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Friday, February 17, 2012
Top Commentators Widget for Blogger: Update
Top Commentators Widget for Blogger: Update
I wrote a detailed step-by-step instruction to install the top commentators widget for Blogger/ Blogspot about two months ago. The widget was based on a feed from Yahoo Pipes. Since then, this remains as the most popular post from my blog. It has also attracted the most number of comments, positive and negative, and many trackbacks. In fact, the pipe did work very well except for some minor bugs. In this post, I have attempted to address some of the issues, thanks to some excellent work from other fellow bloggers.
Problem #1
The RSS feed did not work properly, as Blogger’s default feed widget tried to sort the feed according to the date. This has disrupted the already sorted version from Pipes and we had duplicate names and names that are not properly sorted. This has been pointed out by CyberPenguin in his/ her post The Top Commenters Feature Glitch Needs A Fix! Will You Be The One To Save The Day?!.
The Solution
This problem has now been resolved and I should thank two bloggers who came out with similar solution to this problem. These bloggers have come out with a Javascript code, which requires just one-step for you to install the top commentators widget in Blogger. Here are the links to the posts:
Problem #2
Some readers have asked about how to remove their own comments from the top commentators list. In fact, my original pipe did have a filter to remove the author’s name from the list. But, strangely, when you clone the pipe this filter is not available any more.
The Solution
I thought of writing a post on this, but BloggerBuster is quick enough to complete this in his blog. So, I will redirect you to his post to learn how to remove your name from the list:
Problem #3
Many readers have highlighted that the top commentators list is just linking back to the last comment made by that particular person. They felt that it would be nice if we could link to the commentator’s blog/ website instead.
The Solution
Unfortunately, there is no solution to this problem yet. Blogger does not provide the commentator’s blog/ web site URL in the RSS feed and hence we could not resolve this problem. But, let us see if Google will notice this and give us a way to work around. Until then, just be content with the names.
Finally, thanks to all the bloggers who made the effort to feedback, comment and improve the top commentators widget. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post
Problem #1
The RSS feed did not work properly, as Blogger’s default feed widget tried to sort the feed according to the date. This has disrupted the already sorted version from Pipes and we had duplicate names and names that are not properly sorted. This has been pointed out by CyberPenguin in his/ her post The Top Commenters Feature Glitch Needs A Fix! Will You Be The One To Save The Day?!.
The Solution
This problem has now been resolved and I should thank two bloggers who came out with similar solution to this problem. These bloggers have come out with a Javascript code, which requires just one-step for you to install the top commentators widget in Blogger. Here are the links to the posts:
- Top Commentators For a Blogger Blog from GoogleSystem
- Top Commenter's Widget for Blogger Blogs! from BloggerBuster
Problem #2
Some readers have asked about how to remove their own comments from the top commentators list. In fact, my original pipe did have a filter to remove the author’s name from the list. But, strangely, when you clone the pipe this filter is not available any more.
The Solution
I thought of writing a post on this, but BloggerBuster is quick enough to complete this in his blog. So, I will redirect you to his post to learn how to remove your name from the list:
- Removing your name from the Top Commenters Widget
Problem #3
Many readers have highlighted that the top commentators list is just linking back to the last comment made by that particular person. They felt that it would be nice if we could link to the commentator’s blog/ website instead.
The Solution
Unfortunately, there is no solution to this problem yet. Blogger does not provide the commentator’s blog/ web site URL in the RSS feed and hence we could not resolve this problem. But, let us see if Google will notice this and give us a way to work around. Until then, just be content with the names.
Finally, thanks to all the bloggers who made the effort to feedback, comment and improve the top commentators widget. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post
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