>> enough already. Indeed, this very page would accidentally get matched by rules
>> aiming to control comment-posting... :-) --[[smcv]]
+>> Thinking about it, perhaps one way to address this would be to have the suffix
+>> (e.g. whether commenting on Sandbox creates sandbox/comment1 or sandbox/c1 or
+>> what) be configurable by the wiki admin, in the same way that recentchanges has
+>> recentchangespage => 'recentchanges'? I'd like to see fewer hard-coded page
+>> names in general, really - it seems odd to me that shortcuts and smileys
+>> hard-code the name of the page to look at. Perhaps I could add
+>> discussionpage => 'discussion' too? --[[smcv]]
+
+>> (I've now implemented this in my branch. --[[smcv]])
+
+>> The best reason to keep the pages internal seems to me to be that you
+>> don't want the overhead of every comment spawning its own wiki page.
+>> The worst problem with it though is that you have to assume the pages
+>> are mdwn (or `default_pageext`) and not support other formats. --[[Joey]]
+
+>> Well, you could always have `comment1._mdwn`, `comment2._creole` etc. and
+>> alter the htmlize logic so that the `mdwn` hook is called for both `mdwn`
+>> and `_mdwn` (assuming this is not already the case). I'm not convinced
+>> that multi-format comments are a killer feature, though - part of the point
+>> of this plugin, in my mind, is that it's less flexible than the full power
+>> of ikiwiki and gives users fewer options. This could be construed
+>> to be a feature, for people who don't care how flexible the technology is
+>> and just want a simple way to leave a comment. The FormattingHelp page
+>> assumes you're writing 100% Markdown in any case...
+>>
+>> Internal pages do too many things, perhaps: they suppress generation of
+>> HTML pages, they disable editing over the web, and they have a different
+>> namespace of htmlize hooks. I think the first two of those are useful
+>> for this plugin, and the last is harmless; you seem to think the first
+>> is useful, and the other two are harmful. --[[smcv]]
+
+>> By the way, I think that who can post comments should be controllable by
+>> the existing plugins opendiscussion, anonok, signinedit, and lockedit. Allowing
+>> posting comments w/o any login, while a nice capability, can lead to
+>> spam problems. So, use `check_canedit` as at least a first-level check?
+>> --[[Joey]]
+
+>> This plugin already uses `check_canedit`, but that function doesn't have a concept
+>> of different actions. The hack I use is that when a user comments on, say, sandbox,
+>> I call `check_canedit` for the pseudo-page "sandbox[postcomment]". The
+>> special `postcomment(glob)` [[ikiwiki/pagespec]] returns true if the page ends with
+>> "[postcomment]" and the part before (e.g. sandbox) matches the glob. So, you can
+>> have postcomment(blog/*) or something. (Perhaps instead of taking a glob, postcomment
+>> should take a pagespec, so you can have postcomment(link(tags/commentable))?)
+>>
+>> This is why `anonok_pages => 'postcomment(*)'` and `locked_pages => '!postcomment(*)'`
+>> are necessary to allow anonymous and logged-in editing (respectively).
+>>
+>> This is ugly - one alternative would be to add `check_permission()` that takes a
+>> page and a verb (create, edit, rename, remove and maybe comment are the ones I
+>> can think of so far), use that, and port the plugins you mentioned to use that
+>> API too. This plugin could either call `check_can("$page/comment1", 'create')` or
+>> call `check_can($page, 'comment')`.
+>>
+>> One odd effect of the code structure I've used is that we check for the ability to
+>> create the page before we actually know what page name we're going to use - when
+>> posting the comment I just increment a number until I reach an unused one - so
+>> either the code needs restructuring, or the permission check for 'create' would
+>> always be for 'comment1' and never 'comment123'. --[[smcv]]
+
+>> Another possibility is to just check for permission to edit (e.g.) `sandbox/comment1`.
+>> However, this makes the "comments can only be created, not edited" feature completely
+>> reliant on the fact that internal pages can't be edited. Perhaps there should be a
+>> `editable_pages` pagespec, defaulting to `'*'`?
+
When using this plugin, you should also enable [[htmlscrubber]] and either [[htmltidy]]
or [[htmlbalance]]. Directives are filtered out by default, to avoid commenters slowing
down the wiki by causing time-consuming processing. As long as the recommended plugins
>> anything else, at this point.
>>
>> I've rebased the plugin on master, made it sanitize individual posts' content
->> and removed the option to disallow raw HTML. --[[smcv]]
+>> and removed the option to disallow raw HTML. Sanitizing individual posts before
+>> they've been htmlized required me to preserve whitespace in the htmlbalance
+>> plugin, so I did that. Alternatively, we could htmlize immediately and always
+>> save out raw HTML? --[[smcv]]
+
+>> There might be some use cases for other directives, such as img, in
+>> comments.
