• Support WordPress 2.7’s threaded comments.¹
• Add compatibility comments template for WordPress ≤ 2.6.5.
• Link to comments goes to heading of comments list (instead of to first comment in list).
• Fix silly feed:// typo in (default) sidebar syndication links (thanks eighty4.se).
• Fix “comments” id and class to not have same name (introduce “commentslist”).
• Use smaller 32×32 gravatar for comment author.

Download Simplish version 2.1.4 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

¹ - Threaded comment support has not yet been added to WordPress-mu, the software this blog and the Simplish Demo run atop. Until it is, you can check out Simplish’s rendition of threaded comments at a test site.

Version 2.1.3 is a tiny update that contains just one change: a contributed header background graphic (thanks to both Anonymous and Demetris) that’s 10x smaller than the original, down from ~2.7 Kilobytes to a super-slender 256 Bytes.

In other words, this update is definitely not a big deal. But it does trim the theme’s only image down to a size smaller than… most of your blog posts, and might help (a very little bit) with bandwidth or page load times if you’re using Simplish on a very-busy site.

Download Simplish version 2.1.3 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

Demo

http://labs.utopian.net/who/josh/wp-svn/?p=1

Code

simplish-2.1.4RC.tgz

The demo shows a “jacob’s ladder” style for the comments/replies layout, where both left and right margins are indented per-thread-level. It’s an (experimental) attempt to ease the “comment chaos” feeling a deeply-threaded discussion can give.

A special thanks to Otto for his comments and his indispensable threaded comments getting-started doc.

Notes

For the theme, threaded comments support kicks off in functions.php: a function ocomments() checks if comment threading is available in your WordPress install (i.e., if wp_list_comments() exists; e.g., if it is running on version 2.7 or greater). If not, the theme loads the 2.6-compatible “old” comments template (ocomments.php), and comments look and work with no changes from previous versions. If your WordPress supports threading, the theme loads the new threaded comments template.

From there control of the feature moves to header.php. Simplish loads the comment thread JavaScript only when needed: only if threaded comments are enabled in wp-admin, and then only on single post views. The script is not loaded on multiple- and archive pages where comments are not displayed.

In this execution path, single.php runs next, and that script includes the comments.php comments template. If there are comments on the post, comments.php eventually calls wp_list_comments() to echo the comments loop, producing the threaded result.

The JavaScript enqueued previously by header.php powers the AJAX-ified reply buttons and comment form. (Comment threading will work without this client-side script, but less smoothly.)

Bugs

There may be a few issues with paging threaded comments and reversing order from ascending to descending that can break “pretty” permalinks, as the page number is not always passed into links on comments page one. This issue, if it’s not just ephemera, appears to be a bug in wp_list_comments() and most easily patched there. [Conners 2008-12-12]

Wp_list_comments() produces some hCard classes in its comment loop output, but overall, comment author hCards and comment hAtom are less complete in this testing version than in previous versions of Simplish. To re-add the additional microformat stuff, we’ll filter wp_list_comments(), but this work isn’t started yet.

One place you won’t see threaded comments for a while is here at the Simplish site/blog, nor at the “official” Simplish Demo. Both are hosted on our WordPress-mu-based Labs/Blogs project on the stable version of the multi-blog WordPress software, and MU generally trails wp.org releases and features by a few weeks at least.

Simplish 2.1.4 is planned for final release in conjunction with WordPress version 2.7 — “real soon now.”

Happy [U.S.] Thanksgiving!

If there are other corners we could tidy, let us know with a comment here - that includes providing specific examples for the reported issue with some AJAX sidebar widgets and Simplish v2.1.2, as well as the question about the importance of threaded comment support -vs- the simplicity of loading no JavaScript.

From what I can make out from systrans and Briannatrans, the author had a good day at work. Good for her, and nice work on that theme, too.

Threads are like salt. I like salt, you like salt, we all like salt. But we eat more pasta than salt.

Implementing (what will eventually be) WordPress 2.7’s new threaded comments is not difficult, and doing so yields a moderately useful new organization element: threading, or individual replies, similar to the presentation of discussion forums, many newsreaders, the Gmail message list, or the Twitter @. This post by Ottodestruct has plenty of info to get you started against the latest subversion tip to get threaded comments working in your theme.

Many themes are built with, even around, JavaScript. If Simplish already loaded even one script, we’d certainly add the cool new threads. But Simplish is supposed to be simple, and it is supposed to be a feature that the theme loads no JavaScript in a default configuration.

I will probably link to a quick alpha Simplish with cut-and-paste test code for a threaded comments template shortly, but I’m interested in opinions right now.

Sp has the usual suspects from Simplish, like microformats (hAtom posts and hCards for their authors), clean and terse styling that loosely imitates the design of Jeffrey Hardy’s Scribbish “theme for stuff”, wrapped in valid markup output to the browser. It’s just implemented in the leaner, more perspicuous idioms of the Habari RawPHPEngine.

• Replace deprecated get_settings() call with bloginfo().
• Improve and simplify hCards for authors, commenters, and the theme footer link, removing mis-used n class (thanks Martin McEvoy @ weborganics.co.uk).
• Further define and improve Windows fall-back fonts in CSS (thanks Demetris @ op111.net).
• Define fonts with relative (em) rather than absolute (px) sizes, allowing resizing in IE6 (thanks op111.net).
• Specify body element background-color (thanks op111.net).
• Use a more humane representation of the date in day archive page h1 element (no leading zero).

Download Simplish version 2.1.2 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

• Fix spacing below Tag Cloud sidebar widget above certain elements (thanks op111.net).
• Rename hCard generator functions more rationally.
• Uncompress line heights.
• Remove explicit permalink from entry meta display; entry title now serves uniformly.
• Remove the Meta label from entry meta section; unnecessary.
• Add per-comment permalink on comment date.
• Style more basic elements: table and dl styles improved/added (adopted bits of Blueprint CSS).
• Removed remaining uses of visual alignright/alignleft convenience classes in favor of more-semantic class names in the template markup.
• Add entry meta display to image attachment template.
• Improve fall-back fonts in CSS (thanks op111.net).
• Split entry title/byline and meta into include files that produce the main hAtom microformatting.

Download Simplish version 2.1.1 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

Of course I found spawn_link because it’s running Simplish - but I was subscribed to the feed before I left. Mitchell’s post about grouping program parts together into single-management-point units with Erlang’s application module was enlightening, and like a lot I learn about Erlang, describes runtime features that certainly evoke, if not replace, those of the operating system.

Anyway, this isn’t a post about Erlang, but about a cool site running the theme, so I’ll just say: Vive le CSP!