Thomas Freudenberg : coComment

coComment for CS 2007 updated

Thomas Freudenberg — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:09:00 GMT

Every day you can learn something new. Today it was Scott who taught me ControlAdapters after he read my post about coComment with CommunityServer 2007. You know, ControlAdapters are not only good for tweaking CSS.

My original solution was a replacement for the WeblogPostCommentForm, i.e. for every blog theme you had to edit its post.aspx, register my new control and replace the original control.

ControlAdapters however give you the power to inject your code into any desired existing control. In a central file you specify which controls you want to customize, and that's it. No editing of any pages or controls is required.

So I took the chance and transformed my custom comment form into a ControlAdapter. In fact, it's as easy as writing a control. Here's the simplified code, just in case you're interested:

public class WeblogPostCommentFormAdapter : ControlAdapter
{
    protected override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnPreRender(e);

        WeblogPostCommentForm commentForm = base.Control as WeblogPostCommentForm;
        if (commentForm != null)
        {
            string coCommentScript = GetCoCommentScript(commentForm);
            if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(coCommentScript))
                CSControlUtility.Instance().RegisterStartupScript(base.Control, 
                    typeof (WeblogPostCommentForm), "cocomment", coCommentScript, false);
        }
    }

    private static string GetCoCommentScript(WeblogPostCommentForm commentForm)
    {
        // just boring stuff which creates the javascript code to make coComment happy
    }
}

Just drop the attached assembly to your ~/bin folder and add following line to the controlAdapters section in ~/App_Browsers/default.browser:

<adapter controlType="CommunityServer.Blogs.Controls.WeblogPostCommentForm"
    adapterType="ThomasFreudenberg.CS2007.WeblogPostCommentFormAdapter, ThomasFreudenberg.CS2007" />

That's all, without further editing of any files¹ coComment support is enabled for all blog themes automagically.

¹ unless of course if you're already using the assembly I published yesterday; in this case revert all changes done to your post.aspx'

coComment support for CS 2007

Thomas Freudenberg — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:34:00 GMT

If you are one of my two regular readers, you may have noticed that I published many posts regarding coComment. In fact, I published instructions to integrate coComment in original CommunityServer and CS2.1SP1 (for CS2.0 and CS2.1 Keyvan was faster than me )

(if you think I write so much about coComment is because I love it so much, you totally missed the point of my blog)

Anyway, if you follow the old instructions you'll see that there's bunch of script code you have to add to your blog theme. Unfortunately, that solution does not work anymore with CS 2007, because the controls in the comment form are wrapped in a new Chameleon control. I did not see a chance to access the ids of the contained controls and continue the old solution with my limited ASP.NET knowledge.

Instead, I developed another solution. I simply inherited a new control from WeblogPostCommentForm, where I have all access to the contained elements. And up to now I didn't know how easy it is to add some script in your code to be added to the rendered HTML

Long story short, here's my solution for coComment support in CS2007:

Drop the attached ThomasFreudenberg.CS2007.dll into your ~/bin folder.
Open post.aspx of your desired blog theme

Add following line right after the imports:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="TFr" Namespace="ThomasFreudenberg.CS2007"
    Assembly="ThomasFreudenberg.CS2007" %>

Replace <CSBlog:WeblogPostCommentForm â€¦ with <TFr:WeblogPostCommentForm â€¦
and </CSBlog:WeblogPostCommentForm> with </TFr:WeblogPostCommentForm>

In fact, for me as a non-web developer that approach seems much more natural to me than adding fancy instructions in the web control.

Updated to CS2.1 SP1 and fixed an issue

Thomas Freudenberg — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:17:00 GMT

I just upgraded my site to Community Server 2.1 SP1. I wouldn't post this if I did not encounter an issue, though you may experience this error only if you use my coComment support for CS. In fact, it occurs only if you use BlogThreadQuery and set ReturnFullThread to false. In this case, the stored procedure cs_weblog_PostSet does not return ApplicationPostType for found posts, but the code tries to retrieve it from the IDataReader.

