Add Threaded Or Nested Comments To WordPress
WordPress has recently added new comment functionality to the core. You can now show nested or threaded comments. The feature I really like about it is the ability to directly reply to a comment or question on a post. Unfortunately for the reply to show directly under the comment you need to either tweak your theme or add a plugin. The option for Threaded or Nested comments must be turned on in the Discussion menu under the Settings module in the WordPress dashboard.
You may have seen the WordPress blogs with replies to comments shown directly below another usually in a different color background to differentiate it. You might even see an example in this post eventually or just check out the post previous to this one to see what I mean. There are two ways to do achieve this, one is to edit your theme to add the functionality to it and the other is using a plugin. I usually advocate hard coding functionality in lieu of depending on a plugin, and I may even get around to doing it on this theme but in this case I opted for the lazy way by using a plugin.
The first plugin I tried was called Intense Debate. It has a lot of promise and options and while I can see where Intense Debate is trying to go I didn’t like the way it “took control” of my WordPress Comments. Intense Debate is more like a social comment site and the comments you make on other sites as well as the blogs you own can be administered directly on the Intense Debate site in your dashboard. It has a lot of potential and you may like it but I had difficulty editing comments and some were not showing up. What I consider a drawback is that the plugin is controlled and configured on the Intense Debate dashboard, not the WordPress dashboard. I also didn’t like the interface it added to my posts comment section, although you have the option to use your own style, but if I am going to go through the trouble of adding the style to a plugin I may as well just hard code the functionality into my theme and skip the plugin all together.
Another less obtrusive plugin for threaded comments is Wordpress Thread Comment. That is what I am currently using as of this post and it seems to be doing what I want quite well. Unlike Intense Debate, the Wordpress Thread Comment plugin is configured and controlled within the WordPress dashboard. It has a few options to configure like email notifications, and if you really want to tweak it the reply box HTML and CSS, among other things to tweak are available right in the plugins menu.
If you want to skip the plugins and add the comments enhancements directly to your theme then check out this post WordPress 2.7 Comments Enhancements
Remember the option for Threaded or Nested comments must be turned on in the Discussion menu under the Settings module in the WordPress dashboard.
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Comments
Hey Jeff, in wp 2.7, there’s threaded comment options but with my theme, it’s not enabled. Thanks for your post, I installed the plugin and now it works. Thanks a lot and now I’ll have even more comments!
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Rick Replied:
April 8th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Jeff,
Are you still using Wordpress Thread Comment? I’m wanting to add something like this to my blog and would like to know if you switched to something better.
Thank you.
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Jeff Replied:
April 8th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Yes Rick still using WP Thread Comment and that is what created this comment reply.
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Very interesting plugin, I am still just beginning to learn WordPress and has not heard about such plugin. Tell me, where can I find more information?
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Jeff Replied:
February 27th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Well I gave a few links in the post so try those or maybe…Google
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nice plugin and tutorial
will have a go with my NEW blog later!
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We recently spent the time to upgrade all the WordPress.com themes to support threaded comments natively, so if you’re looking for themes that do that sort of thing, or examples on how to do it, then check them out here: http://svn.automattic.com/wpcom-themes/
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Thank you very much for the post because in one of my blog I use forte theme which is not supporting the plugin, but we can tweak the code and I just found it out through your post thanks again
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Hi,
Thanks for the interesting post.
I love the threaded commenting system…………… : )
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I tried Intense Debate too and I liked it but it did keep interfering with other plugins and all sorts of weird and wonderful things were happening so I had to disable it in the end.
I shall give this other plugin a try rather than touch the code, as in my case it’s probably safer. Thanks for bringing it to our attention – I found it by searching for ‘How to add threaded comments in Wordpress’ via Google.
I’ll nip off and check out the rest of your blog now too
Nikki
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Drive-By comments will be deleted! Like "Thanks for sharing", "Nice post", or any other text that doesn't contribute to the discussion. If you ask a very specific question about your particular WordPress theme, it will probably be deleted. I can fix your WordPress site but for a price. If you ask a question like "Why don't my blog work right", it will be deleted. If you ask a question about your WordPress site without a leaving a link to it, it will be deleted. The point is to ask questions and or comment on the the actual content of the post, and to please use some common sense. All comments are moderated and will appear when approved. Thank you.