Feature highlights:
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Only 7 lines of code need to be added to your application!
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Complete comment system including UI
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Minimal barrier to entry for users (no captchas or account creation required)
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Encourages continuing community participation via comment rating, popularity based sorting, and comment reply notifications
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Discourages bad behavior via fading of negatively rated comments, and user flagging of comments
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Automatic comment moderation using validates_text_content (optional)
has_threaded_comments is a Rails plugin that provides an entire threaded commenting system with the addition of only a few lines of code to your application. The system includes support for rating and flagging of comments as well as automatically generating email notifications (for both users and website admin) of replies to comments. Additionally if you have delayed_job setup then has_threaded_comments will automatically make use of that to send email notifications in a asynchronous manner.
has_threaded_comments does not require the user be logged in to create a comment, in keeping with the idea of keeping the barrier to entry as low as possible. It uses reverse captchas (honeypots) to foil spambots.
Additionally has_threaded_comments will use validates_text_content to provide automatic content moderation if the validates_text_content plugin has been installed.
If you have any questions or find an issue with this plugin please contact me at: aaron@aarongough.com
To see an installation of has_threaded_comments in the wild check out the comment system at: WhyIAmAngry.com
To install the plugin use one of the following commands:
# To install via Git using script/plugin: ./script/plugin install git://github.com/aarongough/has_threaded_comments.git # To install via SVN using script/plugin ./script/plugin install http://svn.github.com/aarongough/has_threaded_comments.git # If your application is not under version control you can still install using a SVN export: ./script/plugin install -e http://svn.github.com/aarongough/has_threaded_comments.git
Then you need to copy the configuration files, database migration and UI files into your application like so:
./script/generate install_has_threaded_comments
Then follow these steps to use the comment system in your application:
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Make sure you you have no pending database migrations
rake db:migrate
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Add the has_threaded_comments declaration to your model
# app/models/book.rb class Book < ActiveRecord::Base has_threaded_comments end
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Add the code for eager-loading comments and generating a blank comment to your controller
# app/controllers/books_controller.rb def show @book = Book.find(params[:id], :include => {:comments => []}) @new_comment = @book.comments.new(:name => session[:name], :email => session[:email]) end
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Add the code for rendering the comments and the new comment form to your ‘show’ view
# app/views/books/show.html.erb <div id="comments_container"> <%= render_threaded_comments(@book.comments) -%> <%= render_comment_form(@new_comment) -%> </div>
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Add threaded_comment_styles.css and prototype.js to your layout
# app/views/layouts/books.html.erb <head> <%= javascript_include_tag :defaults -%> <%= stylesheet_link_tag 'threaded_comment_styles' -%> </head>
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Change the settings in config/threaded_comments_config.yml according to the needs of your application, eg:
# config/threaded_comments_config.yml production: notifications: enable_notifications: true enable_comment_creation_failure_notifications: true site_domain: yoursite.com admin_email: admin@yoursite.com system_send_email_address: noreply@yoursite.com new_comment_subject: Yoursite.com - New comment failed_comment_creation_subject: Yoursite.com - Failed comment creation comment_reply_subject: Yoursite.com - {name} has replied to your comment render_threaded_comments: enable_rating: true enable_flagging: true ... ... -
Enjoy!
Upgrading from a previous version of has_threaded_comments is easy!
# Run this from your application's root directory ./script/plugin remove has_threaded_comments # Then re-follow the instructions listed above in the 'installation' section
If you have made changes to any of the has_threaded_comments config or asset files the generator will ask you whether or not to overwrite them. It’s recommended to backup all these files, overwrite them with the new versions and then make any changes you need to. Older versions of the config files will cause errors with newer plugin code unless they are updated.
Please refer to MORE_INFO.rdoc
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- Contributors
Copyright © 2010 Aaron Gough (thingsaaronmade.com), released under the MIT license