Being Mr. Kenny

Current version: 2.0

One feature which is conspicuously absent from WordPress is the ability to switch comments on or off for all posts. Under the Options > Discussion page, you can switch the default setting for comments on or off, but that only applies to posts you make from that point forward.

You can disable comments on individual posts, but if you’ve got more than twenty posts, this takes ages! This plugin allows you to quickly and easily switch comments (and trackbacks/pingbacks) on or off with a single click.

Extended Comment Options 2.0 has been tested on WordPress versions 2.3.2. Support for versions below this cannot be guaranteed. Upgrading to the latest version of WordPress is always recommended. If version 2.0 does not work, you can always try previous versions, though these do not have all of the features of 2.0 (the links are below).

Hidden Comments

Please note that this plugin does not hide existing comments. If you find comments being hidden after they have been closed, it is likely that your theme (i.e. the design of your blog) is hiding comments. If this is the case, please contact the author of that theme.

Instructions

The plugin adds a page under “Comments” called “Comment Status”. This page is split into two main sections: “Simple Settings” and “Advanced Settings”.

Simple Settings

You can quickly open or close all discussion on every single post by clicking the appropriate button under the “One-Click” heading. It also synchronises your Discussion options for future posts (i.e. the default settings for new posts).

If you want to open discussion on the last X posts/days/weeks/months/years, you can use the setting under “Posts in the last…”. If you have previously used the “Advanced Setting” form to exclude posts, this setting will respect that. You can set this to happen automatically, too.

Advanced Settings

This section gives you more control over discussion options. You can choose whether you want to open/close comments or pings, or both. You can also choose whether you want to change the default setting for new posts.

In the “Which posts?” section, you can choose which groups of posts you want to affect. The first two are for new posts and existing posts respectively. The third option allows you to open/close discussion on posts made before or after a specific date.

The fourth option allows you to, for example, open discussion on the last five posts, or on posts made in the last month, or the last 2 years. It then closes discussion on the remaining posts. The fifth option allows you to close comments on posts with a certain number of comments. These two options can be applied automatically, so you don’t need to keep applying it.

Excluding posts

Finally, you can choose to exclude certain posts completely. This is useful if you have a post which still draws comments long after it was originally posted. You can close discussion on all posts, but leave it open on that one post.

To exclude a post, simply enter its ID in the text box. If you want to exclude more than one post, separate each ID with a comma (you can also separate them with a comma and a space). You can find a post’s ID on the “Manage” page in your WordPress admin area.

Please note that the “One Click” setting overrides this, and will open or close discussion on all posts regardless.

Results

If everything has gone well, the plugin will display a brief summary of what you asked it to do. You can use this to check that it’s done what you wanted it to do.

Installation

Extended Comment Options is installed like any other WordPress plugin. Download the .zip file, and extract it. Place the file named “commentcontrol.php” in your wp-content/plugins directory, and activate it in the usual way from the “Plugins” page in your admin area.

• Download Extended Comment Options 2.0
• Download Extended Comment Options 1.1 (Compatible with WordPress versions prior to 2.2).

Upgrading

Upgrading is really easy. Just overwrite the commentcontrol.php file with the new version. You may need to re-activate the plugin from your admin area.

Support and Future versions

Feature requests are always more than welcome.

I’m happy to provide support for this plugin. Just leave a comment below, or visit the plugin’s page on WordPress.org.

Version History

Current Version: 2.0

Monday 10th January, 2008

• Added a new option: “When number of comments reaches a certain number”
• Major new feature: automatically close comments. So you can set comments to close on posts older than 30 days, and it’ll update automatically each day.
• Polished a few of the messages, made them easier to understand. Also reworded the admin interface to make it easier to understand.
• Behind the scenes: security is tighter. Also dates are calculated differently: One month ago from the 10th Jan is the 10th Dec. One year ago from 10th Jan 2008 is 10th Jan 2007, instead of being counted as everything beyond the current year.

Version 1.2

Friday 21st September, 2007

• The page now shows up under the “Comments” menu in WordPress, as opposed to the “Options” menu.
• The plugin now reports which posts were not affected (if selected) a lot more efficiently.
• The “Simple settings” options were previously changing the excluded posts setting. This is now no longer the case.
• Now supports more recent versions of WordPress (v 2.2) — specifically, it only affects published posts, no longer pages.

Version 1.1

Tuesday 25th July, 2006

• Tightened security
• “Last X posts” — fixed bug arising when X was greater than total number of posts!
• Compatible with WordPress v1.5.2.

Version 1.0

Saturday 22nd July, 2006

• Extended Comment Options first released!