Introduction

The django-fluent-comments module enhances the default appearance of the django.contrib.comments application to be directly usable in web sites. The features are:

• Ajax-based preview and posting of comments
• Configurable form layouts using django-crispy-forms and settings to exclude fields.
• Comment moderation, using Akismet integration and auto-closing after N days.
• E-mail notification to the site managers of new comments.
• Optional threaded comments support via django-threadedcomments.

The application is designed to be plug&play; installing it should already give a better comment layout.

Installation

First install the module, preferably in a virtual environment. It can be installed from PyPI:

pip install django-fluent-comments

Or the current folder can be installed:

pip install .

Configuration

To use comments, the following settings are required:

INSTALLED_APPS += (
    'fluent_comments',
    'crispy_forms',
    'django.contrib.comments',
)

COMMENTS_APP = 'fluent_comments'

Add the following in urls.py:

urlpatterns += patterns('',
    url(r'^blog/comments/', include('fluent_comments.urls')),
)

Provide a template that displays the comments for the object and includes the required static files:

{% load comments %}

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}fluent_comments/css/ajaxcomments.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="{{ STATIC_URL }}fluent_comments/js/ajaxcomments.js"></script>

{% render_comment_list for object %}
{% render_comment_form for object %}

The database can be created afterwards:

./manage.py syncdb
./manage.py runserver

Template for non-ajax pages

The templates which django.contrib.comments renders use a single base template for all layouts. This template is empty by default since it's only serves as a placeholder. To complete the configuration of the comments module, create a comments/base.html file that maps the template blocks onto your website base template. For example:

{% extends "mysite/base.html" %}{% load i18n %}

{% block headtitle %}{% block title %}{% trans "Responses for page" %}{% endblock %}{% endblock %}

{% block main %}
    <div id="comments-wrapper">
        {% block content %}{% endblock %}
    </div>
{% endblock %}

In this example, the base template has a headtitle and main block, which contain the content and title blocks that django.contrib.comments needs to see. This application also outputs an extrahead block for a meta-refresh tag. The extrahead block can be included in the site base template directly, so it doesn't have to be included in the comments/base.html file.

CSS form layout

Form layouts generally differ across web sites, hence this application doesn't dictate a specific form layout. Instead, this application uses django-crispy-forms which allows configuration of the form appearance. By default, the forms can be rendered with 2 well known CSS frameworks:

• Bootstrap The default template pack. The popular simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and Javascript for user interfaces from Twitter.
• Uni-form Nice looking, well structured, highly customizable, accessible and usable forms.

The CRISPY_TEMPLATE_PACK setting can be used to switch between both layouts. For more information, see the django-crispy-forms documentation.

Both CSS frameworks have a wide range of themes available, which should give a good head-start to have a good form layout. In fact, we would encourage to adopt django-crispy-forms for all your applications to have a consistent layout across all your Django forms.

If your form CSS framework is not supported, you can create a template pack for it and submit a pull request to the django-crispy-forms authors for inclusion.

Hiding form fields

Form fields can be hidden using the following settings:

FLUENT_COMMENTS_EXCLUDE_FIELDS = ('name', 'email', 'url')
COMMENTS_APP = 'fluent_comments'

When django-threadedcomments in used, the title field can also be removed.

Comment moderation

Comment moderation can be enabled for the specific models using:

from fluent_comments.moderation import moderate_model
from myblog.models import BlogPost

moderate_model(BlogPost,
    publication_date_field='publication_date',
    enable_comments_field='enable_comments',
)

This code can be placed in a models.py file. The provided field names are optional. By providing the field names, the comments can be auto-moderated or auto-closed after a number of days since the publication date.

The following settings are available for comment moderation:

AKISMET_API_KEY = "your-api-key"
AKISMET_BLOG_URL = "http://example.com"        # Optional, to override auto detection
AKISMET_IS_TEST = False                        # Enable to make test runs

FLUENT_CONTENTS_USE_AKISMET = True             # Enabled by default when AKISMET_API_KEY is set.
FLUENT_COMMENTS_CLOSE_AFTER_DAYS = None        # Auto-close comments after N days
FLUENT_COMMENTS_MODERATE_AFTER_DAYS = None     # Auto-moderate comments after N days.
FLUENT_COMMENTS_AKISMET_ACTION = 'moderate'    # Set to 'moderate' or 'delete'

To use Akismet moderation, make sure the AKISMET_API_KEY setting is defined.

E-mail notification

By default, the MANAGERS of a Django site will receive an e-mail notification of new comments. This feature can be enabled or disabled using:

FLUENT_COMMENTS_USE_EMAIL_NOTIFICATION = True

The template comments/comment_notification_email.txt is used to generate the e-mail message.

Threaded comments

There is build-in support for django-threadedcomments in this module. It can be enabled using the following settings:

INSTALLED_APPS += (
    'threadedcomments',
)

COMMENTS_APP = 'fluent_comments'

The templates and admin interface adapt themselves automatically to show the threaded comments.

Contributing

This module is designed to be generic, and easy to plug into your site. In case there is anything you didn't like about it, or think it's not flexible enough, please let us know. We'd love to improve it!

If you have any other valuable contribution, suggestion or idea, please let us know as well because we will look into it. Pull requests are welcome too. :-)