Difference: CommentPlugin (1 vs. 23)

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences, in a WebPreferences or in individual topics. For example, to customize the COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE setting, add a * Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.

Name of file in the twiki/templates directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from TWiki.CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate.
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES = comments

Default template type (above or below) :
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = above

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed. TWiki administrators can upgrade the plugin as needed on the TWiki server.

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

For an automated installation, run the configure script and follow "Find More Extensions" in the in the Extensions section.
- See the installation supplement on TWiki.org for more information.

Or, follow these manual installation steps:
- Download the ZIP file from the extension home on twiki.org (see below).
- Unzip CommentPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory.
- Set the ownership of the extracted directories and files to the webserver user.
- Install the dependencies (if any).

Plugin configuration and testing:
- Run the configure script and enable the plugin in the Plugins section.
- Configure additional plugin settings in the Extensions section if needed.
- Test if the installation was successful using the examples provided.

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Info

Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2015 TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny

;
© 2004-2015 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

>
>

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2018 TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny

;
© 2004-2018 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

License:

)

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

2015-01-10

>
>

Plugin Version:

2018-07-05

Show Change History

Hide Change History

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

Added:

>
>

2018-07-05:	TWikibug:Item7841: Copyright update to 2018
2016-01-08:	TWikibug:Item7708: Copyright update to 2016

2015-01-10:	TWikibug:Item7604: Switch to GPL v3
2013-02-10:	TWikibug:Item7141: Control over where to add the form tag in comment PROMPT template -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2013-02-06:	TWikibug:Item7139: Use BUBBLESIGNATUREFORMAT if defined, showing nice bubble boxes around around default comments -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2013-01-09:	TWikibug:Item7123: Use TWISTY in plugin settings section, installation instructions and change history
2013-01-04:	TWikibug:Item7115: Configurable signatures with profile pictures - use SIGNATUREFORMAT setting in default comment box signature -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-11-16:	TWikibug:Item7039: Adapting it to the enhnaced TWiki::Func::getScriptUrl() -- TWiki:Main.HideyoImazu
2012-11-12:	TWikibug:Item6967: Better layout of default comment box -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-11-11:	TWikibug:Item7020: Categorize TWiki Variable COMMENT -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6945: Send comment to multiple email addresses.
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6944: Get script URL with TWiki::Func::getMasterWebScriptUrl.
2011-06-16:	TWikibug:Item6754: Fix for action comment template missing %ENDACTION% -- TWiki:Main.JohnRouillard
2011-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our"; adding NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC in plugin package -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 222015-01-11 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--
   Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin or provide feedback at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev.
   If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->

Page contents

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.

Customization

Customization of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

Per topic custom comment template

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples#TemplateTopic.

If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:

%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%

Without this line your templates will not be picked up.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customization example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, with these two exceptions:

The COMMENT has a noform="on" parameter. In this case, the PROMPT template has to specify the form tags and some additional hidden input fields. See CommentPluginExamples#noform example.
The PROMPT template contains %COMMENTFORMSTART% and %COMMENTFORMEND%, which gives control over where to add the form tags and the hidden input fields:
- %COMMENTFORMSTART% - HTML form start tag
- %COMMENTFORMEND% - hidden input fields and HTML form end tag

The latter feature can be used to define a PROMPT template that contains more than one form, such as a comment plugin prompt form, and a second form with a "notify authors" button (see TWiki:Plugins.NotifyAuthorsPlugin).

Example PROMPT template with two forms:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:two_form_demo}%
%COMMENTFORMSTART% <!-- form start tag -->
<textarea %DISABLED% rows="%rows|5%" cols="%cols|80%" name="comment"></textarea>
<input %DISABLED% type="submit" value="%button|Add comment%" class="twikiButton" />
%COMMENTFORMEND% <!-- hidden input fields and form end tag -->
%NOTIFYAUTHORS% <!-- second form with notify authors button -->
%TMPL:END%

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customization example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Plugin Settings

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences, in a WebPreferences or in individual topics. For example, to customize the COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE setting, add a * Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.

