codes

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Facebook Comments

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Finally decided to switch over to Facebook Comments box. I'm using this plugin and there were quite a bit of modifications required on my theme. You have to disable and hide Wordpress own commenting system and make sure the theme is using Facebook comments count. Before you take the jump and move your blog over to use Facebook comments, here's some pros and cons to consider.

Pros

  1. Integrated with Facebook. Comments can easily be posted on Facebook to increase views and publicity. You also get the cool Facebook Insights stats.
  2. You'll get comments from actual people with their name and photo. Makes it easier to figure out who is who.
  3. Less spam. Well, there are spammers on Facebook but definitely less than those annoying spam bots.

Cons

  1. Not exactly easy to setup. Might require some knowledge in HTML/CSS/PHP.
  2. No longer integrated with Wordpress Comments. Meaning you won't be managing your comments from your Wordpress admin site.

If you are planning to use Facebook Comments, you have to create an app on Facebook and set it up to point to your blog. The settings page for the plugin have all the information you need to get started.

You may also need to modify some of these files to hide the existing commenting system and change how the comments count are displayed.

  • comments.php
  • single.php
  • index.php

Here's the comments count code.

<a href="<?php echo the_permalink() ?>#comments"><fb:comments-count href=<?php echo the_permalink() ?> /></fb:comments-count> Comments</a>

Depending on the theme you are using, this can be really simple or quite a task. On Flexnode Blog, there were more modifications required on the theme functions and the styling of the comments area. If you need any help, leave a comment below.

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Facebook lets you like the web

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Facebook just released a new Like Button for you to easily share content on the web to your friends. It's basically the same Like functionality you see on Facebook comments and photos, made available to every page on the web. I've added it here on my blog where you can see it right after the article. For those who are also using Wordpress, here's the code I added to the single.php file.

 

The code is originally generated from Facebook's Like Button page which I then replaced the URL to Like with the current page url shown below.

<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()); ?>

<?php echo urlencode(the_permalink()); ?> // Use this in index.php

The button also tells you if any of your friends liked the page. Try out the button below and tell me what you think.