      Okay, how did he do that? ;)

    • Gryphon

      MeneerDePeer wrote:
      Okay, how did he do that? ;)

      Oh, I have a magic button on my keyboard. It’s awesome.

      I actually just used a little HTML; the “blockquote” and “i” tags. But a button would be easier, and a way to avoid quote pyramids would be a necessity.

      <tag>

    • Gryphon

      Try this:

      <blockquote><i>SomePerson wrote:
      what some person wrote here</i></blockquote>

      Then type your comment here.

    • http://www.rgbk.org Bmud

      Bart wrote:
      it’s bye-bye threaded comments :-)

      Good riddance. Also, cool that blockquotes are supported. I’m going to do that a lot from now on :D

    • Anthoni_C

      Should have made it so users can expand/contract replys.

    • http://none bla

      Visited http://www.blender.org...

      And this was posted as…

      ‘NEWS’…

      LAME!

      PS I’m not a troll… but perhaps it’s time that some things are NOT posted as news on http://www.blender.org?!!

    • http://home.deds.nl/~mp/ ysvry

      maybe try multi threaded next time bart?

    • http://www.qso.com/carlautta/colin/Beta/ Tynach

      bla wrote:

      Visited http://www.blender.org...

      And this was posted as…

      ‘NEWS’…

      LAME!

      PS I’m not a troll… but perhaps it’s time that some things are NOT posted as news on http://www.blender.org?!!

      Blender.org simply uses an RSS feeder for blendernation. If its on Blendernation, its on blender.org.

      Unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Anthoni_C: I don’t know – the confusion would still be there I think. Ton said: ‘the nice thing about the current list is that you only have to look at the bottom to see what’s going on’ – I think that was spot on.