Introduction

This has been a long time coming and I am happy to announce the release of Sexy Comments v1.4! With this version comes a lot of changes…so be sure to read the installation section! Along with simple optimizations and general restructure, the following features are now available:

Feature List

• Ajax comment preview (new feature)
• Author post highlighting
• Avatars
  • Either display/hide avatars
  • Select your avatar service of choice (Gravatar and MyBlogLog options are available)
  • Specify maximum avatar dimension (Gravatar Only)
  • Customize default/trackback avatars
• Comment Reply-To (new feature)
• Comment Themes (new feature)
• CSS overriding
• “Number of Comments” message customization
• jQuery inclusion toggling

Installation & Upgrading

1. Download Sexy Comments v1.4 from the WordPress plugin directory
2. Unzip that little sucker
3. Place sexy-comments folder in your wp-content/plugins directory (it should look like this: wp-content/plugins/sexy-comments/
4. Log in to your WordPress plugin admin page and activate the plugin.
5. In the plugin admin page, click the SexyComments sub-menu.
6. Customize the settings until you have something that works for you.
7. Locate your theme’s template file that displays comments (typically comments.php). Remove the comment output loop and replace with:

   < ?php sexycomments::show($comments); ?>
   

8. If you plan to use the Ajax features or the Reply-To features, you will need to do two things.
   1. Enable jQuery and jQuery Form Extension via the Plugin > SexyComments administration page.
   2. Locate the template file that contains the comment submission form (typically comments.php near the bottom) and replace that chunk of code with:

      < ?php sexycomments::form(); ?>
      

   NOTE: Be sure not to touch the section that generates the form for adding comments! This plugin does not re-create the comment creation form.

9. Lastly, consider disabling the plugin CSS and taking the example CSS provided and customize it to suit your theme’s color scheme.
10. You should be all set, now! w00t w00t! Go make a MyBlogLog or Gravatar account if you don’t already have one and upload an avatar. Gravatar tends to be pretty flakey so I’d suggest using MyBlogLog.

FAQs

• Q: What is this “comment loop” you speak of?

  A: Ah, yes. That thing. Well, its anatomy looks similar to this (there will be some variation from theme to theme):

  < ?php if ($comments) : ?>
  	<!-- some HTML is typically here -->
  
  	< ?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
          <!-- the output HTML of each individual comment -->
  
  	< ?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>
  	<!--...more HTML -->
   < ?php else : // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?>
  	< ?php if ('open' == $post->comment_status) : ?>
  		<!-- typically a blank area or a place with a comment -->
  	 < ?php else : // comments are closed ?>
  		<!-- closed comments section -->
  	< ?php endif; ?>
  < ?php endif; ?>
  

• Q: Ok…so I just upgraded to a new version and there is nothing in the SexyComments admin page…WTF?

  A: Yeah. Sorry about that. In this version, the directory structure has changed drastically and Sexy Comments should no longer live in wp-content/plugins/sexycomments.php OR wp-content/plugins/sexycomments/sexycomments.php, but instead it should be in wp-content/plugins/sexy-comments/. Make sure that the plugin is in the correct location of your plugins directory.

• Q: What happened to sexycomments_print($comments)? I used to use that to get my comments to display…will it still work?

  A: Along with a directory structure overhaul, this version had a large code overhaul as well. The old function (sexycomments_print) is deprecated but will still work for the time being. I greatly urge you to move over to the new function call sexycomments::show($comments) as that is the new *impoved* function.

However, I took it and butchered it beyond recognition. I did a lot of restructuring of the templates, location of elements, and I ripped apart the CSS stylesheet and pasted its parts back together with a some additions. I’ll adjust this theme some more, add a header graphic, zip it up and make it available for download soon.

UPDATE: I already think this needs more work….hrm. I’ll have to brainstorm on what to do to it.