Name of file in the twiki/templates directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from TWiki.CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate.
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES = comments

Default template type (above or below) :
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = above

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed. TWiki administrators can upgrade the plugin as needed on the TWiki server.

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

For an automated installation, run the configure script and follow "Find More Extensions" in the in the Extensions section.
- See the installation supplement on TWiki.org for more information.

Or, follow these manual installation steps:
- Download the ZIP file from the extension home on twiki.org (see below).
- Unzip CommentPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory.
- Set the ownership of the extracted directories and files to the webserver user.
- Install the dependencies (if any).

Plugin configuration and testing:
- Run the configure script and enable the plugin in the Plugins section.
- Configure additional plugin settings in the Extensions section if needed.
- Test if the installation was successful using the examples provided.

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Info

Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2013 TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny

;
© 2004-2013 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

>
>

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2015 TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny

;
© 2004-2015 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

License:

)

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

2013-02-10

>
>

Plugin Version:

2015-01-10

Show Change History

Hide Change History

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

Added:

>
>

2015-01-10:

TWikibug:Item7604

: Switch to GPL v3

2013-02-10:	TWikibug:Item7141: Control over where to add the form tag in comment PROMPT template -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2013-02-06:	TWikibug:Item7139: Use BUBBLESIGNATUREFORMAT if defined, showing nice bubble boxes around around default comments -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2013-01-09:	TWikibug:Item7123: Use TWISTY in plugin settings section, installation instructions and change history
2013-01-04:	TWikibug:Item7115: Configurable signatures with profile pictures - use SIGNATUREFORMAT setting in default comment box signature -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-11-16:	TWikibug:Item7039: Adapting it to the enhnaced TWiki::Func::getScriptUrl() -- TWiki:Main.HideyoImazu
2012-11-12:	TWikibug:Item6967: Better layout of default comment box -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-11-11:	TWikibug:Item7020: Categorize TWiki Variable COMMENT -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6945: Send comment to multiple email addresses.
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6944: Get script URL with TWiki::Func::getMasterWebScriptUrl.
2011-06-16:	TWikibug:Item6754: Fix for action comment template missing %ENDACTION% -- TWiki:Main.JohnRouillard
2011-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our"; adding NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC in plugin package -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 212013-02-10 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--
   Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin or provide feedback at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev.
   If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->

Page contents

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.

Customization

Customization of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

Per topic custom comment template

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples#TemplateTopic.

If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:

%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%

Without this line your templates will not be picked up.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customization example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Changed:

<
< Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

>
> Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Added:

>
>

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, with these two exceptions:

The COMMENT has a noform="on" parameter. In this case, the PROMPT template has to specify the form tags and some additional hidden input fields. See CommentPluginExamples#noform example.
The PROMPT template contains %COMMENTFORMSTART% and %COMMENTFORMEND%, which gives control over where to add the form tags and the hidden input fields:
- %COMMENTFORMSTART% - HTML form start tag
- %COMMENTFORMEND% - hidden input fields and HTML form end tag

The latter feature can be used to define a PROMPT template that contains more than one form, such as a comment plugin prompt form, and a second form with a "notify authors" button (see TWiki:Plugins.NotifyAuthorsPlugin).

Example PROMPT template with two forms:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:two_form_demo}%
%COMMENTFORMSTART% <!-- form start tag -->
<textarea %DISABLED% rows="%rows|5%" cols="%cols|80%" name="comment"></textarea>
<input %DISABLED% type="submit" value="%button|Add comment%" class="twikiButton" />
%COMMENTFORMEND% <!-- hidden input fields and form end tag -->
%NOTIFYAUTHORS% <!-- second form with notify authors button -->
%TMPL:END%

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customization example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Plugin Settings

Added:

>
>

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences, in a WebPreferences or in individual topics. For example, to customize the COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE setting, add a * Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.

Name of file in the twiki/templates directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from TWiki.CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate.
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES = comments

Default template type (above or below) :
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = above

Added:

>
>

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Installation Instructions

Changed:

<
<

This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:

>
> This plugin is pre-installed. TWiki administrators can upgrade the plugin as needed on the TWiki server.

