On a quest to style comments with alternating background colors (or any style) I chose to employ Adam Kalsey's MT-SimpleComments (w/PHPSimpleComments) plugin. The main feature of this plugin is to integrate trackbacks and comments into one seamless list and provide a unified count of comments and pings together. It also adds the handy dandy <MTSimpleCommentsOdd> tag which specifies 1 for odd- and 0 for even-numbered comments (thus allowing for alternating comment styles). Not that I have a real need for any of that because 1) nobody reads my blogs and 2) even if someone did they'd probably never ping me and again 3) even if they did and left a comment there are unlikely to be THREE comments on any given entry which is what it would take to see the coolness of the alternate styling. BUT, I am SO over that. It is the exercise in plugin and template tweaking that holds the real value for me! :-)
There's always a glitch in the matrix, though, and for me (this time!) it is that v1.32 function.MTSimpleCommentCount.php does not work outside the <MTSimpleComments> tag like it should. To display a unified comment count, I had to use the file from v1.31 available here from the guy who did the first php port of this plugin. I haven't found anyone else with this problem, so perhaps it's just user error. I would be glad to receive any suggestions on this.
Here are the details on how I implemented this plugin both for integration and alternating comment styles on my own sites...
(note: this is just one way of using SimpleComments - as always, tweak to suit your own preferences)
I placed the following in my Individual Entry Archive template from <p class="posted"> to just above <MTEntryIfCommentsOpen>
<MTEntryIfAllowPings> <p class="techstuff">PING URL for this entry: <$MTEntryTrackbackLink$></p>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<h2 id="comments">COMMENTS: <MTSimpleCommentCount></h2> <MTSimpleComments> <div class="commentbg<MTSimpleCommentOdd>"> <MTSimpleCommentIfTrackback> <a name="trackback-<MTPingID>"></a> <p><strong><a href="<MTPingURL>"><MTPingBlogName></a></strong> :: <$MTPingDate$><br /> <MTPingExcerpt><br /> Read more in <a href="<$MTPingURL$>"><$MTPingTitle$> ยป</a></p> </MTSimpleCommentIfTrackback>
<MTSimpleCommentIfComment> <a name="comment-<MTCommentID>"></a> <p><strong><$MTCommentAuthorLink default_name="Anonymous" spam_protect="1" show_email="0"$></strong> <$MTCommentAuthorIdentity$> :: <$MTCommentDate$><br /> <$MTCommentBody$></p> </MTSimpleCommentIfComment> </div> </MTSimpleComments>
I edited the "posted by" line in my Main Index template:
I also edited the "posted" lines in my Date-Based Archive and Category Archive templates to incorporate the new tag
I added a variation of the following to my stylesheet template:
.content .commentbg0 p { font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; }
.content .commentbg1 { background-color: #eee; border: solid 0px #fff; padding: 5px 15px; margin-bottom: 0px; }
.content .commentbg1 p { font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; }
/* this styles trackback ping url */ .content p.techstuff { font-size: x-small; }
I did, in fact, have the same problem with MTSimpleCommentCount not functioning outside MTSimpleComments. Thanks for the fix!
Hi there. I just updated MT 4 and was looking for simplecomments to work with mt4. thanks for the fix. gonna try now!