Greg’s Comment Length Limiter Plugin for WordPress Updated to Version 1.2
Like yesterday’s update to another popular WordPress plugin, this update brings higher performance, several minor enhancements, and a revamped administrative interface to this plugin for limiting the length of comments under WordPress 2.7.
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s update to the comment numbering plugin (see “WordPress Threaded Comment Numbering Plugin Updated”), this latest update to the WordPress plugin for limiting the length of comments adds the same underlying code framework which I’ve been using in-house for awhile now, and which I am also using in some plugins which are slated for release soon. The new framework enables the plugin to run more efficiently during ordinary page views and makes it much quicker and easier to deliver options pages in the administrative interface.
The core functionality hasn’t changed significantly, however, so you should experience all the same benefits as the original versions: lightweight JavaScript character counting, and built-in anti-spam measures for bots (or humans) who circumvent your preferred comment length limit.
For more background on the plugin, please see the original release plugin page here: “Greg’s Comment Length Limiter Plugin for WordPress”.
Get the Plugin!
You can download the plugin right here: Greg’s Comment Length Limiter Plugin.
Other articles by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor
This article was last reviewed by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on Wednesday, 1st April 2009. You can leave a reply below.
The URL of this page is:
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2009/04/01/comment-limit-plugin-updated/
1st July 2009
Greg,
Would it be possible to adapt your Comment Length Limiter Plugin to be used as an entry length limiter for WordPress bloggers themselves. For example, If I wanted my blog entries to be limited to 5000 characters, could you see a way to adapt this to limit blog entries? How about blog entry titles? If your Comment Length Limiter Plugin could not conceivably do this, would you consider writing another plugin that would do so?
Thanks for your contributions to the WordPress community.
JB
2nd July 2009
Hi JB,
Since WordPress now displays the total number of words in a post right on the post editing page, I’m guessing that most blog authors will look to that when trying to keep their posts under a target size. By using that word count, blog authors can then tailor their own material and exercise their own judgement as to how best to deal with situations where they might be tempted to run over their preferred limit.
This is quite a bit different from the context which the plugin is addressing, where the comment form is completely open to the public, and the blog owner can’t expect every member of the public to share their aims or preferences with regard to what is left as a comment. The plugin enforces one part of the blog author’s preferences by processing long comments and either truncating them, putting them in the moderation queue, or dumping them as spam.
Structurally speaking, it wouldn’t really make sense to throw an oversized blog post into comment moderation — or the comment spam bucket — and similarly, I’m guessing that few blog authors would want a plugin abruptly truncating their posts for them.
All of which is to say: I appreciate what you’re asking, but I think there are better ways to limit lengths when we’re talking about actual articles posted by blog authors, as opposed to comments on articles left by members of the public.
All the best,
Greg
28th August 2009
Dr. Mulhauser, my site where your plugin not work is [deleted]. i’ve created a user for you, for that you see the fail with the length limiter plugin. Thanks for your assistance.
If you need admin rights to fix only tell me.
28th August 2009
Hi Hector,
The login details you supplied did not permit me to login to see what you are seeing. (Generally speaking, I’m thinking that posting login details in a public comment area is probably not a very good idea; who knows how many people tried to login before I did?) However, I would refer you to my reply to your previous note, which I’m guessing you have not yet seen, as you didn’t mention whether you had followed my suggestions:
previous reply
In addition, I noticed immediately that the front page of the site is suffering from severe rendering errors. Checking with the W3C’s markup validation service, it returned a full 68 errors and 37 warnings. Badly broken XHTML markup may impair the ability of the JavaScript counter to function by preventing the function from locating the page elements it needs.
So, I’d encourage you to have a look at the previous reply as well as to address the structural errors in the page coding, since the latter may impair both this plugin and many other plugins which use JavaScript to modify elements on the page.
All the best,
Greg
3rd November 2009
The comment limiter plugin is not working on our site. The “character available” box shows 1000 characters left, no matter how much you type in the box. Any suggestions?
4th November 2009
Please check out the instructions provided under the “Instructions” tab, in the plugin’s README file, or on the plugin’s original information page linked from the README file (or from WordPress.org or from the page you’re reading right now).
All the best,
Greg