Updated. Originally posted April, 2004

Adding a Recent Comments section to your weblog is easy and straightforward. There are two basic approaches. The first is to list the last N number of recent comments; the second the last N most recently commented on entries.

The most recent comments

In this example of Recent Comments the last 10 comments are listed, regardless of how many times there may have been comments to the same entry. The comment authors names are linked to their respective websites, if they have them, and the entry title is linked to the author's comment in the entry.

For most recent comments like shown in the example to the left, add the following code to the...

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Question

How can I list recent comments to my blog on my Main Index page?

Answer

There are two basic variations on this type of display.

Via MTComments tag

You can put the following into your Main Index Template: <MTComments lastn="6" sort_order="descend"> <p><$MTCommentAuthor$> said:<br /> <$MTCommentBody$></p> </MTComments>

This will display the 6 most recent comments made on any of the entries in your weblog, and sort them in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

Via...

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In between putting this up and going back there now to make a link to it, I see it's a bit different than when I first installed this. The one I was using simply took you to the Individual Archive Page where the comment was posted; this new version takes you directly to the comment. But it's set up here for .php so if you're using something else I'm guessing you'll have to change that.

<MTComments lastn="5"> <$MTCommentAuthorLink spam_protect="1"$>: <$MTCommentBody remove_html="1" trim_to="100"$>... [<a href="<$MTBlogArchiveURL$><$MTCommentEntryID pad="1"$>.php#<MTCommentID>">go</a>]<br/><br/> </MTComments>

The "lastn=5" is how many...

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There are two types of ways you can show recent comments on your sidebar. The first method is to shown last N comments.

<MTComments lastn="5" sort_order="descend"> <MTCommentEntry> [<a href="<MTEntryLink archive_type="Individual">#c<$MTCommentID$>" title="Comment Permalink">#</a>] </MTCommentEntry> <$MTCommentAuthorLink spam_protect="1" show_email="0"$> <MTCommentAuthorIdentity>: <MTCommentBody convert_breaks="0" trim_to="50" remove_html="1"> <MTCommentEntry> [<a href="<MTEntryLink...

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For those who may be wondering, I have obtained the 'Recent Comments' and 'Recent Trackbacks' stuff in the sidebar of the homepage using the following template code.

encode_xml is used to guard against quotes, ampersands and the like. encode_ampersands is a plugin that does the same job for URLs, changing & into &amp; in order that the page does not become invalid.

<MTIfPingsActive> <div class="module-trackbacks module"> <h2 class="module-header">Trackbacks</h2> <div class="module-content"> <p>Received Pings</p> <ul class="module-list"> <MTPings...

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Busymom wanted to know how to get a listing of the most recent comments on her site. Since the most helpful people are in the blogosphere, they came to her rescue.

Click here for the plugin and info.

Unzip and upload the file to your mt/plugins directory.

Sample code:

Recent Searches:<br /> <MTSearches lastn="10" unique="1"> <a href='<$MTCGIPath$><$MTSearchScript$>?search=<MTSearchValue>'> <MTSearchValue></a><br /> </MTSearches> <br /> Top Searches:<br /> <MTSearches lastn="10" rank="1"> <MTSearchRank>. <a href='<$MTCGIPath$><$MTSearchScript$>?search=<MTSearchValue>'> <MTSearchValue></a>...

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Hi everyone, my name is Jay Allen and I am the Product Manager for Movable Type. I'm writing today to address - what else? - comment spam.

This is an issue that, as many of you know, I have spent several thousand waking hours working on since its first appearance back in the fall of 2003, both as the author of MT-Blacklist and as the maintainer of the Comment Spam Clearinghouse. This is an issue which Six Apart takes very seriously, as evidenced not only in the improvements in Movable Type v3.x but also, in some part, by my hiring to this position.

Over the last month, we have been devoting a great deal of resources to solving the comment spam problem once and for...

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Weblogs are not just a one-way medium for publishing. With the use of a singular, often conversational voice, enhanced by the loosely coupled nature of the Internet and lightweight syndication formats, weblogs are akin to conversations, regardless of the size and makeup of the audience. "A" writes about something on their mind -- an experience, the news, or a project's status. "B" reads it and expresses their take. "C" finds both posts interesting and notes something A and B has not mentioned and so on.

Not everyone has a weblog (sadly) and not everyone wants to make a post to their weblog for everything...

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Page: 1 2 2 Pages.

Publishing Custom Pages with Movable Type

MT has had the ability to output any content in a template since version 1.0 in 2001, however it doesn't have the "push button" simplicity of Wordpress' Pages feature. For those of you unfamiliar with Wordpress, its Pages feature allows...

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Posted on 08/02/2005 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ajax Archive Drop Downs

In this thread, Gary highlighted how to have drop downs of archives that basically redirected to the appropriate page once an archive was chosen. With this tutorial, I'll take that one step further and use...

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Displaying Entries

Problem

You need to display entry data in your published pages.

Solutions

Use the template tags that are prefixed with MTEntry.

Discussion

Entry tags can be used to display the contents of an entry and its related information. These tags can be used in MTArchiveList or MTEntries tag contexts. Entry tags may also be used anywhere in a Individual Archive template.

Here are some of the more common Entry tags used in templates: • MTEntries

MTEntries is the most powerful and adaptive template tag in Movable Type. It is a container tag representing a list of...

