Paginated Comments

Paginated Comments is a plugin developed for my website on Spider Bites (BadSpiderBites.com). I have a ton of comments, many that include graphics and displaying 500 comments along with the post would create one of the slowest loading pages on the net!

You can download it from the Wordpress Repository.

Most blogs will limit or even worse, close comments once they reach a certain number - something you should never do on a blog! You can never have enough comments!

I searched for a plugin and could not find anything that offered a SE friendly solution. Paginated Comments is built with SE optimization in mind and gives you the ability to break your comments into pages. You can create pages based on size of comments so that no page of comments is greater than a certain file size, or, you can create pages based on number of posts per page (100 for example).

Another key feature is the ability to remove or provide an excerpt of the main text used on the first page of comments. This prevents duplicate content and will help your paginated comments become indexed.

Features of Paginated Comments

• Titles for each page of comments.
• Description and Keywords for each page of comments.
• Paginate by size of all comments.
• Paginate by a number of comments.
• Personalize your Pretty Permalinks URI’s.
• Control page of comments post content.
• you can personalize per post your settings
• Manage everything within your WordPress Dashboard with a easily menu.

SYSTEM RECOMMENDATIONS

• PHP version 4.2 or higher.
• MySQL version 4.0 or higher.
• WordPress 2.3.x or 2.5.x

INSTALLING PAGINATED COMMENTS

1. Unzip the package into an empty directory.
2. Upload the entire directory “paginated-comments” to your Wordpress Plugin directory, default is: “/wp-content/plugins/”.
3. Login to your WordPress Dashboard and go to the plugins section.
4. Activate the Plugin.

SETTINGS

Paginated Comments offers a great number of features that can be managed from a simple sub-menu located inside the Settings Menu, in the following section we will give you a brief description of all the options.

PAGINATION

The pagination section provides you with a number of options for splitting multiple comments into pages. Pages require template modification in order to have this ability, posts do not. See: codex.wordpress.org/Include_Tags#The_Comments_Template for more information.

• Method: Set preferred Pagination Method.

• Ordering: Comments Ordering.

• Range: Numbers of pages to display.

• Per Page: Number Of Comments Per Page.
  (Only with the method “Number Of Comments”).

• Per Size: Sets Maximum Size of Comments Per Comment Page.
  The Size is expected to be in bytes.
  (Only with the method “Size Of Comments”).
• Fill Last Page: Enables/Disables “Fill Last Page” feature.
  When enabled, the last comment page will contain the maximum number of comments.
  (Takes effect only with “Number Of Comments”).
• Show-All: Enables/Disables “Show All” feature.
  When enabled, users will have the option to view all comments in one single page.
• Show-All Ordering: Show-All Comments Ordering.
• Default Page: Set Default Selected Page.
  When this option is set to “AUTO” the default page is set according the Comments Ordering:
  If you set ordering to “ASC” the default page will be the first (earliest comments).
  If you set ordering to “DESC” the default page will be the last (latest comments).

PERSONALIZATION

This section allows you to add information that will help make your comment pages more search engine friendly

• Insert On Pages Descriptions/Keywords: Enable/Disable Insert descriptions and/or keywords under comments pages. If enabled this option will use the ‘Default Description’ to make a description for pages and keywords.

  It can be expanded via Custom Fields (see custom fields section for more information).

• Default Description: Default Description for Page-Descriptions and Page-Keywords.
  This option currently supports these tags:
  %title% = Post Title
  %pnumber% = Current Page
• Page Title: Title for Comments Pages.
  This option currently supports this tags:
  %pnumber% = Current Page
• Page Content: Set what content to show under Comments Pages.
  Full = Complete content (not recommended)
  Excerpt = Displays the post excerpt. If you do not provide an explicit excerpt to a post (in the post editor’s optional excerpt field), the first 55 words of the post’s content are used by default.
  Nothing = Outputs a link to the first/original article page.
• Pretty Permalinks: Enables/Disables Pretty Permalinks for Comments Page.
• Page Slug: Sets Pages Slugs/URIs for Comments Pages.
  (Takes effect only if pretty permalinks are enabled).
• Show-All Slug: Sets Show-All Slug/URI for Show-All Link.
  (Takes effect only if pretty permalinks are enabled).

Custom Fields

Paginated Comments allows you to override some of the previously discussed settings via custom fields, so you can personalize per post your settings :-).

• paginated_comments:
  Values are on or off
  on = Enables Paginated Comments.
  off = Disables Paginated Comments.

• pcp_method:
  Values: number / size
  number = Set Pagination to Paginate Comments By Number Of Comments.
  size = Set Pagination to Paginate Comments By Size Of Comments.
• pcp_perpage:
  Number of comments per page.

• pcp_persize:
  Sets Maximum Size of Comments Per Comment Page.
  The Size is expected to be in bytes.

• pcp_ordering:
  Values are asc or desc
  asc = Set Comments Ordering to Ascending.
  desc = Set Comments Ordering to Descending.

• pcp_description:
  Extra description to be used along with “Default Description” value.

• pcp_keywords:
  Extra keywords to be used along with “Default Description” value.

Template Tags

From time to time blog owners, administrators or designers may find the default layout not suitable for their interest, in order to let you design your own layout, Paginated Comments provides you with certain functions that you can use within your template.

• Paginated_Comments_template

  Description

  Loads the comment paged template.

  Usage
  <?php Paginated_Comments_template(
  ‘comment-template-file’
  ); ?>

  Examples
  Loading default comment paged template:
  <?php Paginated_Comments_template(); ?>

  Loading custom located template:

  <?php Paginated_Comments_template(
  ‘/paginated-comments.php’
  ); ?>

  Parameters

  comment-template-file
  (string) Location of the template file to be used with Paginated Comments. Defaults to ‘comments-paged.php’.
  
