DLF WordPress Threaded Comments Progress

Notes on the WordPress threaded comments effort for the DLF site.

This project started on 11 October 2011 with initial exploration and proposal to do list, a go live to do list, a bug list, and a list of things to consider with Rachel.

111011 : getting started

I was not sure how much effort would go into this rewrite of the comment engine. If I could just grab what I needed from another theme, like the modern TwentyEleven theme, then it would take less effort, but I was not sure that would work. I spent some time doing a rough implementation to see if this was feasible before writing the proposal. It looks good. In addition to the time spent tonight, I estimate three or four more hours to complete.

(2)

111012 : looking at the comment editor

One major flaw of the initial work is that the comment editor did not do its magic Ajaxy thing. This turned out to be due to the fact that our theme did not include the “comment-reply” javascript in the header. In fact, javascript for our theme is being included in very non-wordpressy ways. That’s been cleaned up and now the reply is bouncing around as it should.

(1.5)

111012 : adding a bar alongside the comments

Another task is to get the comments behind a grey bar similar to the yellow bar of the main content. This is a goofy part of our design, but it is our design so we should embrace it. This required adding a content2 div around the comments div and fiddling with the size and placement of the comments avatar. Also fixed the edit button while at it. Did some testing on iPad as well.

(1)

111012 : open for testing

Invite staff to test the comments features and send feedback.

(?)

Still To Do

Target date, 21 Ocotber 2011.

  • test with staff

Go Live To Do

  • move files from diglib-test to diglib theme

Bugs

  • The editor always shows up at the bottom of the comment stream instead of inline.

Consider

  • Fiddled with the initial avatar sizes, maybe this can now return to default?