Deleted:

<
<

Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Added:

>
>

<--/twistyPlugin twikiMakeVisibleInline-->

For an automated installation, run the configure script and follow "Find More Extensions" in the in the Extensions section.
- See the installation supplement on TWiki.org for more information.

Or, follow these manual installation steps:
- Download the ZIP file from the extension home on twiki.org (see below).
- Unzip CommentPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory.
- Set the ownership of the extracted directories and files to the webserver user.
- Install the dependencies (if any).

Plugin configuration and testing:
- Run the configure script and enable the plugin in the Plugins section.
- Configure additional plugin settings in the Extensions section if needed.
- Test if the installation was successful using the examples provided.

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Added:

>
>

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Info

Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Added:

>
>

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2012 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

>
>

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2013 TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny

;
© 2004-2013 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

License:

)

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:	2012-11-12
Change History:	<-- versions below in reverse order -->

>
>

Plugin Version:

2013-02-10

%TWISTY{

Added:

>
>

mode="div" showlink="Show Change History http://twiki.oats.inaf.it/twiki/pub/TWiki/TWikiDocGraphics/toggleopen.gif" hidelink="Hide Change History

" }%

2013-02-10:	TWikibug:Item7141: Control over where to add the form tag in comment PROMPT template -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2013-02-06:	TWikibug:Item7139: Use BUBBLESIGNATUREFORMAT if defined, showing nice bubble boxes around around default comments -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2013-01-09:	TWikibug:Item7123: Use TWISTY in plugin settings section, installation instructions and change history
2013-01-04:	TWikibug:Item7115: Configurable signatures with profile pictures - use SIGNATUREFORMAT setting in default comment box signature -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-11-16:	TWikibug:Item7039: Adapting it to the enhnaced TWiki::Func::getScriptUrl() -- TWiki:Main.HideyoImazu

2012-11-12:	TWikibug:Item6967: Better layout of default comment box -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-11-11:	TWikibug:Item7020: Categorize TWiki Variable COMMENT -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6945: Send comment to multiple email addresses.
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6944: Get script URL with TWiki::Func::getMasterWebScriptUrl.
2011-06-16:	TWikibug:Item6754: Fix for action comment template missing %ENDACTION% -- TWiki:Main.JohnRouillard
2011-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our"; adding NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC in plugin package -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit

Added:

>
>

</>

<--/twistyPlugin-->

Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 202012-11-13 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--
   Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin or provide feedback at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev.
   If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->

Page contents

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.

Customization

Customization of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

Per topic custom comment template

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples#TemplateTopic.

If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:

%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%

Without this line your templates will not be picked up.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customization example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customization example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences, in a WebPreferences or in individual topics. For example, to customize the COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE setting, add a * Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.

Name of file in the twiki/templates directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from TWiki.CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate.
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES = comments

Default template type (above or below) :
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = above

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

>
>

Copyright:

;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale

;
© 2004-2012 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

License:

)

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

21517 (2012-10-07)

>
>

Plugin Version:

2012-11-12

Change History:

<-- versions below in reverse order -->

Added:

>
>

2012-11-12:	TWikibug:Item6967: Better layout of default comment box -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-11-11:	TWikibug:Item7020: Categorize TWiki Variable COMMENT -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6945: Send comment to multiple email addresses.
2012-09-26:	TWikibug:Item6944: Get script URL with TWiki::Func::getMasterWebScriptUrl.

2011-06-16:	TWikibug:Item6754: Fix for action comment template missing %ENDACTION% -- TWiki:Main.JohnRouillard
2011-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our"; adding NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC in plugin package -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 192011-06-17 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--
   Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin or provide feedback at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev.
   If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->

Page contents

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.

Customization

Customization of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

Per topic custom comment template

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples#TemplateTopic.

If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:

%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%

Without this line your templates will not be picked up.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customization example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customization example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences, in a WebPreferences or in individual topics. For example, to customize the COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE setting, add a * Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.

