About
Commenting provides a beefier implementation of comments than the earlier Comment plugin. It allows for comments on any record type (in theory, at least), and includes both ReCaptchas and Akismet spam detection.
Commenting also allows for moderation and commenting permissions based on role. Logged-in users are not required to submit recaptchas.
Requirements
Omeka 1.5 or higher.
The commenting plugin makes use of both ReCaptchas and the Akismet spam-detection service. To prevent spam comments, you will want to get API keys to both of these services and add them to the plugin's configuration.
Configuration
After installing the plugin, you will have options to configure various settings related to display and permissions for commenting on the public side of your website.
- Threaded Comments
- Check to display threaded comments
- ReCaptcha Keys
- The ReCaptcha keys duplicate the fields found in the Omeka Security settings, so if you have already entered a key in those settings, you do not need to re-enter. Go to ReCaptcha to get a key.
- Permissions
- Options are available to specify what roles can moderate, add, and view comments
- Allowing Public commenting will override the permissions set for adding and viewing comments -- they will be open to all
- Akismet API key
- If you allowing public commenting, you will need to obtain an Akismet API key for spam management. You may use a key you are currently implementing on a blog or another site that collects public feedback.
See USE CASES below for examples of configuration combinations.
Moderating Comments
Once the plugin is installed, a Comments tab will appear in the public admin interface. To moderate comments, go to the Comments tab.
All comments collected will be listed on a browse page, and you may filter them by Approved and Needs Approval for ease of vetting.
You may also batch approve or Unapprove submissions by checking the Select All box.
Displaying Comments
Commenting will automatically add comment fields to Item and Collection show pages.
To enable commenting on other record types from modules (e.g. SimplePages or ExhibitBuilder), you will have to add the following lines to the appropriate place in the plugin's public view script:
<?php commenting_echo_comments(); ?> <?php commenting_echo_comment_form(); ?>
For example, to show comments on exhibit sections and pages, the file /plugins/ExhibitBuilder/views/public/exhibits/show.php could look like:
<?php head(array('title' => html_escape(exhibit('title') . ' : '. exhibit_page('title')), 'bodyid'=>'exhibit','bodyclass'=>'show')); ?> <div id="primary"> <h1><?php echo link_to_exhibit(); ?></h1> <div id="nav-container"> <?php echo exhibit_builder_section_nav();?> <?php echo exhibit_builder_page_nav();?> </div> <h2><?php echo exhibit_page('title'); ?></h2> <?php exhibit_builder_render_exhibit_page(); ?> <div id="exhibit-page-navigation"> <?php echo exhibit_builder_link_to_previous_exhibit_page(); ?> <?php echo exhibit_builder_link_to_next_exhibit_page(); ?> </div> <?php commenting_echo_comments(); ?> <?php commenting_echo_comment_form(); ?> </div> <?php foot(); ?>
Keep in mind that updating themes or plugins will clobber your addition of the commenting functions.
The Commenting plugin knows how to work with SimplePages and ExhibitBuilder. Due to variability in how plugins store their data in the database, other record types and views supplied by other plugins might or might not work out of the box. Please ask on the forums or dev list if you would like Commenting to work with other plugins.
Use Cases
Limited, moderated commenting
An institution wants only trusted people to leave comments for anyone to read. It doesn't trust some of them enough to allow comments to be automatically public.
The semi-trusted people could have the Researcher role in Omeka, with commenting configured to allow Researchers to comment. The Admin role is the only role that can moderate comments to approve them, and Public is allowed to view comments.