Comment Email Responder

Description

The Comment Email Responder v2 is based on the work of Andrew Flusche who can up with the original concept and wrote the first iteration of this plugin. It’s purpose is to provide an easy mechanism for a blog administrator to email a response to one of the comments placed on the website. The response becomes a comment in the normal way, but also fires off an email to the commentor with the content of the response and his original comment.

Installation

1. Download the plugin file, unzip and place it in your plugin folder.
This makes the plugin available to WordPress and it should now appear in your Plugin folder. The zip file also includes an icon for the plugin which should also be placed in the plugin folder.

2. Activate the plugin
This “starts up” the plugin. At this point, the plugin is active, but won’t work correctly till it is configured

3. Configure the plugin
The plugin can be configured both from a new panel in the Options menu called Comment Email Responder. Please go to this panel and supply the required information.

Usage

Once the plugin has been activated you’ll notice a new icon appearing next to commenter names on your posts. Click on this icon to respond to the comment. When you save the comment, a copy will be emailed to the person who left the comment.

Download

comment-email-responder

Comments/Bugs

  • The plugin behaves well with the Subscribe-to-comments plugin and won’t email someone who’s already subscribed to the comment thread.
  • The plugin assumes the existence of the “comment_form” action which is optional for template creators. If this is missing in your template, please add it accordingly.
  • The plugin assumes that your admin user is set to wp_user_level 10. While this is true in most cases, some WordPress installations mess this up. If the plugin doesn’t seem to work, check out the fix on Cynthia’s blog.

Screenshot

Here’s the plugin in action:

History

v1.0: Base release. Implementation by Andrew Flusche

v2.0: New version. Admin interface added and automatic insertion into template on activation

v2.1: Minor bug fixes

v2.21: Another couple of minor bug fixes

v2.3: Email now contains link to post together with a specified footer

v2.4: Fixes by Steven Ross from Bustspammers, a site about fighting spam.

Websites using this plugin

I love it when people use my work, so if you do, drop me a comment. I’d love to pop around and have a look at your blog.

266 comments

  2. I attempted to install your plug… loaded it to my server (it’s not windows), activated it okay, but when I go to options and click save, I get this message: “Cannot load comment-email-responder.php” I don’t know what comment_form is or how to check if that is there on my skin… will do some looking. Thanks.

  3. @Cynthia: The plugin needs to live in the \plugins folder (not in a seperate folder under this). I’ll sort this out in the next version

  4. I’m going to install this TODAY! And this is SO weird… but I was thinking of asking you to create a plugin like this – THIS MORNING!!!! Very freaky.

  7. I really can’t thank you enough for this. It’s exactly the plugin I wanted.

    Going to give you some linkylove on my blogs now. 🙂

  8. Owen this is fantastic! I downloaded the plugin and I’ve uploaded it for all of our blogs but I’ve only activated it and tried it on WebStyle so far. Did a test drive on my own comment to see how it worked email wise.

    I love it already! I’ve been keeping my eye out for something like this recently too. You seem to have read our minds.

    The only suggestion/request that I have would be if somewhere in the email reply the blog url or post url could be included.

    That would help us easily get return visitors if they wanted to come back and comment again or see what else we’ve posted.

    I guess we could put the web address in the email title but that doesn’t look so great. I opted to put my name and the website name. If you are able to implement this suggestion I’d love it if you’d let me know.

    Now I’m off to activate the plugin on the rest of our many sites! Then I’ll have some fun commenting!

    Does anyone else think Owen should put a Paypal donation button on his site???

    I think he should. I’d make a donation.

  10. @Tricia: I’m glad you like it. Hey that’s another idea for the plugin. I could also get it to put the name of the person you’re responding to in the comment box. Not quite threaded comments, but you know what I mean. I’ll be adding the post URL also, I thought about that when responding to people’s emails. It will help keep the conversation in one place huh?

    If you feel the plugin deserves PayPal Love, head down to Andrew’s donation page: http://www.legalandrew.com/donations/ and give him some love there. He wrote the original code, and the plugin wouldn’t be where it is today without him. He’s also a student so probably needs it more than I do (assumption there).

  14. for who can’t wait, edit the plugin and add this line near line #112 immediate after the like start with “$body = …”

    $body .= “\n\nLink: ” . get_permalink($postData->ID);

  17. I have installed the plugin, and I’m trying it out today. I left it in its own folder with the icon, and it seems to work just fine.

    It clashes a bit with the DoFollow plugin – I clicked on the wee envelope to respond and it opened up the two edit boxes re. the commenter. But I can live with that…I think.

  18. @LCF: Thanks for the suggestion (and the code). I’m currently baking the next version which includes the link back to the post and the ability to specify a custom footer for the message

  19. @Andy: Threaded comments. Hmmm .. haven’t ever used them, and I haven’t tested the plugin against them. I might just try when I get a chance, so I’ll add it to my todo list …

  20. @Rory: Can you elaborate on the problem? There should be no issue with DoFollow. I’m running it all my blogs and haven’t seen any adverse effects.

    If there’s anything I can help you with, just shout !

  22. From what I can see, the DoFollow plugin I installed gives admin the ability to edit comments “on the fly”. Now, whenever I click on the commenter’s name, two little boxes open with their name and URL. (Just as an aside, I find this a little irritating, especially when I want to click directly to their blog.)

    Anyway, the little envelope icon appears next to the commenter’s name. I assume this icon needs to be clicked on in order to arrange to send an email to the commenter. When I click on it, the boxes open up! It still registers the email requirement, but it means having to shut the boxes.

    I’m hoping that I have completely misunderstood how to use this great little plug-in. Feel free to set me straight.

  27. Thanks Dave. Just dropped a new version. You can now have a footer for your email and the email includes a link back to the post.

  29. Thanks Owen, this is really nice! Is there a way to add a “subject” to the email I receive other than just the ” that it generates?

  38. This is great, but it throws an error in the Admin page for me when I click on the little envelope icon next a commenter’s name under “Latest Activity”, “Comments”.

    Everything else is fine, just this one little problem.

    What a great plug-in idea, congrats to both of you involved.

  41. @Sheena: When you click the icon, are you getting a “Replying to: ” message under your comment box?

  43. Kym: It’s not designed to work on the Admin Dashboard. I’ll need to remove the icon from there

  44. Thanks Owen, no biggy for me but I guess that would tidy it up. Thanks again, this plug-in really “completes the blog loop” for me, its the one thing that I have felt was missing for ages.

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