How to read a CommentPress document

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 The following relates to the default CommentPress theme that is bundled with the plugin. The theme used on this website will be included with the plugin, but is still in development. Please be patient and we’ll update this page when the time comes. Thanks.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 If you’re unfamiliar with the CommentPress interface, the following should help you navigate your way around a CommentPress document. (Please note: the screenshots below correspond to the design of Version 3.2, but the icons and general placement have not changed much in the default theme, so we hope these are still helpful)

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Document Title

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 9 As with most WordPress sites, the document title is also a link to the document’s home page. The main text column and the comments column can be made to occupy proportionally different widths of the page by dragging the right–hand border of the text column. If you’d like less screen clutter, you can close the page header by clicking on the ‘up–and–down’ arrow icon at the far right of the navigation bar (click the icon again to reopen).

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Page Title

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 Each page will display its title here. If the page is contained within a chapter or section, this context will also be shown here. Navigate your way through pages in a linear way using the next and previous page buttons:

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Next Page Button

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Previous Page Button

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 2 If at any time you get lost, or want to jump to a specific page, the Table of Contents is always available to you by clicking the open book icon shown below. If you have Javascript enabled, the Table of Contents will appear in the right hand column. If Javascript is not enabled, this will take you to the document’s home page where you will find the Table of Contents in the right–hand column.

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Table of Contents Button

¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 3 CommentPress presents two innovative ways of reading comments on the text. By clicking on the ‘double speech bubble’ icon in the navigation bar, you can read comments–by–page; in the list of pages, ordered by number of comments. By clicking on the people icon in the navigation bar, you can read comments–by–author, with the same functionality as for comments–by–page.

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General Comments Button

¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 Perhaps your comment does not really apply to a particular page or paragraph? The General Comments page is there so that you can leave comments which are global in scope or reference.

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All Comments Button

¶ 15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 As you can guess, the All Comments page shows a list of pages that have comments on them, ranked by number of comments. With Javascript enabled, you’ll have to click on the title of the page to view the comments. Each comment has a link so that you can view it in its original page context: click on “Comment” in each comment’s header.

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Comments-by-Commenter Button

¶ 17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 The Comments–by–Commenter page is similar to the All Comments page, but (of course) comments are listed by comment author.

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Blog Button

¶ 19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 The CommentPress document’s blog is accessed by clicking the ‘thumbtack’ button shown above. In general, CommentPress documents are likely to be completed works — the blog allows the author a continuing voice without disturbing the layout of the document itself. Where the document is still in progress, the blog allows content to be published that does not sit comfortably within the document itself — announcements, for example.

¶ 20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 If you are on a page (or blog post) which allows paragraph–level commenting, then you will see icons like those below down the left–hand side of the page:

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Paragraph Icons

¶ 22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 Clicking one of these icons (when Javascript is enabled) will highlight the relevant paragraph (or block) open the corresponding comments section in the right–hand column and scroll it to the comment form. To leave a comment on an entire page, click the link to “Comments on the whole page”. Paragraph icons are also links which can be used as permalinks to a paragraph. Here’s an example link to a video on another page on this site.

¶ 23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0 If you’re concentrating on reading comments on paragraphs, this is more easily done by clicking the headers in the “Comments” column; each section will then open at the first comment. If you’re reading comments on an iPad, use two–finger scrolling in this column. CommentPress features live posting and updating of comments, so you don’t have to refresh the page to see what’s being said by others.

¶ 24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0 Are you having trouble understanding anything else about CommentPress? Leave a comment on this page and we’ll try and help you out.

Page 5

Comments

3 Comments on the whole Page

annette August 17, 2011 at 3:47 pm

can i copy this page and put it into my own document as a guide for readers?

Reply to annette
Al Jones June 22, 2015 at 8:51 pm

So, okay, my site isn’t a WP site, but I’m putting one together that is.

Comment: most of your link in the Examples are dead … probably should go back and try those again.

This looked interesting since my vet (the one for whom I’m putting this site together) wants to be able to post unusual procedures that they’ve performed in the clinic. But not allowing the use of an existing template leave me cold (as a developer) and the entire concept of commenting by paragraph is definitely overkill.

