Oh the fun of creating new things!!! I’ve had the time of my coding life over the past few weeks while I develop the 2.0 version of CommentLuv.

It’s took me to the sites for jQuery, Mysql, php, wordpress and others a million times and I’ve learned tons from my toe dipping into mysql and seeing just how many requests are sent to my server…

I can’t wait to show you what is happening to what started off as a simple WordPress only plugin!

Here’s the list of changes for the upcoming 2.0 loveliness .

The Plugin

  • Runs with jQuery
    This will help an awful lot to combat the automated spam comment scripts. Because the plugin is activated and displayed using javascript, the remote script wont get called by people posting directly to the comments file or for Curl’ing scripts. I’m happy with that!
  • Runs with AJAX
    This makes it much faster, it wont add any load on the hosting server because all the fetching is done client side and it’s all done while the visitor is typing their comment.
  • Link Tracking
    Track which of your comments get the last blog post clicked, see what post titles work best for you

  • Works with registered users and on WordPress MU
    Now blogs with ‘register to comment’ restrictions can use the plugin. It’s also compatible with WordPress MU which opens up a whole new section of bloggers.
  • Theoretically compatible with more than just blogs or wordpress
    Because it uses javascript only, it opens the plugin up to any blog that allows the user to add code to the head of their template. This even opens it up to places like forums and simple guest books. Work will start on other platforms as soon as the 2.0 final is out
  • Free Support Site
    CommentLuv.com is a support site where I can provide lots of cool extras that you just can’t get with the current commentluv plugin. It only takes a moment to register a site and afterwards you get a whole heap of cool things (see The Site below)
  • It looks pretty!
  • Language support
    I’ve added the code for language support, there is a German language file coming soon as well as Hebrew and Chinese
  • It’s FREE
    I’m not a big corporation, I’m just one guy with too much pc time on his hands. If the site gets a lot of traffic, I might make some money on adspace or I might not. It doesn’t matter, I have felt a great sense of fun and satisfaction from creating this plugin and site and find it really helps me to learn new programming languages and methods to have a project that continues to challenge me it’s also nice when people say how cool I am for creating a plugin :-P

commentluv site

Advantages of registering your site for free at the CommentLuv.com site

  • Choose from your last 10 posts instead of just the one when you comment on CL blogs
  • Faster retrieval of your posts for your registered URL
  • Choose your cache time for even speedier return of links
  • Change your feed address
    Useful if you want to register a domain that has no feed of it’s own so you can use blogs with KeywordLuv to point to your business domain with keywords and also have a titled link to it’s/your associated blog.
  • Default link and anchor text
    Set it so the plugin returns a link to a particular page on any site when you comment on CL blogs using your normal domain name as URL. This is particularly useful if you want to promote a post that isn’t on your last 10 posts or promote a splash page or if your blog is offline.
  • Statistics
    By being registered, you get your sites comments that get a commentluv link and all the comments you make on other CL blogs stored which will enable the site to show you where you’ve commented and if they’ve commented on you.

    Other great stats will be things like, your most advertised blog post, your most frequented blog, your most commented post, the top commentluv receiving commentator and so on. I am working on some pretty hardcore things that will create a ‘map’ type network for you to look at that shows how your own personal ‘comment web’ grows.

  • A place to report spam
    If you find a particular url is spamming yours and/or your friends site then this can be dealt with at source, enough reports of a spammer will see them removed from CommentLuv and no blog using it will display their last post so it benefits everyone, when a spammer knows that no CommentLuv enabled blog will show their last post, they’ll stop using those sites to spam their crap.
  • Featured sites
    Every week will be a new CommentLuv enabled site featured bringing fame and fortune to the blog owner. It will be on the first page and (if all goes well with traffic) should get a fair amount of click-thrus
  • CommentLuv directory
    Add keywords and a description to your site and users will be able to browse through different categories to find what they’re after. This could increase your traffic and commentators (and spammers I suppose but see above about reporting spam) immensely
  • Support
    One stop shop for questions and feature requests
  • Exclusivity
    Enable CommentLuv only for registered users. Could be useful if you’re finnicky with giving out links
  • Contests!!
    I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time but I didn’t have the resources in place. I’d love to have random ‘spot’ prize winners, all someone (registered user) has to do is comment on a registered CommentLuv enabled blog and they could win a cool gadget or Amazon voucher or paypal payment.

    The great thing is, the blog owner wins too! This could really encourage comments for blog owners and they also get to win something too. Rules will be simple, a winner will know they’ve won because instead of their last blog post coming back, a winners message will be there. They’ll have to claim the prize on the blog that they won it on so the blog owner gets return visitors who participate in the discussion.

Summary

So, that’s it (for now). Some of these changes are already live and others will be phased in as and when I am happy that each new addition is working well. I should have the stable beta release of the new plugin by the end of the weekend. Once that’s out and doing well, all the rest of the stuff can be worked on with the site without having to change the plugin. I might even get it done in time for entry into the WordPress MU plugin contest.

Once the stable version goes to a full 2.0 final, I will slowly phase out the remote scripts for the existing commentluv. In the past 8 days, the remote script has been hit over half a million times! lots of those are unnecessary spam hits but it still handles tens and tens of thousands of last blog posts every single day so I will have to handle the handover gently!

It amazes me how long someone will wait to upgrade a plugin or wordpress because they feel FTP is too intimidating to try and do it themselves. It’s a normal thing though I suppose, wordpress is so easy to use that just about anyone can get a blog up and running with very little knowledge. I hope WP2.7 comes with a browsable plugin directory from the dashboard with automatic plugin upgrades and installation to make things easier.

You can register your site already at the CommentLuv.com site and be one of the first to be able to choose from your last 10 posts on the sites that install the new version. It’s already live here and at commentluv.com and a few beta testers sites (see previous post). It’s free to register and easy to verify your site with the automated process on the settings page once you’re logged on.