So, CommentThreads is working now. I just need to clean it and ExtendedComments up before releasing them to the public. Should only be a couple more days. Until then, here is the template code I am using on my site to display the comment threads, just to give you a taste (edited slightly for display purposes):

<MTCommentThreads>
<MTCommentThreadsIfFirst><ul></MTCommentThreadsIfFirst>
<li><div class="comment">
<a id="c<$MTCommentID$>"></a>
<h4><MTCommentTitle use_default="1"></h4>
<div class="posted">
<p class="posted">&raquo; <$MTCommentAuthorLink spam_protect="1" 
no_redirect="1"$> at <$MTCommentDate$>:</p>
<p>[ <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTCommentScript$>
?__mode=preview
&entry_id=<MTEntryID>
&parent_id=<MTCommentID>
&static=1">Reply to this</a> ]</p>
</div>
<$MTCommentBody$>
</div>
<MTCommentThreadsRecurse>
</li>
<MTCommentThreadsIfLast></ul></MTCommentThreadsIfLast>
</MTCommentThreads>

Update (at 1:40 on 06/08): Okay, so I got preview working now. I was expecting it to go quickly, but not that quickly.

For example, here is the current code for the callback that operates on the entry_id parameter. It will most likely be setup as one of the first callbacks used when creating a comment. If it errors out, the process is halted and no comment is created. Otherwise, it will continue to the next callback, which can error out and halt the process there, and so on.

sub entry_id_param {
  my ($app, $comment, $entry_id) = @_;

  require MT::Entry;
  my $entry = MT::Entry->load ($entry_id) or
    return $app->error ($app->translate (
          "No such entry '[_1]'.", $entry_id));
  return $app->error($app->translate(
        "No such entry '[_1]'.", $entry_id))
    if $entry->status != RELEASE;

  unless ($entry->allow_comments eq '1') {
    return $app->handle_error($app->translate(
          "Comments are not allowed on this entry."));
  }

  $comment->blog_id ($entry->blog_id);
  $comment->entry_id ($entry_id);
  $comment;
}

What I am working towards is a setup where each of the current features of MT::App::Comments is replicated in rayners::ExtendedComments so that adding on new features (e.g. CommentTitles) will be fairly trivial.

• ExtendedComments
• CommentTitles
• CommentThreads

ExtendedComments

ExtendedComments, as a replacement for mt-comments.cgi, will not be so much a plugin as it will be a platform for plugins. The idea here is to give plugin authors a way to add functionality to the comment system without having to write yet another MT::App class.

I envision something like the following being used in a plugin to add a handler for a new argument to the ExtendedComments cgi script:

rayners::ExtendedComments->add_param ('param_name' => \&handler);

CommentTitles

CommentTitles will provide what you would expect, titles for comments. Mostly, it is to duplicate functionality of the MTThreadedComments hack, as well as to provide me with a very basic plugin with which to test ExtendedComments.

CommentThreads

Here is the fun part. CommentThreads will provide a threaded comment system for MT users, without having to resort to patching the core files.

All three of these are still very much in the preliminary planning stages, so any and all feedback is more than welcome.