Wordpress’ Built-In Block Comments System
Last year Jack Slocum built a fantastic comment system from Yahoo! UI that allowed readers to comment, with flashy ajax, to specific points in each post.
For instance, at the end of this sentence I could let you comment on only this sentence and not the entire post.
You can see it in action here. However, I [...]
Last year Jack Slocum built a fantastic comment system from Yahoo! UI that allowed readers to comment, with flashy ajax, to specific points in each post.
For instance, at the end of this sentence I could let you comment on only this sentence and not the entire post.
You can see it in action here. However, I don’t think this ever became available to the public through a Wordpress plugin etc.
But check this out:
You can already do this in Wordpress [2.0]
It’s a bit of a hack, and not nearly as pretty as Jack’s solution, but it’s already enabled in your Wordpress installation. Here’s how it works:
- Create an image like this
to add to the end of paragraphs you want people to be able to comment on. - Browse for that image in the Upload dialog of the Write Post page.
- Enter a Title like Comment or Responses.
- Add the paragraph readers are commenting on to the Description box.
- Hit Upload.
- Select Show: Full Size and Link to: Page [The link to is the important bit].
- Send to editor.
Now what you’ve done here is create a link to a separate page for readers to comment on the quoted paragraph.
This is usually used for Wordpress ‘attachments’ so readers can comment on your images - which is great on it’s own. However, this little hack makes it easy to create inline comments for specific blocks of text.
[Try them out below]
A few issues: you can’t see how many comments have been made already for each block and there is no link back to the original post. Plus you need to keep uploading the comment image for each block. 
Also the ‘comment’ page will show the little comment icon in it’s body. But all these issues can be fixed [bar the first] by editing the attachment.php file. 
Without Images
You can alternatively just add the words ‘Comment Here’, for example, by selecting Show: Title instead of Full Size or Thumbnail. Comment Here
In which case the actual image you’re uploading becomes inconsequential.
Tags: Comments, tech tip, Wordpress
