Tutorials

Add comments to a non MobileMe iWeb blog

One of the main reasons I use WordPress for this web-site rather than iWeb 08 was the lack of functionality of the blog pages if I wanted the site hosted anywhere other than on MobileMe. Yes it has RSS but the search function and comments for example, did not work and, although I think I could put up without the ability to search a blog (I would just make sure that I had very good navigation) I don’t think that I could live without comments.

As many of you will know, iTweak has the ability to integrate Haloscan comments onto a blog but these appear as pop-ups rather than on the page itself. Not a bad solution but not ideal. So I did a bit of investigation on the Haloscan web-site, signed up for an account and now I have managed to get comments on my non MobileMe hosted blog on the same page.

If you haven’t already, sign up with Haloscan for a free account. Then open iWeb and select your blog.  If you have loads of entries already this may take you a long-time so it may be better to do the last 10 or 15 entries.

Open the blog entry (or any page for that matter) that you want to add comments to and select where you want the comments to appear.

Insert a HTML Snippet and into the black transparent box paste the code below:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.haloscan.com/comments/USERNAME/PAGE_NAME/?m=1″ />

 

Now all you have to do is replace USERNAME with your Haloscan account username and PAGE_NAME with the name of your blog entry.  By default iWeb saves these with the same name as the title you gave it but uses the underscore ‘_’ instead of spaces. It also adds the date to the front and ‘.html’ to the end of the page-name.

So, for example, if you called your most recent blog entry ‘My Umbrella Exploded’ and wrote it on the 15th of the month your file name would be ’15_My_Umbrella_Exploded.html’.

If you have published your site to a folder you can see examples of all your blog entries there.

Click ‘Apply’ and your in-line comments will appear on your blog.

 

 

A word of warning however, there is NO way of editing the font or formatting of the comments section as that is controlled by Haloscan, but I don’t think it looks to bad, and I certainly prefer it to the pop-up version.

Who knows, perhaps I will start to do this site in iWeb afterall.

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20 Comments

  1. I just thought I would let you know that for some reason, Firefox doesn’t like the tag without the closing tag .

    Also, I was able to edit the font or formatting, but I had to do it using the tag. If anyone needs to know how to use it, best place I found was http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_font.asp. An example of how I did this can be found on any entry of the blog of my website at http://www.ericheickmeyer.com.

  2. I’ve typed in the following exactly:

    and I don’t see a comment box after i publish it to my folder and view it. The name of my blog entry is Memories of Egypt and it is dated Sept 10, 2008. Do you see anything wrong with my snippet? Any help is great appreciated.

  3. Peter,

    Some users are expressing problems with this method of adding in-line comments hence my new posts,
    http://allaboutiweb.com/index.php/2008/09/comments-on-iweb-blog/
    which has an updated method of adding in-line comments to your iWeb blog.

    Hope that helps.

    1. George,

      thanks for that, very helpful.

      Tim

  4. Does anybody know if there is a way to have/make a “Recent Comments” listing in iWeb?

  5. Found this extremely helpful. There’s also another solution here, although it seems a bit more complex – http://iwebfaq.org/site/iWeb_Feedback_Comments.html

    I’m just wondering, however, if there’s really NO way to have blog search without mobileme? I have a dreamhost account and three domains. I’ve moved two over to dreamhost and have noticed a HUGE difference in speed vs. mobileme. My original idea was to host just one site that I need to change frequently and need a lot of wysiwyg capability (adding videos, photos, etc.) with on my mobileme account. This way I could use domain forwarding with no other sites. Now I’m thinking of also putting it on dreamhost, but I can’t get over the lack of blog search capability.

    One thing I’ve noticed is that iweb has certainly contributed to a lot of people learning a lot more about web design and publishing! Mobileme is like a stopover for the beginner who begins to enjoy having a site or blog but soon learns they can no longer deal with iweb and mobileme’s limitations. For me, the biggest one is speed… and then they put the iphone’s functions on the same servers. Don’t think I’m renewing next year…

  6. Question, I have comments on my blog, but for some reason, pc users cant see the previous comments posted, they only see the leave a comment box, this is only with pc users, mac users can see all the previous comments and the leave a comment box, any clue on why that is?

  7. Have a question for you,

    1) How do I create a Log In Members Only Page?

    I have a large opportunity and if I can create a log in page with a blog that members can post comments to, I will be able to create a kick ass site that will also make me some real cash. I used to talk to Susan Boben at http://www.11mystics.com, because she has just what I need on her site, I need people to be able to make purchases too, but she will not answer any of my e-mails for some reason?

    If you can help, I would be grateful. Love your website.

    I made two other commercial sites with iWeb here:
    http://www.tenantdevelopment.net
    http://www.oneononebodyworks.com

    Happy Friday!

    Craig Fine

  8. Tim,

    I am completely clueless as to why this is not working. This is what I am copying and pasting into the HTML widget box, but when I click apply, it does nothing. The HTML box stays open.

    If you go to my website (dotherightreview.com), you’ll see the title to each of my blogs is just the name of the movie, director, and year (eg.>> 500 Days of Summer (then below it, year; director)

    I would appreciate any help you could give

  9. I have a question for anyone that can answer it.

    I have tried a few different methods for comments, currently I am using Echo and it seems to work well. But the main thing I want to be able to do is to have the comments box auto expand, and/or be able to have a “next” and “previous” so people can look back through older comments.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks.

  10. hello folks
    i have just found a way to add comments to an iWeb site without having to host on MobileMe for free!!!
    the tutorial is a bit lengthy, but requires no knowledge of programming at all!
    http://alimsyed.com/Programming_Tutorials/Entries/2009/10/25_How_to_insert_comments_in_an_iWeb_website_that_is_NOT_hosted_with_%E2%80%9CMobile_Me%E2%80%9D_for_free!.html

  11. sorry! the link I posted before didn’t work 🙁
    here is the link

    http://www.alimsyed.com

    I think you end up on the page about adding comments on iWeb websites not hosted with Apple’s MobileMe
    but if you don’t, you can always browse a bit 🙂
    cheers

  12. Has anyone tried the method linked by marian? I mean the “Flexi Comment Box” by Ali Syed

  13. Well i have tried the Flexi comment box, but i havent bought it yet. It seems fine, but i want to give it time!

  14. hello, well I have used js-kit to before, but I now I have switched to Flexi, because although JS-KIT is free but the comments made on my website are sent to other places rather than my website. I don’t want someone to use contact info of the people leaving comments on my website. With flexi i get to KEEP the comments and all contact info, so I just feel in control and more secure.
    http://alimsyed.com/main/Products.html

  15. Hi, I am trying to install the Flexi for my website via iWeb (not MobileMe). The instruction says after downloading the file, unzip it and save it to the web-server’s root directory. Does anyone know where am i suppose to save it? I am a Mac user.

    Thank you very much!!

  16. @Angela,
    you should download CyberDuck FTP client, its free and the best in the business for Mac.
    There is a tutorial on how to do this on the same website:
    http://www.alimsyed.com/main/how_to_upload_files_to_webserver_using_ftp_client.html
    keep me posted

  17. Well guys I have just come across Flexi Comment box 3 and it is really good!
    i would most certainly recommend that… it is easy to install and very customizable!
    try it out and let me know …
    http://alimsyed.com

  18. […] you want to add comments allaboutiweb.com […]

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