v1.8 TinyMCE
Commentics v1.8 will have a new WYSIWYG editor. The previous script (CLEditor) had a critical bug with Internet Explorer 9 which, despite being reported to its author over a year ago (by someone else), has yet to be fixed. A lot of other good editors were tested and TinyMCE stood out. It is compatible with all browsers, is actively developed, and offers many features.
Server Maintenance
The commentics.org website is scheduled for maintenance later today, between 10pm and 6am (GMT). Our hosting company will be physically moving the server to another data centre, meaning that the website will be down for several hours. Sites using Commentics should not be affected, with the small exception of the 'Version Check' and 'News' on the dashboard.
v1.8 Removing Spam
A new improvement to the upcoming Commentics v1.8 is the ability to remove spam. Although the script has a built-in spam filter, in addition to the Akismet service, it's possible that unwanted comments may still make it through. In these cases, you have to remove all of their posts while ensuring that they can't post again. This new feature makes it easy to do this. On the Edit Comment page, you will find a Spam button which takes you to the page below:
v1.8 Adding a Video
Commentics v1.8 has a new BB Code tag for videos. Users can enter video links from various sites including YouTube, Dailymotion, Google Video, MetaCafe, Vimeo and Yahoo. Other sites can be added easily. To enter a video, the following steps are required:
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Step Four
Gravatar Layout
Which layout, in terms of how the text wraps the image, do you think is best?
v1.8 Preview
v1.8 is currently being developed. This version has a particular focus on the prevention and removal of spam (with the addition of Akismet), while also offering a 'Sort By' feature so visitors can choose what order they want the comments displayed in, whether it be by the newest or oldest, helpful or controversial, or positive or critical. This feature is especially useful for websites with review-type comments. Also there will be several bug fixes and improvements including the correction of JavaScript errors, performance improvements for sites with many comments and pages, and extra CSS rules to make it easier to style the frontend. There is still work planned, some of which is tentative, so there may be other substantial feature announcements to follow!
Add-on Screenshots
As an improvement to the Add-ons page you can now find a screenshot of every item showing you what you can expect once it is installed. This will be a particular advantage with the image related add-ons as you can decide whether they suit your website without even downloading them. If you would like to see any other improvements made to the Add-ons page, just leave a comment below.
v1.7 Update
Following a short break from the project, work is now continuing on the latest version, v1.7. A lot of important changes have already been made. These include Rich Snippets, three new languages, Swift Mailer integration (see previous blog post), a WYSIWYG editor in the admin panel, several bug fixes and more. A large focus has been put on making the admin panel easier to understand, with the addition of more help icons and help pages. Still to be added are 'threaded replies', allowing users to reply to replies, and this feature is almost complete. It is currently estimated that this release will be available by the end of this month.
Interview: OilChangeCouponsDeals.com
Can you tell us a bit about your website?
My main website is for information about various oil change companies, mainly in the U.S. and links to how to get to various 3rd party coupons codes.
How did you discover the Commentics site?
Although we don’t particularly work together, my son and I do share information. He had already done some research and I took his advice to use Commentics.
What made you choose the script over others?
My son has a website called themoneycorner.org and he told me about Commentics. He told me it was easy to install. The reason I wanted it was mainly for me to post the current deals for any given oil change outlets.
What advice would you give to fellow admins?
I don’t really have any advice as such for admins as the questions I have posted on the forums have been answered fairly quickly with good postings to help me.
How, if at all, did you customize the script?
Personally I modified the script to make it easier for me to post new advice comments but also to give others to post relevant comments. Therefore I disabled the Captcha and email features. Unless I get spammed too much I can easily see from the control panel which comments to include so I don’t really see a problem with housekeeping because to delete the comment simply means clicking the X.
What would you like to see added or improved?
For me the Commentics script offers all the features I am looking for as I can enable and disable any or all of the features I want to include. I suppose if I wanted to be a bit picky it would be nice to be able to choose the font, color and size in the comment. Having said that unless I haven’t found the hyperlink there does seem to be a lack of good documentation. For example I tried to look for an answer to what the Pagination feature was for ‘Range’. I could make a post but if this feature was described in some documentation then I wouldn't need to wait for a reply to find out.
Have you ever needed to use the support site?
Yes I have used the support site but usually I am unable to find the particular answer to my problem so I resort to the forum.
Has Commentics helped your website so far?
I can’t say how the added feature of allowing comments has helped my site so far as I have not had it implemented long enough. I can say why I wanted it though and what I hope it will achieve. The word is that search engines (and by that I mean Google of course) likes fresh and up to date content. If I look at some of the top ranking sites they tend to be WordPress sites. I’m a bit of an old soldier still in HTML coding and hope that by adding new comments myself or from other people the site will be fresh and up to date, thus pleasing the search giant and improve my rankings.
Would you recommend Commentics to others?
As of now I can not think why I would not recommend Commentics to any one. In fact I already have and once I have fully implemented on oilchangecouponsdeals.com and am a bit more conversant to how I want it to work I shall implement it on my other few sites I have.
Do you have any final words to add?
I don’t really have anything else to add to what I have already said except when I get my next payment from Google I shall certainly make a donation.