static_comments

This plugin allows to add static comments to your theme. Static comments are taken from files <path>/<name>.<id>.wpcomment, where <path>/<name>.<ext> is the post's main file name. Such comments are for example written by the import_wordpress plugin when specifying the --export-comments argument on import.

You must use a theme which supports static comments for them to be visible (see below for instructions on how to adjust a theme).

Why use static comments?

Static comments allow you to avoid using a dynamic (JavaScript-based) comment system. If you want users to be able to still comment things, you need to provide a form which could send the comment as an email to you, so you can create the comment files manually (or with a script).

Static comments also allow you to import a legacy WordPress blog and convert it to a completely static Nikola blog, without having to use some external service for handling the comments.

Comment files

Comment files are of the following form::

.. id: 10
.. approved: True
.. author: felix
.. author_email: [email protected]
.. author_IP: 1.2.3.4
.. author_url: https://felix.fontein.de
.. date_utc: 2017-01-06 11:23:55
.. parent_id: 8
.. wordpress_user_id: 1
.. compiler: rest

this is a test comment.

the content spans the rest of the file.

Most header fields are optional. compiler must specify a page compiler which allows to compile a content given as a string to a string; these are currently the restructured text compiler (rest), the MarkDown compiler (markdown; only allows this in Nikola v7.8.2 or newer), and the WordPress (wordpress) compiler. You can also specify html, in which case the comment's content will be taken as HTML without any processing.

Comments can form a hierarchy; parent_id must be the comment ID of the parent comment, or left away if there's no parent.

Inclusion in theme

You need a static comments aware theme to be able to actually see the comments. To modify a theme accordingly, some helper functions are provided in templates/*/static_comment_helpers.tmpl. They can be used as follows.

The plugin defines a variable site_has_static_comments with value True, so themes can detect the presence of static comments in general.

In templates which show the post contents (post.tmpl and index.tmpl), you can get the comments shown as follows (with jinja2 templates; adjust accordingly for mako templates)::

[...]
{% import 'static_comments_helper.tmpl' as static_comments with context %}
[...]
{% if not post.meta('nocomments') and (site_has_comments or site_has_static_comments) %}
  <div class="comments">
    <h2>{{ messages("Comments", lang) }}</h2>
    {{ static_comments.add_static_comments(post.comments, lang) }}
    [...]
  </div>
{% endif %}
[...]

In templates which list the posts (list_post.tmpl, post_list_directive.tmpl etc.), you can get the static comment count shown as follows::

[...]
{% import 'static_comments_helper.tmpl' as static_comments with context %}
[...]
{% if not post.meta('nocomments') and site_has_static_comments %}
  <span class="comment-count">{{ static_comments.add_static_comment_count(post.comments, lang) }}</span>
{% endif %}
[...]

Finally, you need to add support for some additional messages.

• "No comments.";
• "{0} wrote on {1}:" where {0} will be replaced by the author and {1} by the localized date;
• "No comments";
• "{0} comments" where {0} will be replaced by a number larger than 1;
• "{0} comment" where {0} will be replaced by 1.

Your theme might of course also print comments differently with other messages than these, by incorporating a modified version of static_comment_helpers.tmpl.

Issues? Questions?

You can report issues with this plugin and request help via GitHub Issues.