  
  Notes
  This function first will try to reach the ‘comment-template-file’ location inside your current template location.
  If this file doesn’t exist then it will try to find (again) inside your current template location but searching for ‘comments-paged.php’.

  If this file (also) doesn’t exist it will load the default ‘comments-paged.php’ template (included with the plugin).
  If this file (also) doesn’t exist it will load the default comment template.

• Paginated_Comments_numeration

  Description

  Print comments enumeration.

  Usage
  <?php Paginated_Comments_numeration(); ?>

  Examples

  Print current comment number:
  <?php Paginated_Comments_numeration(); ?>

  Parameters
  This tag has no parameters.

  Notes
  This tag must be called within the comment loop.
  

• Paginated_Comments_URL

  Description
  Generates URI’s/Permalinks for comments.

  Usage
  <?php Paginated_Comments_URL(’fragment’, ‘current-page’); ?>

  Examples
  Print Unique Comment Paged URL:
  <?php Paginated_Comments_URL(’comment-’ . get_comment_ID()); ?>

  Parameters
  fragment
  (string) Text and comment-ID for URI/Permalink generation. Defaults to ‘comments’.

  current-page
  (string) Type of Link (Just for internal usage). Defaults to NULL.

  Notes
  This tag must be called within the comment loop.
  

• Paginated_Comments_print_pages

  Description
  Generates Links for the comments pages.

  Usage
  <?php Paginated_Comments_print_pages(’separator’, ’selected-before’, ’selected-after’, ‘left-navigation’, ‘right-navigation’, ‘all-string’, ‘older-alt’, ‘newer-alt’, ‘all-alt’); ?>

  Examples
  Print Default Page Links Layout:
  <?php Paginated_Comments_print_pages(); ?>

  Separate Page Links with a “|”:

  <?php Paginated_Comments_print_pages(’|'); ?>

  Wrap selected/current page within <h3> tags:
  <?php Paginated_Comments_print_pages(’&nbsp;’, ‘<h3>’, ‘</h3>’); ?>

  Set Left and Right Navigation links to ‘<-’ and ‘->’ (respectively):
  <?php Paginated_Comments_print_pages(’&nbsp;’, ‘<strong>[', ']</strong>’, ‘<-’, ‘->’); ?>

  Parameters
  separator
  (string) Separator between pages. Defaults to ‘&nbsp;’.

  selected-before

  (string) Left string to append to the current page. Defaults to ‘<strong>['

  selected-after
  (string) Right string to append to the current page. Defaults to ']</strong>’

  left-navigation
  (string) Left Navigation Link. Defaults to ‘&laquo;’

  right-navigation
  (string) Right Navigation Link. Defaults to ‘&raquo;’

  all-string
  (string) Text to be used for Show ALL Link. Defaults to ‘Show All’
  l10n compatible.

  older-alt
  (string) Older Alternate text. Defaults to ‘Older Comments’

  l10n compatible.

  newer-alt
  (string) Newer Alternate text. Defaults to ‘Newer Comments’
  l10n compatible.

  all-alt

  (string) Show ALL Link Alternate text. Defaults to ‘Show All Comments’
  l10n compatible.

  Notes
  Is best to wrap this function within the conditional tag Paginated_Comments_have_pages().

• Paginated_Comments_have_pages

  Description
  Conditional Template Tag that returns TRUE if we have more than one page.

  Usage
  <?php Paginated_Comments_have_pages(); ?>

  Examples
  Print Pages ONLY if have more than one page:

  <?php if ( Paginated_Comments_have_pages() ) : ?>
  <p class=”comment-page-numbers”>
   Pages: <?php Paginated_Comments_print_pages(); ?>

  </p>
  <?php endif; ?>

  Parameters
  This tag has no parameters.

  Notes
  This tag has no notes.

• Paginated_Comments_content

  Description
  Print Post Content.

  Usage
  <?php Paginated_Comments_content(’more_link_text’, strip_teaser, ‘more_file’); ?>

  Examples
  Displays the content of the post and uses “Read more…” for the more link text when the <!–more–> Quicktag is used.
  <?php Paginated_Comments_content(’Read more…’); ?>

  Parameters
  more_link_text
  (string) The link text to display for the “more” link. Defaults to ‘(more…)’.

  strip_teaser
  (boolean) Should the text before the “more” link be hidden (TRUE) or displayed (FALSE). Defaults to FALSE.

  more_file
  (string) File the “more” link points to. Defaults to the current file. (V2.0: Currently the ‘more_file’ parameter doesn’t work).

  Notes
  In order to control the post-content inside comments page, we have to overwrite/swap the function the_content, the plugin does this job
  by default but if you want personalization you will need to swap the_content with this one.
  

• get_Paginated_Comments_content

  Description
  Retrieves Post Content.

  Usage
  <?php $result = get_Paginated_Comments_content(’more_link_text’, strip_teaser, ‘more_file’); ?>

  Examples
  Retrieves the content of the post and uses “Read more…” for the more link text when the <!–more–> Quicktag is used.
  <?php $result = get_Paginated_Comments_content(’Read more…’); ?>

  Parameters
  more_link_text
  (string) The link text to display for the “more” link. Defaults to ‘(more…)’.

  strip_teaser
  (boolean) Should the text before the “more” link be hidden (TRUE) or displayed (FALSE). Defaults to FALSE.

  more_file
  (string) File the “more” link points to. Defaults to the current file. (V2.0: Currently the ‘more_file’ parameter doesn’t work).

  Notes
  This function is for Legacy/Hack Support and for Plugin InterOperatibility.
  

LICENSING

Paginated Comments has been released under the GNU Public License.

Further information about license its contained and described inside the file license.txt