+>>
+>> I don't know if meta is "safe" (ie, guaranteed to be inexpensive and not
+>> allow users to do annoying things) or if it will continue to be in the
+>> future. Hard to predict really, all that can be said with certainty is
+>> all directives will contine to be inexpensive and safe enough that it's
+>> sensible to allow users to (ab)use them on open wikis.
+>> --[[Joey]]
When comments have been enabled generally, you still need to mark which pages
can have comments, by including the `\[[!comments]]` directive in them. By default,
this directive expands to a "post a comment" link plus an `\[[!inline]]` with
-the comments.
+the comments. [This requirement has now been removed --[[smcv]]]
> I don't like this, because it's hard to explain to someone why they have
> to insert this into every post to their blog. Seems that the model used
>> Then control freaks like me could use "link(tags/comments)" and tag pages
>> as allowing comments.
>>
+>>> Yes, I think a pagespec is the way to go. --[[Joey]]
+
+>>> Implemented --[[smcv]]
+
+>>
>> The model used for discussion pages does require patching the existing
>> page template, which I was trying to avoid - I'm not convinced that having
>> every possible feature hard-coded there really scales (and obviously it's
>> rather annoying while this plugin is on a branch). --[[smcv]]
+>>> Using the template would allow customising the html around the comments
+>>> which seems like a good thing? --[[Joey]]
+
+>>> The \[[!comments]] directive is already template-friendly - it expands to
+>>> the contents of the template `comments_embed.tmpl`, possibly with the
+>>> result of an \[[!inline]] appended. I should change `comments_embed.tmpl`
+>>> so it uses a template variable `INLINE` for the inline result rather than
+>>> having the perl code concatenate it, which would allow a bit more
+>>> customization (whether the "post" link was before or after the inline).
+>>> Even if you want comments in page.tmpl, keeping the separate comments_embed.tmpl
+>>> and having a `COMMENTS` variable in page.tmpl might be the way forward,
+>>> since the smaller each templates is, the easier it will be for users
+>>> to maintain a patched set of templates. (I think so, anyway, based on what happens
+>>> with dpkg prompts in Debian packages with monolithic vs split
+>>> conffiles.) --[[smcv]]
+
+>>> I've switched my branch to use page.tmpl instead; see what you think? --[[smcv]]
+
The plugin adds a new [[ikiwiki/PageSpec]] match type, `postcomment`, for use
with `anonok_pagespec` from the [[plugins/anonok]] plugin or `locked_pages` from
the [[plugins/lockedit]] plugin. Typical usage would be something like:
> This is still called postcomment, although I've renamed the rest of the plugin
> to comments as suggested on #ikiwiki --[[smcv]]
-Optional parameters to the comments directive:
+There are some global options for the setup file:
-* `commit=no`: by default, comments are committed to version control. Use this to
- disable commits.
-* `allowdirectives=yes`: by default, IkiWiki directives are filtered out. Use this
- to allow directives (avoid enabling any [[plugins/type/slow]] directives if you
- do this).
-* `closed=yes`: use this to prevent new comments while still displaying existing ones.
-* `atom`, `rss`, `feeds`, `feedshow`, `timeformat`, `feedonly`: the same as for [[plugins/inline]]
+* comments_shown_pagespec: pages where comments will be displayed inline, e.g. `blog/*`
+ or `*/discussion`.
+* comments_open_pagespec: pages where new comments can be posted, e.g.
+ `blog/* and created_after(close_old_comments)` or `*/discussion`
+* comments_pagename: if this is e.g. `comment_` (the default), then comments on the
+ [[sandbox]] will be called something like `sandbox/comment_12`
+* comments_allowdirectives: if true (default false), comments may contain IkiWiki
+ directives
+* comments_commit: if true (default true), comments will be committed to the version
+ control system
This plugin aims to close the [[todo]] item "[[todo/supporting_comments_via_disussion_pages]]",
and is currently available from [[smcv]]'s git repository on git.pseudorandom.co.uk (it's the
-`postcomment` branch).
+`postcomment` branch). A demo wiki with the plugin enabled is running at
+<http://www.pseudorandom.co.uk/2008/ikiwiki/demo/>.
Known issues:
* The access control via postcomment() is rather strange
* There is some common code cargo-culted from other plugins (notably inline and editpage) which
should probably be shared
-* If the comments directive is removed from a page, comments can still be made on that page,
- and will be committed but not displayed; to disable comments properly you have to set the
- closed="yes" directive parameter (and refresh the wiki), *then* remove the directive if
- desired
> I haven't done a detailed code review, but I will say I'm pleased you
> avoided re-implementing inline! --[[Joey]]
+
+Wishlist:
+
+* tbm would like anonymous people to be able to enter their name and possibly email
+ address
+* smcv would like an indication of who you're posting as / the ability to log in
+ as someone else (even if anonymous comments are allowed, it'd be nice to be
+ able to choose to log in with a username or OpenID, like in Livejournal);
+ perhaps editpage needs this too