Simplish » comment request

Next Simplish

utopian — Sun, 23 May 2010 12:32:47 +0000

The current Simplish development sources incorporate a growing list of changes, most of them aimed at compatibility with and exploitation of features in the upcoming WordPress version 3.0. Testers and developers can hg clone the in-progress code, but note that it will run only on the latest WordPress v3.0 betas, or svn tip, and should be used only for testing and development.

Simplish 2.3 continues to be the official release for stable WordPress (v2.9.2).

New Belarusian translation

utopian — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:06:37 +0000

Marcis G was kind enough to provide a new Belarusian localization for Simplish. Since we haven’t yet officially released a version of the theme including it, you can find the .po and .mo files in the Issues list if you need Simplish in Belarusian right away.

Simplish Mailing List

Josh — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:45:21 +0000

We created a Simplish mailing list/Google Group tonight, to help make developing, translating, or reporting issues with Simplish a little easier. We’ve largely conducted that with blog comments here (which are still quite welcome) & individual emails, but as a few more people outside utopian.net contribute to the theme, this should let us more conveniently keep in sync.

We realize the list will be of use and interest mostly to developers, translators, and bug-reporters, so we will of course continue to announce new features, any problems, and new versions of the theme here on the blog.

This is significant in another way, because we usually host our own services, including lists, but I was feeling both lazy and experimental enough to take advantage of an external service for this, for now. We’ll see how it goes.

You can join by sending mail to simplish+subscribe@googlegroups.com, or by visiting the web interface for a more forum-like experience at http://groups.google.com/group/simplish.

Simplish "2.1.8T"

Josh — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:17:18 +0000

There is a Simplish version 2.1.8RC available that adds 3 missed strings for localization. Translators can get it by any of:

git [clone || pull] git://labs.utopian.net/simplish
simplish-2.1.8RC.tgz
simplish-2.1.8RC.zip
simplish.pot.zip (Just the .pot gettext template file.)

For inclusion in Simplish 2.1.8, send a git patch or the updated .po file for your language/region to josh@utopian.net, or put a link to your compressed .po file in the comments on this post.

Many thanks to the folks doing localizations of the theme!

Threadbare no longer (Simplish 2.1.4RC)

Josh — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:36:05 +0000

As mentioned in comments on my original mild objection, I’ve been convinced that threaded discussions, new in the upcoming WordPress version 2.7, are a good value at the price. So today I slapped support for the feature into Simplish. This version of the theme should be considered “beta” quality, just like the new WordPress features on which it’s built. Both are subject to change before final release.

Demo: http://labs.utopian.net/who/josh/wp-svn/?p=1
Code: simplish-2.1.4RC.tgz

The demo shows a “jacob’s ladder” style for the comments/replies layout, where both left and right margins are indented per-thread-level. It’s an (experimental) attempt to ease the “comment chaos” feeling a deeply-threaded discussion can give.

A special thanks to Otto for his comments and his indispensable threaded comments getting-started doc.

Notes

For the theme, threaded comments support kicks off in functions.php: a function ocomments() checks if comment threading is available in your WordPress install (i.e., if wp_list_comments() exists; e.g., if it is running on version 2.7 or greater). If not, the theme loads the 2.6-compatible “old” comments template (ocomments.php), and comments look and work with no changes from previous versions. If your WordPress supports threading, the theme loads the new threaded comments template.

From there control of the feature moves to header.php. Simplish loads the comment thread JavaScript only when needed: only if threaded comments are enabled in wp-admin, and then only on single post views. The script is not loaded on multiple- and archive pages where comments are not displayed.

In this execution path, single.php runs next, and that script includes the comments.php comments template. If there are comments on the post, comments.php eventually calls wp_list_comments() to echo the comments loop, producing the threaded result.

The JavaScript enqueued previously by header.php powers the AJAX-ified reply buttons and comment form. (Comment threading will work without this client-side script, but less smoothly.)

Bugs

There may be a few issues with paging threaded comments and reversing order from ascending to descending that can break “pretty” permalinks, as the page number is not always passed into links on comments page one. This issue, if it’s not just ephemera, appears to be a bug in wp_list_comments() and most easily patched there. [Conners 2008-12-12]

Wp_list_comments() produces some hCard classes in its comment loop output, but overall, comment author hCards and comment hAtom are less complete in this testing version than in previous versions of Simplish. To re-add the additional microformat stuff, we’ll filter wp_list_comments(), but this work isn’t started yet.

One place you won’t see threaded comments for a while is here at the Simplish site/blog, nor at the “official” Simplish Demo. Both are hosted on our WordPress-mu-based Labs/Blogs project on the stable version of the multi-blog WordPress software, and MU generally trails wp.org releases and features by a few weeks at least.

Simplish 2.1.4 is planned for final release in conjunction with WordPress version 2.7 — “real soon now.”

Happy [U.S.] Thanksgiving!

About Versions and Fixes

Josh — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:52:03 +0000

We have a very-roughly monthly release schedule, and as our infrequently-honored date of the 20^th approaches, the fix I have is a good one, but the only one: Anonymous contributed to the sibling sp theme a new background header image in PNG form at just 10% of the original’s size.

If there are other corners we could tidy, let us know with a comment here – that includes providing specific examples for the reported issue with some AJAX sidebar widgets and Simplish v2.1.2, as well as the question about the importance of threaded comment support -vs- the simplicity of loading no JavaScript.

Not about JavaScript

Josh — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 03:46:16 +0000

In a context completely unrelated to “threaded” discussion comments on blog posts, Rob Pike once wrote:

Threads are like salt. I like salt, you like salt, we all like salt. But we eat more pasta than salt.

Implementing (what will eventually be) WordPress 2.7′s new threaded comments is not difficult, and doing so yields a moderately useful new organization element: threading, or individual replies, similar to the presentation of discussion forums, many newsreaders, the Gmail message list, or the Twitter @. This post by Ottodestruct has plenty of info to get you started against the latest subversion tip to get threaded comments working in your theme.

Many themes are built with, even around, JavaScript. If Simplish already loaded even one script, we’d certainly add the cool new threads. But Simplish is supposed to be simple, and it is supposed to be a feature that the theme loads no JavaScript in a default configuration.

I will probably link to a quick alpha Simplish with cut-and-paste test code for a threaded comments template shortly, but I’m interested in opinions right now.