Tempus Fugit

Not everyone has such active commenters on their blog that a return after 10 minutes will reveal numerous responses. If your blog is anything like my blog, comments on an entry might take place every couple of hours, over a few days. Because of this, the Subscribe to Comments plugin by Jennifer at Scriptygoddess has been a lifesaver. When leaving a comment, users are given an option to subscribe to that entry’s comments, and will receive e-mail notifications of replies. The plugin was written soon after the release of WordPress 1.2 Mingus. Although the original work was Jennifer’s, several others, myself included, have contributed to the code, adding features and fixing bugs. Jennifer has become unable to maintain the code as of late, due to personal factors. I’ve sort of taken the code under my wing, and have been giving it a little TLC, cleaning it up, and adding features that people have suggested in the last year.

What follows is a breakdown of the changes I’ve implemented so far (subject to change):

• Rudimentary security
  • Users can no longer just enter a random e-mail into the subscription manager and modify someone else’s subscriptions
  • In order to modify subscriptions, users need to use a special link, given in notification e-mails, and printed in the comments form as long as they have their comment cookie
• Recognition of subscription status
  • Unsubscribed users see the “subscribe to comments” checkbox, but subscribed users see a “Manage your subscriptions” link
  • The author of the post is recognized by either login or comment cookie and is assumed to be subscribed to the entry (as they will receive notifications through WordPress)
• Vastly improved subscription manager
  • Uses visual style of WordPress interface
  • Can be optionally accessed via “Manage” menu in WordPress for level 8+ users
  • Javascript “are you sure?” prompt after users click the “block” button to block further notifications
  • E-mail verification of block requests
  • Javascript “invert selection” link to check/uncheck subscriptions for mass deletion
  • “Return to the page you were viewing” link that persists at the top of the page, so that users can easily return to the post they were reading once they are done modifying subscriptions
• Ability to let users change notification e-mail address
  • In the subscription manager, users can request that their notification address be changed for all their subscriptions
  • Special link is sent to the old address for verification
  • Once clicked, their e-mail address will be changed instantly for all their comments
• Easy integration into comments form
  • No modification of comments form needed for WP 1.5 (supported themes)
  • For users who want custom placement of the checkbox/link to subscription manager, this can be done with one simple function call, placed anywhere in the comment form
• Subscription without leaving a comment
  • By popular demand, you can now offer visitors the option of subscribing to comments on an entry without having to leave a comment themselves
  • If the reader later decides to join the conversation, their subscription continues without them having to explicitly set it

Here are some teaser screenshots, with Flickr annotation: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I’ll be running the code here on my site, so feel free to check it out (please don’t leave gibberish or spam comments… try to find an entry that sparks your interest and leave a legitimate comment). Alternatively, send your gibberish test comments to this entry on my temporary WP 1.5.1 testbed.

I’m probably going to hold off releasing this code until after WordPress 1.5.1 is released. I’m not sure when that will be, but my guess would be 8 weeks, tops. Until then, I want you to give me all your ideas, criticisms, tweaks, improvements, and general thoughts on the plugin. Tell me what the current version does that annoys you, what features you wish it had and what changes would make it work better for you.

Update: The public alpha test has started!