Name of file in the twiki/templates directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from TWiki.CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate.
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES = comments

Default template type (above or below) :
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = above

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie; © 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale; © 2004-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

21517 (2012-01-14)

>
>

Plugin Version:

21517 (2012-10-07)

Change History:	<-- versions below in reverse order -->
2011-06-16:	TWikibug:Item6754: Fix for action comment template missing %ENDACTION% -- TWiki:Main.JohnRouillard
2011-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our"; adding NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC in plugin package -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 182011-06-17 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--
   Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin or provide feedback at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev.
   If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->

Page contents

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.

Customization

Customization of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

Per topic custom comment template

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples#TemplateTopic.

If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:

%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%

Without this line your templates will not be picked up.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customization example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customization example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences, in a WebPreferences or in individual topics. For example, to customize the COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE setting, add a * Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.

Name of file in the twiki/templates directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from TWiki.CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate.
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES = comments

Default template type (above or below) :
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = above

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie; © 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale; © 2004-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

21517 (2011-08-20)

>
>

Plugin Version:

21517 (2012-01-14)

Change History:	<-- versions below in reverse order -->
2011-06-16:	TWikibug:Item6754: Fix for action comment template missing %ENDACTION% -- TWiki:Main.JohnRouillard
2011-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our"; adding NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC in plugin package -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 172011-06-17 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--
   Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin or provide feedback at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev.
   If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->

Page contents

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)

>
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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)

`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.

Customization

Customization of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

Per topic custom comment template

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples#TemplateTopic.

If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:

%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%

Without this line your templates will not be picked up.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customization example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customization example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

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< Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

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> Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

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Settings

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Plugin Settings

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< Two TWiki Preference variables are recognized by the CommentPlugin:

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Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.

>
>

Name of file in the twiki/templates directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from TWiki.CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate.
- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES = comments

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%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE% above Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

Changed:

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>
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Default template type (above or below) :

Added:

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- Set COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE = above

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Added:

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Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie; © 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale; © 2004-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)

Changed:

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Plugin Version:

20818 (2011-05-03)

>
>

Plugin Version:

21517 (2011-08-20)

Change History:

<-- versions below in reverse order -->

Added:

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>

2011-06-16:	TWikibug:Item6754: Fix for action comment template missing %ENDACTION% -- TWiki:Main.JohnRouillard
2011-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our"; adding NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC in plugin package -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny

2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 162011-03-28 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--
   Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin or provide feedback at
   http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev.
   If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->

Changed:

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On this page:

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Page contents

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Changed:

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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)

>
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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)

`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Changed:

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< Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

>
> Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.

Changed:

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Customisation

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Customization

Changed:

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< Customisation of the comment plugin requires

>
> Customization of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Added:

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Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

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You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

>
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Per topic custom comment template

Added:

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> You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

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Added:

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If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:

%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%

Without this line your templates will not be picked up.

Changed:

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< Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

>
> Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.

Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Changed:

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Customisation example

>
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Customization example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

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Customisation example with custom form template

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Customization example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognized by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

#Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

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Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main/DavidWeller and TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie; © 2009 TWiki:Main/SopanShewale; © 2004-2010 TWiki:TWiki/TWikiContributor

>
>

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie; © 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale; © 2004-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor

License:

TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

)

Changed:

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Plugin Version:

18706 (2010-05-29)

>
>

Plugin Version:

20818 (2011-05-03)

Change History:

<-- versions below in reverse order -->

Added:

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2011-03-28:	TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11:	TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman

2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Revision 152010-05-17 - TWikiContributor

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Comment Plugin

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On this page:

The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

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< Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

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> Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

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On this page:

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

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Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

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A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

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A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

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%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

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The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

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The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

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<--/commentPlugin-->

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<--/commentPlugin-->

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< This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

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> This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

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Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

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< will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

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> will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

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Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

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Customisation of the comment plugin requires

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familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

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familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

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> By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

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To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

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This allows for several levels of customization:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

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Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

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The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

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If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

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As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

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Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

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Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

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Customisation example with custom form template

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Customisation example with custom form template

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Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

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The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

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`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

>
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`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

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Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

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%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

>
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%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

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Preference	Default	Description

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%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES% comments Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.

