%COMMENT{attributes}%
anywhere in a topic.
Name | Description | Default |
---|---|---|
type | This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a Foswiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE preference setting. | below |
default | Default text to put into the prompt. | |
target | Name of the topic to add the comment to | the current topic |
mode | For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with type | |
nonotify | Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics | off |
noform | Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that is generated around your comment prompt if you don't provide a FORM template. See CommentPluginExamples:noform for an example. | off |
nopost | Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic. | off |
remove | Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked. | off |
button | Button label text | Add comment |
%COMMENT
supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.
%COMMENT
tag %COMMENT
tag itself. For example:
%COMMENT{type="below"}%will add comments in the current topic, directly below the
%COMMENT
tag.
target
attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,
%COMMENT{type="above" target="%USERSWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%This uses a standard in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See EditingShorthand for more about Foswiki anchors.
Template type | Description |
---|---|
top |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored) |
bottom |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored) |
above |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified |
bulletabove |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), bullet point added immediately before the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified (inputsize="20" can be used to set the input length) |
below |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified |
after |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), added added before the comment box, after the last comment |
belowthreadmode |
Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box |
threadmode |
Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time) |
tableprepend |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>) |
tableappend |
Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>) |
action |
Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes) |
table |
Tablerows adding on end |
toctalk |
Talk using TOC adding on end |
bookmark |
Create a list of annotated bookmarks |
return |
Post to a different topic and return |
PROMPT:mytype
and OUTPUT:mytype
respectively. See comments.tmpl
in the templates directory for examples.
The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard template file, templates/comments.tmpl
. This allows different templates to be defined for different Foswiki skins.
templates/comments.tmpl
includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes System.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.
This allows for several levels of customization: comments.tmpl
to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
UserCommentsTemplate
to the web (this will replace System.UserCommentsTemplate)
templatetopic
. For example:
%COMMENT{ type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
templatetopic
accepts topic
or web.topic
syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
%TMPL:INCLUDE
to include other files of templates.PROMPT
and an OUTPUT
definition:
%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END% %TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP% %TMPL:END%Call your custom comment with:
%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%
PROMPT
template PROMPT
template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input
, textarea
and select
. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT
template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%
s.
FORM
template FORM
template can optionally be provided if you want to explicitly
define the form (the <form>
and </form>
tHTML ags) that wraps around the PROMPT
template. If you don't define
a FORM=template, one is automatically generated for you (unless the =noform="on"
parameter is given).
%COMMENT
tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT
template. Expressions in the template of the form %
param|
default%
(e.g. %rows|3%
, %button|Push me%
) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT
. For example, if the PROMPT
template 'example' contains:
<textarea rows="%rows|3%" cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">and the %COMMENT tag is:
%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%then the template will be expanded as
<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">
PROMPT
definition:
Macro | Description |
---|---|
%DISABLED% |
Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode). |
%MESSAGE% |
The text specified by default . This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED. |
FORM
definition, the body of the prompt is expanded to replace
the %COMMENTPROMPT%
macro.
EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the rest
script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:
CGI parameter | Description |
---|---|
comment_action |
Must be save to get the CommentPlugin to perform |
comment_type |
Type of the OUTPUT template |
comment_index |
Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT. |
comment_anchor |
Anchor taken from the target spec |
comment_nonotify |
As passed to %COMMENT |
comment_remove |
Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic |
comment_nopost |
As passed to %COMMENT |
comment_templatetopic |
As passed to %COMMENT |
comment_target |
Alternate save topic as passed to %COMMENT |
comment_anchor
overrides comment_index
. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{restauth}%/CommentPlugin/comment" > <input type="submit" value="I Approve" /> <input type="hidden" name="topic" value="%WEB%/%TOPIC%" /> <input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%WEB%/%TOPIC%" /> <input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" /> <input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" /> <input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" /> </form>
action
must be %SCRIPTURL{"rest"}%/CommentPlugin/comment
. The save script used in previous versions will not work.
topic
must be set to a valid, existing Web.Topic
. topic
is validated by the rest
script which will reject the request if invalid.
comment_target
input field to identify the target, otherwise it defaults to topic
setting. comment_target
is more flexible and can omit the Web part.
