Creating comments via a related section

Question

I've been reading on here about suggestions on implementing commenting systems. I'm aware of disqus integration but I want/need built in commenting.

I have seen it mentioned a couple of times that one approach would be to create a section (presumably a channel) dedicated to comments and the relate that to an entry via an entries field.

I just can't quite wrap my head around how that works out. Do the entries have to be manually selected in order to relate them?

If anyone's built something like this then I would love to know how they tackled it!

One thing to add is that only registered members will be commenting. And there would be several different sections needing comments.

Thanks!

Answer 1

One approach would be to create a comments channel with an entries fieldtype (with sources checked for any channels that you want to allow commenting; limit set to 1) called 'relatedEntry' (or whatever you like). On your article template, include a for loop to display existing comments relateTo the entry. Check to see if there is a current user, and if yes, include a comments form. In the comments form place a hidden field with the id for the current entry. Something like this:

<article>
  {{ entry.title }}
  {{ entry.body }}
</article>

<ul class="comments">
{% for comment in craft.entries.section('comments').relatedTo(entry) %}
   <li>{{ comment.author.fullName }}<br/>{{ comment.body }}</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>

{% if currentuser %}
<form method="post" action="" accept-charset="UTF-8">
    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="entries/saveEntry">
    <input type="hidden" name="sectionId" value="2">
    <input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="{{ entry.url }}">
    <input type="hidden" name="fields[relatedEntry][]" value="{{ entry.id }}">

    <label for="comment">Comment</label><br/>
    <input type="text" name="comment">
</form>
{% endif %}

name="fields[relatedEntry][] is formated this way because related fields expect an array even if it's only a single related entry.

You could also create threaded comments by creating another related entries fieldtype called parentComment (or whatever you like) and including that as a hidden field in the form as well (you might need ajax or javascript here to help set the hidden field value from the 'comment' link).

To make it a little nicer you could also load the comments form via ajax or reveal it with javascript.

Untested, but hopefully this will point you in the right direction.

Answer 2

I've used this method before, works quite nice!

The way to do this:

• Create the fields you need for commenting (name, message, etc.). Be sure to add a relational field to which you can later assign the 'parent entry'
• Create a section (channel) called comments (or whatever else you want to call it)
• Assign the fields to the section you just created
• Use a frontend entry form for commenting. The sectionId is the id of the comments section, the action is 'entries/saveEntry'.

• Create a hidden input field, with the name of your relational field and assign the id of the 'parent entry' to it. Don't forget to add fields and []. Fields because it's not a default field, the [] because it's a relational field. So:

  <input type="hidden" name="fields[yourRelationalFieldName][]" value="{{ entry.id }}" />

Now, when the user commits this form (and has the permissions to create new entries in the comments section), a new comments entry will be created, related to the parent entry. You can even relate comments to other comments this way.

Good luck!

Answer 3

This worked like a charm for me! Thanks if anyone needs the short code for the hidden input it's basically the same...

{{ hiddenInput('fields[yourRelationalFieldName][]', postId) }}

It took me a couple of tries to get it. The second [] is required like the post says.