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%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES% comments Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.

%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE% above Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

#Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

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This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Added:

>
>

This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

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Another great TWiki extension from the

WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Plugin Version:	03 Aug 2008 17791 (02 Sep 2009)
Change History:

>
>

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main/DavidWeller and TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie; © 2009 TWiki:Main/SopanShewale; © 2004-2010 TWiki:TWiki/TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version:	18706 (2010-05-29)
Change History:	<-- versions below in reverse order -->

Added:

>
>

2010-05-16:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19	TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27	TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21	TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale

03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged

Changed:

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11358 TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew

>
>

11358 TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew

11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive

Changed:

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<

8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)

>
>

8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)

7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit

Changed:

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Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin

>
>

Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal

Deleted:

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Feedback:

Changed:

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< Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

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> Related Topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples, TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Deleted:

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META FILEATTACHMENT	attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 142007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

On this page:

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customisation example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

#Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17791 (29 Apr 2009)

>
>

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17791 (02 Sep 2009)

Change History:
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

META FILEATTACHMENT	attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 132007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

On this page:

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customisation example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

#Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17791 (30 Mar 2009)

>
>

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17791 (29 Apr 2009)

Change History:
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

META FILEATTACHMENT	attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 122007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

On this page:

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customisation example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

#Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17302 (06 Dec 2008)

>
>

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17791 (30 Mar 2009)

Change History:
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

META FILEATTACHMENT	attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 112007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

On this page:

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customisation example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference <-- -->	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

#Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17302 (04 Aug 2008)

>
>

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17302 (06 Dec 2008)

Change History:
03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

META FILEATTACHMENT	attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 102007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

On this page:

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`belowthreadmode`	Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Changed:

<
<

action Action added to action table directly above comment box (requires TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin)

>
>

action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)

`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_templatetopic`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Customisation example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

Added:

>
> #Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Added:

>
>

Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:

Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)

Plugin Info

Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author:

inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Version:

15776 (22 Jan 2008)

>
>

Plugin Version:

03 Aug 2008 17302 (04 Aug 2008)

Change History:

Added:

>
>

03 Aug 2008	The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008	TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove

5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

META FILEATTACHMENT	attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 92007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Changed:

<
<

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

>
>

On this page:

Changed:

<
<

On this page:

>
> Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

Added:

>
>

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

Changed:

<
<

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

>
>

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Changed:

<
<

Syntax Rules

>
>

Syntax

Deleted:

<
< Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

Changed:

<
<

The following attributes are recognized (see also additional attributes):

Name	Description
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.

>
>

Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.

A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences.	`"below"`
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to	the current topic
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!
`mode`	For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics	`"off"`
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.	`"off"`
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.	`"off"`
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.	`"off"`
`button`	Button label text	`"Add comment"`
`emailto`	Send comment by email. Use comma "," to seperate multiple email addresses. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, please set up "$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{CommentPlugin}{EmailEnabled} = 1;".

(See also additional attributes)

Deleted:

<
<

`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
`mode`	For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.
`button`	Button label text; by default `Add comment`.

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Changed:

<
< Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

>
> Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

Added:

>
> Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

Changed:

<
< A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

>
> A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified

Added:

>
>

belowthreadmode Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box

`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Added:

>
>

`action`	Action added to action table directly above comment box (requires TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin)
`table`	Tablerows adding on end
`toctalk`	Talk using TOC adding on end
`bookmark`	Create a list of annotated bookmarks
`return`	Post to a different topic and return

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Changed:

<
< Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

>
> You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:

Added:

>
>

%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

Added:

>
>

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT

Added:

>
>

comment_templatetopic As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Added:

>
>

Customisation example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.

