doc/plugins/contrib/comments.mdwn



[[!template id=plugin name=comments author="[[Simon_McVittie|smcv]]"]]
[[!tag type/useful]]
This plugin adds "blog-style" comments. The intention is that on a non-wiki site
(like a blog) you can lock all pages for admin-only access, then allow otherwise
unprivileged (or perhaps even anonymous) users to comment on posts.
When using this plugin, you should also enable [[htmlscrubber]] and either [[htmltidy]]
or [[htmlbalance]]. Directives are filtered out by default, to avoid commenters slowing
down the wiki by causing time-consuming processing. As long as the recommended plugins
are enabled, comment authorship should hopefully be unforgeable by CGI users.
The plugin adds a new [[ikiwiki/PageSpec]] match type, postcomment, for use
with anonok_pagespec from the [[plugins/anonok]] plugin or locked_pages from
the [[plugins/lockedit]] plugin. Typical usage would be something like:
locked_pages => "!postcomment(*)"

to allow non-admin users to comment on pages, but not edit anything. You can also do
anonok_pages => "postcomment(*)"

to allow anonymous comments (the IP address will be used as the "author").
There are some global options for the setup file:

comments_shown_pagespec: pages where comments will be displayed inline, e.g. blog/*
or */discussion.
comments_open_pagespec: pages where new comments can be posted, e.g.
blog/* and created_after(close_old_comments) or */discussion
comments_pagename: if this is e.g. comment_ (the default), then comments on the
[[sandbox]] will be called something like sandbox/comment_12
comments_allowdirectives: if true (default false), comments may contain IkiWiki
directives
comments_commit: if true (default true), comments will be committed to the version
control system

This plugin aims to close the [[todo]] item "[[todo/supporting_comments_via_disussion_pages]]",
and is currently available from [[smcv]]'s git repository on git.pseudorandom.co.uk (it's the
postcomment branch). A demo wiki with the plugin enabled is running at
http://www.pseudorandom.co.uk/2008/ikiwiki/demo/.
Known issues:

Needs code review
The access control via postcomment() is rather strange (see [[discussion]] for more details)
There is some common code cargo-culted from other plugins (notably inline and editpage) which
should probably be shared
Joey doesn't think it should necessarily use internal pages (see [[discussion]])


I haven't done a detailed code review, but I will say I'm pleased you
avoided re-implementing inline! --[[Joey]]

Wishlist:

tbm would like anonymous people to be able to enter their name and possibly email
address
smcv would like an indication of who you're posting as / the ability to log in
as someone else (even if anonymous comments are allowed, it'd be nice to be
able to choose to log in with a username or OpenID, like in Livejournal);
perhaps editpage needs this too

Fixed issues:

Joey didn't think the \[[!comments]] directive was appropriate; comments now appear
on pages selected with a [[ikiwiki/pagespec]]
Joey thought that raw HTML should always be allowed; it now is