%COMMENTPROMPT%
; the prompt will be positioned here.
noform="on"
templatetopic
to point to the topic with the form template
%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}% <form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{rest}%/CommentPlugin/comment" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment"> <input type="hidden" name="topic" value="%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" /> <input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" /> %COMMENTPROMPT% </form> %TMPL:END%Example comment:
%COMMENT{ type="example" templatetopic="%SANDBOXWEB%.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
OUTPUT
template OUTPUT
template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual macros are available in the PROMPT
definition,
but note that a subset of macros are expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.
The expanded variables are: %DATE%
Signature-format date VarDATE
%SERVERTIME%
See VarSERVERTIME
%GMTIME%
See VarGMTIME
%USERNAME%
Base login name - VarUSERNAME
%WIKINAME%
Wiki name - VarWIKINAME
%WIKIUSERNAME%
Wiki name with prepended web - VarWIKIUSERNAME
%URLPARAM{...}%
- Parameters to the current CGI query - VarURLPARAM
%NOP%
No-op - VarNOP
$encodeguest
will be set to "off" when the commenting user is logged in, and set to "entity" for anonymous comments.
This is used in combination with the %URLPARAM%
macro. Any user input from untrusted users should be entity encoded. For example:
%TMPL:DEF{outputoneliner}% * %URLPARAM{"comment" encode="$encodeguest"}% -- %WIKIUSERNAME% - %GMTIME{"$day $month $year"}%%TMPL:END%There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the
%COMMENT
tag:
%POS:TOP% |
If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text |
%POS:BOTTOM% |
If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text |
%POS:BEFORE% |
If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the %COMMENT% tag |
%POS:AFTER% |
If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the %COMMENT% tag |
DEFAULT_TYPE
%COMMENTPROMPT% |
Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here. |
OUTPUT
template.
configure
, the plugin can be configured to use a different access control domain than the default CHANGE.
This allows you to use the plugin to add content to topics where the commenting user does not have CHANGE (or even VIEW) access.
COMMENT
permission instead of CHANGE
, you should ensure that every web has the desired
default permission by configuring ALLOWWEBCOMMENT
or DENYWEBCOMMENT
in every WebPreferences topic. You should also configure appropriate defaults in the _default
Template web.
If default permissions are not configured, then commenting will be permitted.
Preference![]() |
Default | Description |
---|---|---|
%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES% |
comments |
Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate. |
%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE% |
above |
Default template type |
cd /path/to/foswiki perl tools/extension_installer <NameOfExtension> installIf you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in
configure
, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See https://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.
Note that if you want to use the action
template then you must also: {PluginsOrder}
configuration option (in configure
)
10 April 2011
version shipped with Foswiki 1.1.4. rest
handler to update topics. By default this script does not require authentication, and can now permit anonymous commenting. Examine the https://austlii.community/foswiki/bin/configure ( Security and Authentication
tab, Login
sub-tab ) configuration {AuthScripts}
setting, and the scripts requiring authentication in the Apache configuration.
noform
and templatetopic
examples they must be revised.