In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

Added:

>
>

%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Plugin Info

Changed:

<
<

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version:	12750 (04 Feb 2007)
Change History:	<-- specify latest version first -->
12750	Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found

>
>

Another great TWiki extension from the

WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Plugin Version:	15776 (22 Jan 2008)
Change History:
5 Sep 2007	TWikibug:Item3689 corrected `location` handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007	Removed the long-deprecated `%TIME` (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021	TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311	Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with `templatetopic` (either `topic` or `web.topic`). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822	TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750	TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates

Added:

>
>

8787	TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found

5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit

Changed:

<
<

Perl Version:

>= 5.6.1

>
>

Copyright:

Added:

>
>

License:

, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie

)

Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:

<
< -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 15:45:58 03 March 2007

>
>

META FILEATTACHMENT	attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 82007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

On this page:

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax Rules

Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

The following attributes are recognized (see also additional attributes):

Name	Description
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
`mode`	For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.
`button`	Button label text; by default `Add comment`.

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version:	12750 (04 Feb 2007)
Change History:	<-- specify latest version first -->
12750	Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Perl Version:	>= 5.6.1
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:

<
< -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 01:11:36 05 February 2007

>
> -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 15:45:58 03 March 2007

Revision 72007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

On this page:

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax Rules

Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

The following attributes are recognized (see also additional attributes):

Name	Description
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
`default`	Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
`mode`	For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<form>` tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.
`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.
`button`	Button label text; by default `Add comment`.

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

Added:

>
> Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
`%MESSAGE%`	The text specified by `default`. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description
`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

<-- required for compatibility 
 
 
 Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
  Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate 
 Set TEMPLATES = comments
 
  Default template type (if not present, defaults to "below") 
 Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
 
 
-->

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None
Use configure to enable the plugin

Plugin Info

Added:

>
>

Plugin Author:

TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar

, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie

Changed:

<
<

Change History:
11358	Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found

>
>

Copyright:	© 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie © 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version:	12750 (04 Feb 2007)
Change History:	<-- specify latest version first -->
12750	Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358	Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive

Added:

>
>

8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found

5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Perl Version:	>= 5.6.1
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:

<
< -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 05:07:17 16 January 2007

>
> -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 01:11:36 05 February 2007

Revision 62005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

Deleted:

<
< This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Changed:

<
< WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please see here

>
> Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Added:

>
>

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip

.

On this page:

Deleted:

<
<

Features

Added:

>
>

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Changed:

<
<

Syntax Rules

>
>

Syntax Rules

Changed:

<
< Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

>
> Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

Changed:

<
< The following attributes are recognised

>
> The following attributes are recognized (see also additional attributes):

Name	Description
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.

Added:

>
>

default Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.

`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
`mode`	For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics

Changed:

<
<

noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <FORM> tags yourself!

>
>

noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <form> tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.

Added:

>
>

`nopost`	Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.
`remove`	Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.
`button`	Button label text; by default `Add comment`.

Changed:

<
<

Positioning the comment

>
>

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Changed:

<
<

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

>
>

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Changed:

<
<

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

>
>

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Changed:

<
<

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

>
>

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Changed:

<
<

Default templates

>
>

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Changed:

<
<

Customisation

>
>

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

Changed:

<
<

familiarity with HTML forms,

>
>

familiarity with HTML forms

some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

Changed:

<
< The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:

>
> The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Deleted:

<
<

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Added:

>
>

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

Changed:

<
<

The `PROMPT` template

>
>

Customisation example

Added:

>
>

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Changed:

<
< Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

>
> Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

Added:

>
>

Providing attribute values

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

Added:

>
>

Special variables

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description

Deleted:

<
<

%MESSAGE% A helpful generated message, either a lock message or a reminder to refresh.

%DISABLED% Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).

Added:

>
>

%MESSAGE% The text specified by default. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

Changed:

<
<

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made and the user who made it.

>
>

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter	Description

Added:

>
>

`comment_action`	Must be `save` to get the CommentPlugin to perform
`comment_type`	Type of the OUTPUT template
`comment_index`	Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
`comment_anchor`	Anchor taken from the `target` spec
`comment_location`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_nonotify`	As passed to %COMMENT
`comment_remove`	Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
`comment_nopost`	As passed to %COMMENT

Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:

<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>

Added:

>
>

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Changed:

<
<

Settings

Description:

>
>

Settings

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:

Added:

>
>

Preference	Default	Description
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES%`	`comments`	Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
`%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE%`	`above`	Default template type

These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:

Changed:

<
<

- Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
- Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions.
- Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies: None
- Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.

