I really hope that if you've been reading this blog for awhile, you've learned to comb through the comments. Sometimes the scripts get completely overhauled in there. Other times, people post other solutions, solve installation problems, etc. post helpful links.

Of course the difficult side of that request, is that some posts have A LOT of comments. Unfortunatley, in some cases you'll see the same question get posted over and over again – when it was already answered or addressed previously – but you'd never find that answer in all the comments. Quite simply, it's difficult to find the answers you really need when there's so many comments in a single post.

SO – my script idea is a "COMMENT" rating system – much like this one which was designed for POSTS (side note: Seems like some updates were added and here is the most recent version). As well, there's an update with timestamps and banning here.
It would be simple enough to modify those scripts to store ratings for comments. Additionally what I would add is this: if the comment is rated 50% or 75% (user choice) positively, then highlight it so it's easier for people to find. (This would probably be a simple div around each comment that has a php include in it – that checks the comment's rating and gives the div a background color for a hightlight) By 50 – 75% I mean this: for example if there are "10" votes on a comment and if 7 of them were + (3 of them were – - maybe from people who didn't completely agree) it would get highlighted. If it got only 3 + votes (from a total of 3 votes) – it would get hightlighted – since 3 out of 3 is 100%.

Here's why I haven't just jumped in and written the script.

1) I don't know when MT 3.0 is coming out and I don't know if maybe it already has a feature like this (My comment queue script is already going to be a waste of space – as MT 3.0 will have it baked in. For this I'm glad – because it will be better that way)

2) Since comment stuff is changing in MT 3.0 – I'm not sure what to expect and I don't want to write a script that will have to be updated/modified the day the new version comes out.

3) Since this script is specifically designed for posts with many comments – my original "design" for it meant checking the database x number of times (where x = the number of comments.) For particularly popular posts (I can't believe that one has 125 comments!!) – would this kill my database, bandwidth, and "download" speed?

So just wanted to throw this out there – I won't be writing this script before the MT 3.0 release… but I'd REALLY like to as I think it would greatly help people trying to use scripts from this site. If anyone else has any ideas – feel free to leave a comment.

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I've connected to the database fine, but when it comes time to select a database, it dies. I've looked everywhere, but kind figure out why it would be happening.

Anyone run into this problem before? Have any suggestions? I've tried multiple varations on the following code:

$hostname = "localhost";
$username = "USERNAME";
$password = "PASSWORD";
$dbName = "USERNAME_DATABASENAME";

mysql_select_db($dbName) or die("Unable to select database");

I've also tried using the function: mysql_selectdb, I've tried having the reference to the db connection stored in a variable ($db) and then doing:
mysql_select_db($dbName, $db)
I've tried putting $dbName in qoutes, $db in quotes, putting an "@" symbol before mysql_connect or mysql_pconnect, or before mysql_select_db (I have no idea what the significance of the "@" symbol is…

AAaaaah! Going. Insane.

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I'm doing this mostly for myself, but will be giving the code back to Jennifer so she can look it over and advise whether she'd like to post it (I'm always wary of rewriting people's scripts and posting the results, although aside from the javascript, this is a total rewrite)

Anyone else interested in a mySQL version? (If you're only allotted one mySQL database in your account, you can use one database for a number of different tables, so if you're worried about that, don't be. If you don't have access to a mySQL database, I am assuming the text database version will continue to be worked on as well.)

I'm mostly done the scripts, just need to test things and retest them and develop an installation script, so look for it soon.

Before I hand it over to Jennifer though, I'd like to know if people are interested in any other features? Besides what the script can do currently, what would you be interested in having it do?

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Secondly – Blogroller is developing a personal version. Do I just pack it up, call it a day. Had my fun trying to figure this stuff out, and move on? (Do I continue trying to develop this when there's something bigger and better out there already?)

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Not really useful on its own… but maybe on a future project, it might be (like a hit tracking app?)

Download the file here.

See it working here.