Change History: | |
2.93 (22 Jan 2018) | Foswikitask:Item14554: remove link to unused wikiring.com domain. Foswikitask:Item14605: Unescaped brace in Regular Expression, Perl 5.27.8. |
2.92 (21 Jan 2017) | Foswikitask:Item14009: Comment plugin does not properly identify location to insert comment when specified as an anchor. |
2.91 (08 Apr 2016) | Foswikitask:Item14022: Update Foswiki.org links to https. Released with Foswiki 2.1.1. |
2.9 (03 Feb 2016) | Foswikitask:Item13854: Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = "*" on Comment Template. Requires compatibility patch on Foswiki 1.x or Foswiki 1.1.10. |
2.8 (15 Nov 2015) | Foswikitask:Item13852: Warn that COMMENT ACLs should be configured if enabled. Also suppress guest session warning on Foswiki 1.1. |
2.7 (29 Sep 2015) | Foswikitask:Item13576: Disable fields during submit, then clear input fields after comment is posted. Foswikitask:Item13764: Entity encode any comments by guest users. |
2.6 (24 Jul 2015) | Foswikitask:Item13502: Expand macros when returning an inline Ajax response. |
2.5 (24 Jun 2015) | Foswikitask:Item13474: Unicode fix |
2.4 (14 Jun 2015) | Foswikitask:Item13423: Perl 5.20 deprecations Foswikitask:Item13345: CGI deprecations Foswikitask:Item13287: Regular expression fixes Foswikitask:Item13125: CGI parm calling changes |
2.3 (18 Dec 2014) | Foswikitask:Item12855: Core extensions should require JQueryPlugin 6.00 Foswikitask:Item13125: CGI changes for multi-value parameters Foswikitask:Item13096: incorrect handling of unauthorised response Foswikitask:Item13105: Eliminate sort from tables in Macros Foswikitask:Item13106: removed blockquote where possible Foswikitask:Item13027: Most try..catch clauses were catching Error::Simple s/b Error Foswikitask:Item11737: Change hardcoded Main to %USERSWEB% Replace Sandbox with %SANDBOXWEB% Foswikitask:Item12900: Implement some session handling improvements |
2.2 (26 Sep 2014) | Foswikitask:Item12931: add a highlight to JS-added comments; fix no-JS comments |
2.1 (25 Apr 2014) | Foswikitask:Item10191: Recoded REST as a proper JQuery plugin, with correctly formatted insertions. Note that the old location parameter has been removed, as it never worked properly, could cause damage to topics, and could not work with client comments. If you were using it, apologies, but it had to go. Correct use of validation and authentication. Ready for 2.0. |
2.0.3 (22 Feb 2012) | Foswikitask:Item11448 - Implement {GuestCanComment}. If enabled, guests can comment on topics that they can not edit. |
2.0.2 (30 Jan 2012) 12887 | Foswikitask:Item11447 - "noform" examples not working - add comment_target parameter. |
2.0.1 (15 Jan 2012) | Foswikitask:Item11443 - better handling if target topic or web do not exist. |
10 Apr 2011 | Foswikitask:Item10263 - remove wrap="soft" to make templates validate. |
19 Nov 2010 | Foswikitask:Item10050 - CommentPlugin prompt must not add newlines that prevent COMMENT inside TML tables |
21 Oct 2010 | Foswikitask:Item3499 - support COMMENT (and other) ACL preferences Foswikitask:Item9592 - added AJAX example Foswikitask:Item9601 - Prevent uprev of topic for every comment Foswikitask:Item4423 - Spreadsheet calculations do not execute within comment templates Foswikitask:Item9568 (and others) - Redesigned core. Change commonTagsHandler to registered COMMENT macro, convert to REST handler instead of save script with beforeSaveHandler Foswikitask:Item5897 - if COMMENT target topic is missing, it should be created. |
21 Oct 2010 | Foswikitask:Item9857 - Restored the CommentPluginTemplate to how it was before. All the changes done to make it look nice causes many errors. Never again add newlines, never again add trailing \ on existing templates. It does not always work. |
31 Jul 2010 | Foswikitask:Item9415 - Documentation updates |
27 May 2010 | Moved example topic CommentPluginExamples to Sandbox web. |
24 Feb 2010 | Foswikitask:Item8611 - block comments resulting from calls to saveTopic from within an afterSaveHandler |
12 Sep 2009 | Foswikitask:Item8269 - Targeting anchors broken by Item727 is fixed. |
04 Jun 2009 | Foswikitask:Item1668 - The action template used with ActionTrackerPlugin now uses new syntax ending with %ENDACTION. This makes each action item appear on a new line. Additionally new lines are now correctly saved as html br tags and not as html encoded br tag Foswikitask:Item1640 - Templates shipped with the plugin no longer encodes the user date entered when the date is saved so that it is possible for the user to use macros. |
15 Jan 2008 | Foswikitask:Item727 - data loss issue when missing anchor or location |
13 Jan 2009 | Foswikitask:Item736 - Make CommentPlugin aware of CompareRevisionsAddOn bin script. |
16 Dec 2008 | Foswiki version |
06 Mar 2002 | initial commit |