Plugin Info

>
>

Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions
Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
Alternatively,
- Manually resolve the dependencies listed below. None

Added:

>
>

Use configure to enable the plugin

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Change History:

Changed:

<
<

11118	Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not foudn
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06Mar 2002 initial commit

>
>

11358	Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as `nopost` and `remove`. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118	Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.

Added:

>
>

4745	06 Mar 2002 initial commit

Perl Version:	>= 5.6.1
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:

<
< -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:16:06 25 October 2006

>
> -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 05:07:17 16 January 2007

Revision 52005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please see here

On this page:

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax Rules

Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

The following attributes are recognised

Name	Description
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
`mode`	For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<FORM>` tags yourself!

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms,
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%MESSAGE%`	A helpful generated message, either a lock message or a reminder to refresh.
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

Description:
- Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentsTmpl
- Set TEMPLATES = comments
default template type (if not present, defaults to "below")
- Set DEFAULT_TYPE = below

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
- Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
- Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions.
- Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies: None
- Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Change History:

Added:

>
>

11118

Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output

8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not foudn
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06Mar 2002 initial commit
Perl Version:	>= 5.6.1
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:

<
< -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:19:11 26 June 2006

>
> -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:16:06 25 October 2006

Revision 42005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

<--

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS TOPIC

It is automatically generated from the subversion repository, and any changes you make will simply be overwritten the next time a release is generated.

Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->

This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please see here

On this page:

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax Rules

Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

The following attributes are recognised

Name	Description
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
`mode`	For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<FORM>` tags yourself!

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms,
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%MESSAGE%`	A helpful generated message, either a lock message or a reminder to refresh.
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

Description:
- Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentsTmpl
- Set TEMPLATES = comments
default template type (if not present, defaults to "below")
- Set DEFAULT_TYPE = below

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
- Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
- Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions.
- Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies: None
- Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Change History:
8788	Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787	Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433	Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427	Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251	Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906	Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not foudn
5519	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518	CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455	On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280	Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250	Removed newlines from prompt box
4902	Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901	Added templates in user webs support
4897	Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889	Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882	Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745	06Mar 2002 initial commit
Perl Version:	>= 5.6.1
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:

<
< -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 21:44:41 31 March 2006

>
> -- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:19:11 26 June 2006

Revision 32005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Comment Plugin

Changed:

<
< This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

>
>

This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please see here

On this page:

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

in different formats (as defined by a template),
in both forward and reverse chronological order,
signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax Rules

Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

The following attributes are recognised

Name	Description
`type`	This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
`target`	Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
`location`	Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
`mode`	For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with `type`
`nonotify`	Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
`noform`	Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert `<FORM>` tags yourself!

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to `%COMMENT` tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:

%COMMENT{type="below"}%

will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,

%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%

This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,

%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%

will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

Template type	Description
`top`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
`bottom`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
`above`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`below`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the `%COMMENT` if no anchor is specified
`threadmode`	Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
`tableprepend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
`tableappend`	Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

familiarity with HTML forms,
some familiarity with the TWiki templating language.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

Changed:

<
<

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentsTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

>
>

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:

To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

The `PROMPT` template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

and the %COMMENT tag is:

%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%

then the template will be expanded as

<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable	Description
`%MESSAGE%`	A helpful generated message, either a lock message or a reminder to refresh.
`%DISABLED%`	Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).

The `OUTPUT` template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

`%POS:TOP%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
`%POS:BOTTOM%`	If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
`%POS:BEFORE%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the `%COMMENT%` tag
`%POS:AFTER%`	If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the `%COMMENT%` tag

Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

Description:
- Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentsTmpl
- Set TEMPLATES = comments
default template type (if not present, defaults to "below")
- Set DEFAULT_TYPE = below

Plugin Installation Instructions

This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:

Changed:

<
<

- Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
- Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions.
- Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies:

>
>

- Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
- Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
- You may need to correct file permissions.
- Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies:

None

Changed:

<
<

- Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.

>
>

- Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:

TWiki:Main.DavidWeller

, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar