Comments are a particularly effective method of community building. They don’t require the blank-slate topic generation of a message board, and yet they allow people to post their comments and share their views about a specific content item on the site. The number of successful sites that feature comment capabilities is almost uncountable. Some sites (such as epinions.com) don’t even produce much original content — the majority of the site is dedicated to user opinions. This is actually becoming a common feature on all large sites. Some sites that have the comment feature include Ain’t It Cool News, Target, Macy’s, The Superficial, and TMZ. By implementing AkoComment or !JoomlaComment extensions on your Joomla site, you can allow visitors to provide their comments to any article. Enabling commenting capability on your site does more than provide an open forum for constructive criticism. It allows visitors to supplement the content of an article with additional information and hyperlinks.

AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition 1.4.6
One of the most popular comment engines is the AkoComment extension. All of its display is provided through CSS layout, which gives the Web master complete control over the comment appearance. The AkoComment extension provides the following features:

❑       Rich text commenting system

❑       Generation of RSS feed of posted comments

❑       Administrator notification of new comment posting

❑       Support of numerous display templates for custom presentation

❑       Configuration settings to limit the number of comments per article

❑       Delay setting for same user comment posting

❑       Optional user notification of follow-up comments

❑       CAPTCHA image generation to prevent spamming

❑       Integration with the Community Builder user profile

It supports a large number of languages, including English, Brazilian/Portuguese,  Chinese, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and Turkish. The entry screen allows the email and homepage for the comment to be entered, and the administrator can configure whether these items are displayed with the posting.

AkoComment supports rich text formatting through Bulletin Board Code (BBCode), a lightweight markup language similar to HTML. Codes are placed between two brackets such as [b] for bold, [i] for italic, and [u] for underline. The component also supports bulleted lists, smilies, and any language available in the Joomla system.

You can download AkoComment here:    www.visualclinic.fr

The AkoComment package to be installed is made up of a plug-in (bot_akocomment_SE.zip), a com- ponent (com_akocomment_SE.zip), and two modules (mod_ac_lastcomments.zip and mod_ac_ mostfavoured.zip). The plug-in displays the “Comments  (x)” link below each article with the letter x representing the number of available comments. Clicking on the link will display the component

The administrative interface  allows complete control over layout and posting. It also provides reporting capabilities so that users can send a message to the Joomla Administrator over offensive or questionable comments.

AkoComment allows nearly all aspects of the commenting system display to be configured either through various parameter settings or selection of a presentation template. Display parameters include Autolimit num  of  comments to  display, Num of  comments per  page, Show   favoured link, Show   quote this article in website link, Show  hits/views, Show   print link, Show   send Email link, Show   read  more link, and Character to separate  each link. The templates may be selected to use various stylesheets or to perform the layout in an HTML table.

!JoomlaComment
The !JoomlaComment component provides excellent Ajax-based comment functionality. It allows importing existing comments from AkoComment.

The !JoomlaComment extension includes the following features:

❑       Ajax interaction so that the commenting interface doesn’t require a separate page display

❑       Picture support

❑       User avatars

❑       Quoting of other comments

❑       Rich text formatting with smilies through BBCode

❑       Integration with Community Builder profiles and avatars

❑       Multilingual support of languages such as English, Slovak, Czech, Italian, German, Norwegian, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, Hungarian, Persian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Dutch, Brazilian, and Portuguese

Like most robust user-entry components, !JoomlaComment has anti-spamming features, including the following:

❑       CAPTCHA image generation

❑       User banning

❑       Word censorship

❑       Comment length limitations

You can download !JoomlaComment at the following Web site:

http://cavovweb.ca.funpic.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=5&Itemid=29

The !JoomlaComment component is installed through the Extension Manager like most components. Unlike most components, the Administrator interface for the component handles the installation of the plug-in that adds a commenting section at the bottom of each article.

The Administrator interface provides configuration of all component settings via three tabs: General, Layout, and Security. General settings include enabling Ajax technology, exclusion of commenting on particular sections and categories, use of BBCode, date format, and various notification settings. The Layout tab lets you choose from several different templates, set nested comments, the permissible length of the comments, and the activation of a Read On feature.  The Security tab allows setup of all security features from CAPTCHA to IP address logging. Very useful is the editable word substitution feature that will replace words (mostly swear words in the included setting) with censored words.