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-add search feature
-add "side bar" forum (just for general questions and script requests)
-add download "section" for all scripts…

One thing I'm thinking of doing with some of our scripts – rather than do a traditional readme – Lynda's readme was REALLY cool on that comment-subscription script. I'm thinking about doing all readme's that way. It makes figuring out what you have to copy and paste SO CLEAR….

So… here's your chance to put your $.02 in… Can't guarantee that I can give you everything you ask for but I'd love to get your feedback on how this site could be made more useful for you…

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Create an intermediate "processing" file that will be the "action" instead of the mt-comments.cgi. On this page I will:
1) see if a "subsribe email list" file exists.
2) if so, parse it into an array
3) iterate through the array sending emails to each person's email (that's whats in the array – it's an array of emails of people who have subscribed to the comments for that post) with just the Author and text of the comment
5) We'll load all the values of the comment form (from the previous page) into hidden form elements.
4) Then onLoad, we'll submit the form like normal – to mt-comments.cgi so that the comment is logged, and the blog author gets their comment notification, etc.

Creating a "subscribe to comments" form has still yet to be completed, but that, I would imagine would be pretty simple… on the page itself create a secondary form – creating that subscribe email list (with the post ID in the filename to seperate it from other posts).

Ok, here's where I am, and here's the problems I'm having: (Everyone and anyone is free to comment and help out with the script! This is all in the name of fun and learning, and all are welcome to participate!!!)

Here's the code I came up with… it's not really complete… but you get the idea…

<?
$fileString = "/honme/PATH_TO_COMMENTSUBSCRIBE_FOLDER/commentsubscribe/";
$fileString .= "$entry_id";
$fileString .= "email.ini";
if (file_exists($fileString)) {
$emailList = parse_ini_file("$fileString");
$count = count($emailList);
}
if (!strcasecmp($isSent, "false")) {
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
mail("$emailList[$i]", "New Comment on $entry_id", "Author: $author\ncomment: $text", "From: scriptyATscriptygoddessDOTcom");
}
$submitForm = "document.comments_form.submit()";
$isSent = true;
} else {
$submitForm = "document.location='YOUR_HOME_PAGE'";
/*
I put this here in case someone tried to reload THIS page…
that way the $isSent variable is set to true (at the bottom)…
and the form won't process again post the comment again
and annoy people with bogus emails
*/
}
?>
<html><head><title></title></head><body onLoad="<? echo $submitForm ?>">
<form method="post" action="PATH_TO_YOUR_MTCOMMENTSFILE/mt-comments.cgi" name="comments_form">
<input type="hidden" name="static" value="<? echo $static ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="<? echo $entry_id ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="ipadd" value="<? echo $ip ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="author" value="<? echo $author ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="email" value="<? echo $email ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="url" value="<? echo $url ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="text" value="<? echo $text ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="post" value="submit" />
</form>
<?
$isSent = "true";
?>
</body>

Problem #1:
That $isSent failover… doesn't work.. it processes the comment again
Problem #2:
I did some bug-testing feedback thingys and it doesn't seem to be parsing the email list file (I set up a temporary one manually)

However, the comment DOES go through… so once we get this page working, it should work!

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas???

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So my original plan of attack was…

to take a look at mt-comments.cgi. See what makes it email comments when a comment is posted. Maybe capture email addresses on the comments form (from people who want to subscribe to the comments) and make an array (in an external "flat file") of the email addresses – and when the comment is mailed to the author, have it also mailed to the mailing list (in that array)

Anyway – those are just my initial thoughts/plans of attack. Probably won't get to seriously play around with this until this weekend – but thought I'd open it up for anyone who's up for the challenge.