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(Reprinted from here)

When a visitor submits a comment, sometimes it takes a while for the comment page to refresh to reflect that their comment was successfully added. During this time, the user may click the "Post" button again (and again) which causes their comment to be submitted multiple times.

This hack modifies MovableType to simply ignore the same comment being entered multiple times for an entry. Two comments are considered the same if the comment text and the name, email address and url of the comment auther are exactly the same.

The original post says if you are using Blacklist you need to modify the MTBlacklist.pm file. This is not true if you are using Version 1.62 because Jay Allen took the mail functions out. So if you are using Blacklist, you should modify exlib/jayallen/MTBlPost.pm. For trackbacks, modify MTBlPing.pm....

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Required: MT3x

Marie b. asks if there's a way to stop MT from emailing you your own comments. There was back for 2.6 and 2.6x, and I posted that here, along with the info for stopping Blacklist from doing the same thing here and then again here for Blacklist v1.62.

Last year when MT 3.x came out, all that went out the window. I spent weeks trying to hack 3.0D and never figured it out - at which time I threw in the towel. Sure, it's frustrating to get my own comments emailed to me, and it's a pain in the ass, but the alternative was not getting anyone's comments emailed to me. That's just not an option since I like to reply to people who comment on my sites. Thankfully, marie b. brought...

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One of the primary concerns for this new release of Movable Type was to really enable the creation and management of a community around your blogs. But you can't build your community unless you know who's participating in it, so we've made individual profile pages for each commenter who provides feedback on your blog, along with powerful new listings pages for managing the members of your community.

What's New Since The Last Version?

In Movable Type 3.0x and 3.1x, the platform offered a simple listing of commenters with the commenter's status (whether they were banned or approved), their name, a link to their TypeKey profile, and some simple tools to approve or ban the commenter.

With the new version, we've...

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Required: Java

This wasn't nearly as hard as it looks. I'm reprinting it here (adjusted for what I said) because things on the net tend to disappear when you aren't looking.

Here's the two functions you need. Put these at the top of your page (**needed on EVERY page you want to do this collapse/expand thingy**)

<script language="javascript"> function showMore(varA1, varB1){ var123 = ('varXYZ' + (varA1)); varABC = ('varP' + (varA1)); if( document.getElementById ) { if( document.getElementById(var123).style.display ) { if( varB1 != 0 ) { document.getElementById(var123).style.display = "block"; document.getElementById(varABC).style.display = "none"; } else {...

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Required: MySQL, PHP

If you have PHP enabled and a MySQL database, you can use this closecomments php file.

Keep in mind - this puppy is going to close the comments on your entire database - meaning every single blog that's on that installation using that database.

Step 1: As always, Unzip the shit.

Open the file in a text editor and change the bold printed stuff to your own information (leave the single quotes - just change the stuff inside them):

$database = 'your_database_name'; $dbuser = 'database_user'; $dbpass = 'database_password';

Then change this field:

$closedays = 10;

Right now it says, "I'll close all comments on any entry older than 10 days". You can change that...

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Required: Java, Plugins

I did this so long ago and over so many migraines and fumbling around, I don't know exactly where I got it from. So I'm just going to wing it.

Put this in the <head> part of your comments template.

<!-- Script for clickable smilies --> <script language="javascript"> <!-- function writeImgTag(code) { var cache = document.comments_form.text.value; this.code = code; document.comments_form.text.value = cache + " :" + code + ":"; document.comments_form.text.focus(); } //--> </script>

You need the above code so that when someone clicks a smiley, the code pops up in the window they are typing in.

How I got them where they are is a bit...

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Required: Java

<!-- Script stuff for text formatting buttons --> <script language="javascript"> <!-- function ahrefThis() { strSelection = document.selection.createRange().text if (strSelection == "") document.text.text.focus() strHref = prompt("Enter the URL of the site you to link:","http://") if (strHref == null) return; document.selection.createRange().text = "<a href="" + strHref + "" target="_blank" class="text">" + strSelection + "</a>" return; }

function boldThis(from) { strSelection = document.selection.createRange().text if (strSelection == "") { document.text.text.focus() if (from == 2) document.text.text.select() strSelection =...

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That was easy enough. You can find the MT thread here, and the actual hack here. Pay attention to the fact that the hack is a little different if you're using MT 2.6x.

Related Entries: • Closing old comments • Collapsing Entries and Comments • Listing Recent Comments • Embedding smileys on your comments pop-ups • Blacklist 1.62 vs Comments Notification Hack • Stop Stylesheet Rebuilds

Posted by Iki at February 20, 2004 09:42 PM

Comments

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I just spent an exhaustive hour trying to figure out why this wasn't working. The old hack doesn't work with the new (December 11, 2003) version of MT-Blacklist. This seems to be because Jay removed the Mail functions and put them in a file alone, so they are no longer inside the Blacklist.pm file. I posted a message to the :sp: outlining what I did. You can find that post here.

Related Entries: • MTBlacklist vs Comment Notification Hack • Installing MT-Blacklist • Closing old comments • Collapsing Entries and Comments • Listing Recent Comments • Embedding smileys on your comments pop-ups

Posted by Iki at February 20, 2004 09:47 PM

Comments

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A container tag whose contents will be displayed if the entry in context was posted on a different day than the following/next entry in the list.

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MTDateHeader

...

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