I attached a corrected version of that SP to this post. In fact, I only added P.ApplicationPostType, in line 128.

Updated coComment support for Community Server 2.1

Thomas Freudenberg — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:47:00 GMT

Yesterday the guys at coComment updated their scripts. They also refreshed the example for Community Server, but that's targetting CS 2.0. There are some breaking changes in the API of CS 2.1, so that code won't work with Telligent's latest release. Keyvan Nayyeri updated the code some time ago. I polished it a little bit and incorporated the latest changes from coComment:


	

		
<%@ Import Namespace="CommunityServer.Components" %>
	
	

		
<%@ Import Namespace="CommunityServer.Blogs.Components" %>
	
	

		
 
	
	

		
<% CSContext context = CSContext.Current; %>
	
	

		
<% Weblog currentBlog = Weblogs.GetWeblog(context.ApplicationKey); %>
	
	

		
<% BlogThreadQuery query = new BlogThreadQuery(); %>
	
	

		
<% query.PostID = context.PostID; %>
	
	

		
<% if (context.PostName != null) { %>
	
	

		
<% query.PostName = context.PostName; %>
	
	

		
<% } %>
	
	

		
<% query.IncludeCategories = false; %>
	
	

		
<% query.ReturnFullThread = false; %>
	
	

		
<% query.SectionID = currentBlog.SectionID; %>
	
	

		
<% PostSet postSet = WeblogPosts.GetPosts(query, true); %>
	
	

		
<% postSet.Organize(); %>
	
	

		
<% WeblogPost blogPost = postSet.ThreadStarter as WeblogPost; %>
	
	

		
<% bool isAuthor = context.IsAuthenticated; %>
	
	

		
 
	
	

		
<script type="text/javascript">
	
	

		
coco =
	
	

		
{
	
	

		
    tool       : "<%= SiteStatistics.CommunityServerVersionVersionInfo %>",
	
	

		
    siteurl    : "<%= Globals.FullPath(currentBlog.Url) %>",
	
	

		
    sitetitle  : "<%= currentBlog.Name %>",
	
	

		
    pageurl    : "<%= Globals.FullPath(BlogUrls.Instance().Post(blogPost)) %>",
	
	

		
    pagetitle  : "<%= blogPost.Subject %>",<% if (isAuthor) { %>
	
	

		
    author     : "<%= context.User.DisplayName %>",<% } else{ %>
	
	

		
    authorID   : "<%= tbName.UniqueID %>",<% } %>
	
	

		
    formID     : "aspnetForm",
	
	

		
    textareaID : "<%= tbComment.UniqueID %>",
	
	

		
    buttonID   : "<%= btnSubmit.UniqueID %>"
	
	

		
}
	
	

		
</script>
	
	

		
<script id="cocomment-fetchlet" src="http://www.cocomment.com/js/enabler.js"
	

		
    type="text/javascript">
	
	

		
</script>

If you run CS 2.1 on ASP.NET 1.1, you have to change formID from "aspnetForm" to "__aspnetForm".

What I don't understand however is why the xxxID variables require the name of the related control instead of the ID.

What's next

Thomas Freudenberg — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:06:00 GMT

As mentioned in my last post, I'm working on several extensions for Community Server 2.1. I used to use the Intensive.CodeHighlighter library by Gary McPherson, but I could not find any updated version. Therefore I "re-engineered" a .NET 2.0 version and improved its configuration handling. No custom configSection is required anymore.

Secondly, I was working on a solution for enabling coComment in CS2.x. Scott Elkin asked my two days ago for some hints because the coComment support in CS 2.x was broken if you give our posts names. However, after I found out about the BlogThreadQuery, I saw that Keyvan Nayyeri already published the same instructions I was preparing.

Anyway, what's already running on this site is my custom spam rule using Akismet. You can see the module's settings to the right. I'd really like to see it in action, but up to now there was no spam knocking on my door. But I'm convinced that it will take only a couple of hours until the first spam will be rejected. As soon as I'm sure of its effectiveness I'll publish it.

coComment Logo for my blog

Thomas Freudenberg — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 14:05:00 GMT

Jayson Knight requested a logo for coComment to put on his blog. Though I think he refered to the comment form, I created two different "blog buttons" (or how these 80x15 images are called). Here they are:

is shown on every page and indicates that my blog supports coComment. It links to my coComment conversations.
is used in the comment form to inform the user that she can use coComment with my blog.