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So, welcome to another part of this blog – as collaboration tool. Here's what I've got so far:

My thought was I'd create an array with a list of links. A different array for each category. (An additional array – a list of IDs was created to be parallel to the links array – you'll see why in a minute)

So I created a seperate index page with this code:

<?
$i = 0;
$j = 0;
$k =0;
$l = 0;
$m = 0;
?>
<MTCategories>
<MTEntries>
<?
if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="how to's") {
$howtoidarraytemp[$i] = "<$MTEntryID encode_php="qq"$>";
$howtolinkarraytemp[$i] = "<$MTEntryLink encode_php="qq"$>";
$i++;
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="MT hacks") {
$mthacksidarraytemp[$j] = "<$MTEntryID encode_php="qq"$>";
$mthackslinkarraytemp[$j] = "<$MTEntryLink encode_php="qq"$>";
$j++;
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="bookmarks") {
$bookmarksidarraytemp[$k] = "<$MTEntryID encode_php="qq"$>";
$bookmarkslinkarraytemp[$k] = "<$MTEntryLink encode_php="qq"$>";
$k++;
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="lessons learned") {
$lessonsidarraytemp[$l] = "<$MTEntryID encode_php="qq"$>";
$lessonslinkarraytemp[$l] = "<$MTEntryLink encode_php="qq"$>";
$l++;
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="suggested reading") {
$readingidarraytemp[$m] = "<$MTEntryID encode_php="qq"$>";
$readinglinkarraytemp[$m] = "<$MTEntryLink encode_php="qq"$>";
$m++;
}
?>
</MTEntries>
</MTCategories>

So the idea was to include the page above on the individual entries page. Since each category has it's own array – I would
1) check which category we were looking at
2) transfer the category specific arrays into a standard array
2) get the key in which the current ID lives (in the current ID array)
3) add 1 to that key to get the next link, subtract 1 to get the previous link
4) display the links…

So here's that code:

<?
include("/home/pathtofile/categoryArrays.php");
if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="how to's") {
$idarraytemp = each($howtoidarraytemp);
$linkarraytemp = each($howtolinkarraytemp);
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="MT hacks") {
$idarraytemp = each($mthacksidarraytemp);
$linkarraytemp = each($mthackslinkarraytemp);
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="bookmarks") {
$idarraytemp = each($bookmarksidarraytemp);
$linkarraytemp = each($bookmarkslinkarraytemp);
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="lessons learned") {
$idarraytemp = each($lessonsidarraytemp);
$linkarraytemp = each($lessonslinkarraytemp);
} else if ("<$MTEntryCategory$>"=="suggested reading") {
$idarraytemp = each($readingidarraytemp);
$linkarraytemp = each($readinglinkarraytemp);
} else {
$abort = "true";
// this prevents errors from occuring if
// it's a category that doesn't have an array associated with it
}

//$idarray = array_reverse($idarraytemp);
//$linkarray = array_reverse($linkarraytemp);

if (!$abort =="true"); {

print("<p>");

$thisKey = array_search("<$MTEntryID$>", $idarraytemp);
$thisKeyNext = $thisKey + 1;
$thisKeyPrevious = $thisKey – 1;

if ($thisKeyPrevious < 0) {
// do nothing
} else {
print('<a href="');
print($linkarraytemp[$thisKeyPrevious]);
print('">see the previous post in this category</a>');
$previouslinkshown = "true";
}

if ($thisKeyNext >= count($linkarraytemp)) {
// do nothing
} else {
if ($previouslinkshown == "true") {
print(" || ");
}
print('<a href="');
print($linkarraytemp[$thisKeyNext]);
print('">see the next post in this category</a>');
}
print("<br>");
print("This current category is: ");
print("<$MTEntryCategory$>");
print("</p>");
}
?>

As you can tell… it's not working. Something I think I might be doing wrong – the way I'm transfering the values of the array into that standard-named array… I know the array is currently reversed… I commented out the 'fix' for now.

If you have any suggestions… leave 'em in the comments, and I'll give it a try.

Some notes – I'm only paying attention to MAIN categories here, I decided for simplicity sake (ha!) to ignore the mutliple categories thing… that's why I'm using the MT tags that you see – MTCategoryLabel will display ALL categories… etc.

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