What I need

I need some help to get CommentLuv through it’s last hoop before I can release it to the world at large and my deadline for that is 25th September 2008 – the last day to enter a plugin for the Wordpress MU Plugin Contest

That’s where (I hope) you come in. I have the plugin working nicely on a few blogs and the click tracking and stats are showing results for my wee group of test beds but I need a larger scale test… I’ve removed all the bugs that I can see and I’m confident that it wont do any damage because it doesn’t touch the database and most of the work is done on the client side through javascript.

The only interaction it has with the wordpress code is to listen for a single post action, if it’s a single post it puts the correct javascript in the header and that’s it. The majority of the code is the settings page and action hook code.

What you could get

Money! I’ll tell you about the money now before you get bored and miss the rest
$100 dollars by Paypal (or equivalent prize in Amazon or other voucher of your choice) for some lucky person who helps me over the next few days to a week by doing the things detailed below. The winner will be decided by the randomness of the UK lottery on Saturday 26th (1 day after the guaranteed 100 Million Euromillions jackpot which must be won!). I’ll split up the 49 numbers available equally (yes I know 49 doesn’t divide well unless it’s a 7 but we’ll work something out) between everyone and publish them at 6pm, whoever gets a match with the bonus number drawn wins the moolah.

Not just that, part of this is making and receiving comments to see if it behaves on a large scale and for that there will be a list of all those participating viewable only to those participating where you can find blogs that give 10x the luv (see how below) which will increase your traffic/readership/luv rating and more! (obviously, this needs a few people to help, I can’t do it with just 5!)

The technical bits ( )

Don’t worry! it’s not hard, just as easy as installing a plugin and registering your url with the hub site (and dancing naked in the rain).

it goes like this…

For people with Wordpress own hosted blogs only

1

Download the beta of CommentLuv (version 10 pre final) and Install.

Download CommentLuv (right click and copy url to use the one click plugin updater if you use it)

If you already have CommentLuv please deactivate it first and then upload the commentluv folder overwriting the existing one and activate it in the dashboard plugins page. Go straight to the commentluv settings page under settings/commentluv and see the bit at the bottom about entering your field ID’s (it sounds nastier than it is).

You can see in your theme’s comments.php what your comment form uses for identifying the form, the name field, the url field and the comment input area. If it uses ID= then use that in the settings or if it uses name= ,enter the value in the settings page and choose “name” as the type.

There are some screenshots here at the Ajax CommentLuv Plugin page over at CommentLuv.com

It sometimes works right out the box because the default ID’s I put in there have worked on a few blogs without any need for changing. It depends on who designed your theme. Other ways to find out are to click and drag over your comment form while you are logged out of your blog and view the selection source (in firefox) or use the developer toolbar to show form information.

2

Register your url at CommentLuv.com

Pop over to my sister site CommentLuv.com and register like you would with any normal Wordpress blog. Activate your registration and visit the settings page (http://www.commentluv.com/settings) whilst logged on.

There you can register your blog URL (preferably where you’ll be installing the plugin) and you will be given some code to display a verification image on your blog home page (the page pointed to by the URL you register). Once you place the code on your site you can come back to the settings page at commentluv.com and click “verify”. The site will then visit your url and look for the code.

If all goes well and it can see your site and verification it will be ready to rok (so it says)

Set your feed cache age and if you want see if it can find your feed automatically. If it can’t then you can enter it in manually if you like (although it all works better if your site has an autofindable feed which is standard in wordpress blogs)

Check for your Commentluv member ID and enter it in the box located on the plugin settings page on your blog dashboard, check that click tracking is enabled (ticked) and update your settings.

3

Register at the support forum

yes I know there’s a whole lorra registering going on but they’re all under one roof and not with any shady company and it’s all to do with CommentLuv. There you’ll be able to report any errors or suggestions and I wont need to use some sort of mass email script and email people all the time. gosh I love forums and blogs! emailing is a right pain in the arsebone. I just cannae be bothered with it!, I hate saying the same things and giving the same answers over and over again (except giving links to pages that say the things I’ve said over and over again) but… anyhoooooo

Done!

All that’s left to do is use commentluv by visiting the the blogs who use the new version and see how it plays with others. Return to the CommentLuv site often and see if the stats make sense for what you’re seeing yourself and report any anomalies or strange behaviour at the forum.

Because I will be releasing this to the plugin contest I would love for you to love it and vote for it when the time comes, it might get some more exposure and I’ll be sure to have a permanent part of the about page showing links to the people who help. New users will want to start using the plugin when it’s final as soon as possible and the links page would be a perfect place for them to start clicking through to ajax commentluv enabled blogs. (that could be you!)

Please leave a comment here or at the forum to say you’re participating

The Links:
CommentLuv Beta plugin file
CommentLuv.com hub site
FiddyP Support Forum