The official Threaded Comment: The Good and Bad

Atlast Threaded comments are live. It is one of the most awaited feature by all Blogger users. Now you can simply Reply to any comment without the popup that appeared in the many old hacks. Also there is a added feature to Show/Hide all the replies a comment receives. Even though it took so much time to bring this , but still it lacks the thing.

How to Enable it

I) If you are using a uncustomized template , then they will be enabled by themselves if you follow these steps

1. Make sure that the blog feed is set to full ,to do it
For Old Interface Users: Go to Settings > Site Feed > Allow Blog Feed ,set it to Full
For New Interface Users: Go to Settings > Other > Allow Blog Feed ,set it to Full

2. And set the Comment position to Embedded below post,to do it
For Old Interface Users: Go to Settings > Comments > Comment Form Placement ,set it to Embedded below Post
For New Interface Users: Go to Settings > Posts and comments > Comment Location ,set it to Embedded


II) If you have a little modified template, without the Reply feature hack installed


1. Find the following code in the Edit HTML

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
</b:if>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
</b:if>

You will see two instances of this code, one for mobile template and other of the default template. 

2. Now replace this code (both the instances) with the following code

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<b:if cond='data:post.showThreadedComments'>
<b:include data='post' name='threaded_comments'/>
<b:else/>
<b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<b:if cond='data:post.showThreadedComments'>
<b:include data='post' name='threaded_comments'/>
<b:else/>
<b:include data='post' name='comments'/>
</b:if>
</b:if>

III) If you have a heavily modified template, with the Reply feature hack installed (With Nesting)


This one is the most difficult one to fix, The easier way is to select the Revert widget templates to default but it might as well remove all the other modifications you would have done .


Other way is to make a test blog and then search for the code in between  <b:includable id='comments' var='post'> and </b:includable>. Copy everything from there and paste it inplace of your main blog. Now first check if it is Saving and then follow II) part above and check again for errors. If everything is working fine ,then save and it should work but in the process don't forget that part I) conditions should also be satisfied. 


The Good and the Bad:
Pros
-The feature is there !!!
-The Reply feature is enabled in normal templates as well as Mobile version and Dynamic Views.
-One-click Show/Hide feature for Replies
-Inline Reply form
-Author's comments are easily differentiated 



Cons
-Only single level of nesting a.k.a you can't reply to a reply


Also to implement the reply feature in Blogger ,Google upgraded the Comment API , so now you will see a lot of Recent Comment with Thumbnails widgets 


For the time being I will stick to the old hack just because of 6 levels of nesting


What are your views on this change, did you like it or not ?

Written by Prayag Verma

Find me on Twitter

Email Newsletter

Like what you read here in this post ?
Get new posts delivered straight to your inbox