Comments and email - mike's web log/comments

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September 08, 2006 | Comments and email | 1962 hit(s)

I just made a small change to the commenting feature in the blog. When you comment, at your option you can be notified by email when others comment. However, I noticed today (I can't believe I didn't think of this till now) that the email that is sent to other commenters lists your email address. That's no good -- it's my goal to keep everything private, and that even if you want to be notified by email, your email address should never be exposed to anyone else.

So that's fixed. If you happen to notice a problem, let me know. (Of course, if I've now broken the commenting feature, that could be tricky, eh? haha)

Lola 08 Sep 06 - 12:41 PM

No comment.

Yaron 08 Sep 06 - 1:10 PM

An even better option, add per-post comment feeds.

Well, maybe it's not a full replacement, since there are still many more people who know what to do with an email than who know what to do with a feed, but it'll be a good addition.

mike 08 Sep 06 - 1:26 PM

I have a comment feed -- it's part of the main feed and is picked up by aggregators that support comment feeds, like RSSBandit.

http://mikepope.com/blog/DisplayBlog.aspx?permalink=1458

Example:

http://www.mikepope.com/blog/blogcommentsfeed.ashx?id=1594

Or do you mean something else?

Yaron 17 Sep 06 - 2:24 AM

Hi, Mike. Sorry for the late response.

No, that is exactly what I meant.

I'm just not sure where the aggregators are supposed to pick it up from. There is nothing on a post/comment page that links to it. For example on this current page (AddComment.aspx?blogid=1594) there is no link to the comment feed page you specified as example (blogcommentsfeed.ashx?id=1594) . Neither is there one on the post without comments permalink (DisplayBlog.aspx?permalink=1594) page.

Actually it's more that I'm not sure where am I, or another reader, supposed to find it. If I read a post, and the comments, and want to keep track, the page doesn't have any "comment feed" link to take, not as a direct anchor tag, and not as a header link/alternate for autodiscovery.

Putting a link to it inside the regular feed is good (Though at least FeedDemon doesn't seem to recognize it, or do anything with it, but that could very well be its fault), but it has to be on the actual page as well. If someone follows through to the page to read the post and comments there, or even to add a comment, it's not obvious to go back to the aggregator (to a post possibly already marked as read) and look for a link to the comment feed there...

mike 17 Sep 06 - 9:15 AM

Well, I've added autodiscovery and a link to the AddComments page (ie, this one). Have a look -- ?

Yaron 17 Sep 06 - 2:24 PM

Yes, the comment feeds are a lot easier to find now. Thanks.

mike 17 Sep 06 - 2:59 PM

Cool. Let me know if you think further tinkering is warranted. :-)

Yaron 20 Sep 06 - 8:29 AM

Well, since you asked, three things. Two related, one not so much.

1. This is the only important one. On the comment feed each comment comes with a permalink to the individual comment, which is as it should be. But for comments whose commenter left a homepage address, the individual comment address in the feed is replaced by that of the commenter's link. Including, naturally, your own comments.

2. You may also want to add a link to the comment feed on the post reading page (DisplayBlog.aspx?permalink=), just in case someone knows they want to follow a possible discussion, but don't want to contribute. ( I like the text with white-on-orange style for the feeds, BTW. Good idea to spare images)

3. Not related, but I think less javascript and more real links would be a good idea. For the navigation links like the link to the homepage, the calendar, and categories. Not only because they will work with no js support, but because it allows ctrl-clicks or right clicks and opening in new windows/tabs.

On the other hand, user interfaces are really not my strong suit.

mike 20 Sep 06 - 11:02 AM

Thanks for your thoughts, Yaron. I'll have a closer look later.

On the issue of JavaScript, if I interpret your analysis correctly, you're seeing the JavaScript that is emitted from ASP.NET controls. The Calendar control emits, as you see, 48 links with javascript: to cause a postback; without rewriting the Calendar control, I can't change that per se. (However, watch this space.) In other situations, I believe that for the most part, I use LinkButton controls where I need to do some sort of processing or need to resolve the link target programmatically.

This is asuming I understand the usage of JavaScript as you describe it.

Yaron 21 Sep 06 - 2:24 PM

Yes, that's what I was referring to. On the calendar control, as you say, and in the categories list.

I haven't checked if your blog software currently supports limiting to a specific date through a GET parameter, so maybe this is an issue, but these things are usually trivial to add/change server-side. But I do see it supports categories like that, and certainly the homepage doesn't need any special processing. So it's strange to see these links done through javascript instead of a simple URI.
It's less usable, as I mentioned in the previous comment. I will be hard pressed to call myself a typical user, but when anchor elements have a URI in their href, instead of a function, everything is much more convenient. A user can do whatever they want with a URI (copy, open on a different tab/window, just see the structure, whatever) but can't do anything with a linked js function except call it in-page and wait to see what it will do.

I do believe that rewriting the whole calendar control could take a little time, yes. ;-)

But the category list should be trivial to "fix", given that it's already done as URIs from inside individual posts.
And you can probably separate a link to the main homepage out of the calendar control. Ideally, though that's just a matter of personal taste, on the main blog title at the top of each page. But, while it's the most common way, not everyone is doing it yet so YMMV.

Though, of course, priorities matter. These all will be nice, but nothing which is really critical or which make the blog unusable as-is.