Feel free to educate me if you will //al

Reply to Al Jones
1. Christian Wach June 23, 2015 at 4:24 am
  
  Thanks for the feedback on the links, Al. You’re right that CommentPress certainly isn’t for everybody – we tried to make paragraph level commenting applicable to other themes, but there were always too many unknowns to do so reliably. Hence the custom parent themes.
  
  Reply to Christian Wach

elan January 14, 2011 at 12:46 am

I am trying out CommentPress on a WP 3.0.3 installation as a Network/MU and also have Buddypress 1.2.7 installed.
I do not see the top navigation bar. And as a matter of fact it looks like the CommentPress header and the Buddypress navigation conflict with each other.
Any ideas?

Reply to elan
1. Christian Wach January 14, 2011 at 3:57 am
  
  Sorry, but Commentpress has not been developed with Buddypress in mind, nor has it ever been tested with it. I am aware that the admin bar that is enabled by default in WP3.1 conflicts with the Commentpress navigation bar, so the plugin disables the admin bar for now. I am considering the options with regard to this, but can’t see a solution at present because both are absolutely positioned at the top of the page by default.
  
  Reply to Christian Wach
2. Christian Wach April 13, 2012 at 7:16 am
  
  It’s been a while, so please ignore if you’ve moved on, but I thought I’d let you know that Commentpress is now compatible with BuddyPress via BP-Groupblog and an additional plugin. The relevant packages are available on Github.
  
  Reply to Christian Wach
Clive April 19, 2014 at 7:53 am

Very, very nice. I’m writing research pages which require feedback on paragraphs and this is great.

As this is so good AND focuses you to paragraphs I was wondering if you knew if any of the ‘in line / front end’ editors were compatible with and worked with this plugin?

Reply to Clive
1. Christian Wach April 19, 2014 at 8:36 am
  
  I have just tested CommentPress with WordPress Front-end Editor and unfortunately it doesn’t work as expected. I’ll look into this and see what can be done.
  
  Reply to Christian Wach
  1. Clive April 19, 2014 at 9:11 am
    
    Haha – yea I just found that out too. BUT this one (below) does seem to work and it doesn’t seem to interfer with CommentPress either. Fantastic.
    
    http://scribu.net/wordpress/front-end-editor/
    
    Reply to Clive
    1. Christian Wach April 19, 2014 at 9:47 am
      
      Thanks for the report, Clive. I’ve also opened a ticket for the WordPress Front-end Editor folks to investigate.
      
      Reply to Christian Wach
Clive April 19, 2014 at 10:48 am

Sorry Christian I spoke to soon I can edit and the comments icons are there BUT I cannot access (open) the comments in the comment list. I’ll leave a comment on this plugins support page and see what happens. CommentPress is making a big difference getting feedback and refining pages.

Reply to Clive
1. Christian Wach April 19, 2014 at 3:31 pm
  
  I get Javascript errors when using Scribu’s FEE, which would explain why the comment list fails to open. The content is peppered with [empty]. Sorry about that, but glad to hear that CommentPress is helping your cause.
  
  Reply to Christian Wach

Timothy Burke February 22, 2011 at 3:29 pm

Is there a way to have the Table of Contents be the default display in the right hand column rather than Comments? I’m trying to use Commentpress for an entire class of students working on research papers. I’m going to assign each of them a parent page with several child pages (abstract & topic, research notes, draft). Having the Table of Contents up makes it a lot easier to navigate between students and see the total range of pages on site.

Reply to Timothy Burke
1. Christian Wach February 23, 2011 at 7:46 am
  
  No, at present this isn’t possible. You could perhaps use multiple tabs to do what you want, with the TOC visible in the ‘master’ tab and open pages in new tabs instead of the same window.
  
  Reply to Christian Wach

0 Comments on paragraph 10

3 Comments on paragraph 11

Nick October 7, 2015 at 5:19 pm

I’m confused: what has happened to these two features in the current version of Commentpress?

Reply to Nick
1. Christian Wach October 9, 2015 at 11:26 am
  
  Sorry Nick I need to update the screenshots. The functionality still exists in the “modern” theme, however – look at the links under “Special Pages”.
  
  Reply to Christian Wach
  1. Nick October 18, 2015 at 4:58 pm
    
    ah, OK–thanks!
    
    Reply to Nick

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