Converting MT to use the new comment stuff

By Lisa on November 7, 2005 6:40 PM | tutorials | Permalink | Comments (2)

(I need someone to test this, so please let me know what happens and I can make updates as needed. -Thanks, Lisa)

So you've upgraded but haven't changed your templates. There's a few things you'll want to do to be able to use the spiffy new comment-y stuff.

1) Get rid of your Javascript popup comment window. Change the links on your Main Index to:
<MTIfCommentsActive>| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#comments">Comments (<$MTEntryCommentCount$>)</a></MTIfCommentsActive> <MTIfPingsActive>| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#trackback">TrackBacks (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)</a></MTIfPingsActive>

2) Make sure you have the new Javascript file. You can find it here if it's missing. Create a new Index Template. Be sure to make the Output Filename mt-site.js. Paste the text in and save and rebuild it. (You can set it to not rebuild automatically with index templates because it won't change again.)

3) Fix up your Individual Entry Archive template.
(This is more complicated so it's in the extended entry.)

a) Add the following somewhere between the <head> and </head> tags:
<script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTBlogURL$>mt-site.js"></script>

b) Then add the following text in your <body> tag:
onload="individualArchivesOnLoad(commenter_name)"

(so if it was <body class="some_cool_class">, it would now be <body class="some_cool_class" onload="individualArchivesOnLoad(commenter_name)">)

c) Update the comment section of the page. You can remove the old stuff (I'd recommend saving it in a text file in case you want to go back and steal the formatting once we're done).

Note: That brings in a ton of styles that you won't have. You can either reformat your code or go here and get the missing styles and whatnot.

Instead of what you had, paste in the following (taken from here):
<MTIfCommentsActive> <div id="comments" class="comments"> <div class="comments-content"> <MTComments> <MTCommentsHeader><h3 class="comments-header">Comments</h3></MTCommentsHeader> <a id="c<$MTCommentID pad="1"$>"></a> <div class="comment" id="comment-<$MTCommentID$>"> <div class="comment-content"> <$MTCommentBody$> </div> <p class="comment-footer"> Posted by: <$MTCommentAuthorLink default_name="Anonymous"$> <$MTCommentAuthorIdentity$> | <a href="#comment-<$MTCommentID$>"><$MTCommentDate$></a> </p> </div> </MTComments> </div>



                        <MTEntryIfCommentsOpen> 

                        <form method="post" action="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTCommentScript$>" name="comments_form" onsubmit="if (this.bakecookie.checked) rememberMe(this)">

                           <input type="hidden" name="static" value="1" />

                           <input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="<$MTEntryID$>" />

                           

                           <div class="comments-open" id="comments-open">

                              <h2 class="comments-open-header">Post a comment</h2>

                              

                              <div class="comments-open-content">

                                 <script type="text/javascript">

                                 <!--

                                 writeTypeKeyGreeting(commenter_name, <$MTEntryID$>);

                                 //-->

                                 </script>

                              

                                 <MTIfCommentsModerated>

                                 <p class="comments-open-moderated">

                                    (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

                                 </p>

                                 </MTIfCommentsModerated>

                                 <div id="comments-open-data">

                                    <div id="name-email">

                                       <p>

                                          <label for="comment-author">Name:</label>

                                          <input id="comment-author" name="author" size="30" />

                                       </p>

                                       <p>

                                          <label for="comment-email">Email Address:</label>

                                          <input id="comment-email" name="email" size="30" />

                                       </p>

                                    </div>

                                    <p>

                                       <label for="comment-url">URL:</label>

                                       <input id="comment-url" name="url" size="30" />

                                    </p>

                                    <p>

                                       <label for="comment-bake-cookie"><input type="checkbox"

                                          id="comment-bake-cookie" name="bakecookie" onclick="if (!this.checked) forgetMe(document.comments_form)" value="1" />

                                          Remember personal info?</label>

                                    </p>

                                 </div>

<p id="comments-open-text"> <label for="comment-text">Comments: <MTIfAllowCommentHTML>(you may use HTML tags for style)</MTIfAllowCommentHTML></label> <textarea id="comment-text" name="text" rows="10" cols="30"></textarea> </p> <div id="comments-open-footer" class="comments-open-footer"> <input type="submit" accesskey="v" name="preview" id="comment-preview" value="Preview" /> <input type="submit" accesskey="s" name="post" id="comment-post" value="Post" /> </div> </div> </div> </form> </MTEntryIfCommentsOpen> </div> </MTIfCommentsActive>

2 Comments

eschamp said:

What kind of test??

November 13, 2005 5:17 PM

Lisa said:

Basically someone with a Movable Type weblog (who upgraded but kept their old templates) would follow the steps and make sure that things worked when they were done. Because I'd already had this done on my weblog when I wrote it up so that makes it hard to test after the fact. But I'm pretty sure that it's correct.

November 13, 2005 5:22 PM