Update: I added a small explanation to define the scope of each of the images.

More coComment

Thomas Freudenberg — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 10:07:00 GMT

Dave Burke entered the coComment zone and said:

The thing is, there's no way to know if a blog (particularly a CS blog) supports CoComment. We CS guys may want to add a "CoComment Enabled" message or something to our blog comment form until the CoComment capture process is finalized.

Well, apparently they are working on it:

For advanced bloggers who would like to more fully integrate coComment features in their own blog, coComment will offer:

The ability to add elements of the coComment service to blogs based on non-standard blogging platforms in order to ease the usage of coComment for commenters (automated capture).

and just a couple of minutes ago Jayson Knight confirmed it in a comment to Dave's post:

Wahoo! Dual shoutouts...thanks! I've actually been in pretty close communication (both on and offline) with the CoComment devs about this service, namely this thread: http://www.cocomment.com/teamblog/?p=27#comments and this one: http://www.cocomment.com/teamblog/?p=21#comments. Merlin (the guy who seems to be in charge) has stated that he has his designers working on a solution where coco enabled blogs will display some sort of icon in the comment form box to let folks know it accepts coComments. I then asked "hey, why not ditch the bookmarklet all together and automate it"...they're one step ahead of me and said they'd have some new code for us early this week (their blog is already automated; if you have a coco account and leave a comment it's automatically tracked...look ma, no bookmarklet!). I highly recommend keeping up w/ their blog, so far they've been extremely receptive to ideas concerning coco. These guys are gonna be rock stars!

BTW, when I hear the term coComment, somehow I must think of coconut. This leads me to a better name for their service: coCoNet.

Revised coComment support

Thomas Freudenberg — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:05:00 GMT

Yesterday Jayson Knight described how to add coComment support to CommunityServer. I'm a user of coComment too, therefore I added Jayson's hack to my blog.

However, I don't like how the URL to the blog post is rendered (it's the rewritten URL, not the friendly one), so I decided to fix that. Furthermore, his solution does not work if you're logged in in CommunityServer, because in this case there's no field for the comment author's name. No offense, Jayson, since you admitting that your implemention is only a quick hack ;)

Anyway, here's what I came up with:

<%@ Import Namespace="CommunityServer.Components" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="CommunityServer.Blogs.Components" %>
<% WeblogPost currentPost = WeblogPosts.GetWeblogEntry(CSContext.Current.BlogGroupID, CSContext.Current.PostID); %>
<% bool isAuthor = CSContext.Current.IsAuthenticated && CSContext.Current.User.UserID == currentPost.AuthorID; %>
<script type="text/javascript">
    var blogTool                = "<%=SiteStatistics.CommunityServerVersionVersionInfo %>";
    var blogURL                 = "<%=Globals.FullPath(currentPost.Weblog.HomePage) %>";
    var blogTitle               = "<%=currentPost.Weblog.Name %>";
    var postURL                 = "<%=Globals.FullPath(BlogUrls.Instance().Post(currentPost)) %>";
    var postTitle               = "<%=currentPost.Subject %>";
    var commentAuthorLoggedIn   = <%=Convert.ToString(isAuthor).ToLower() %>;
<% if (isAuthor) { %>
    var commentAuthor           = "<%=CSContext.Current.User.DisplayName %>";
<% } else{ %>
    var commentAuthorFieldName  = "<%=tbName.UniqueID %>";
<% } %>
    var commentFormName         = "__aspnetForm";
    var commentTextFieldName    = "<%=tbComment.UniqueID %>";
    var commentButtonName       = "<%=btnSubmit.UniqueID %>";
</script>

Update: There were two bugs: the value for commentAuthorLoggedIn was quoted and must be lower cased, and commentButtonID must be commentButtonName. I updated the script above.