List of latest comments

The Newscoop internal statistics mechanism keeps track of the latest comments, and this mechanism can be used to create a list of the ten most recent comments on the site for all articles. The following code snippet is taken from The Journal's front page, from the sub-template set_thejournal/_tpl/front_tabs.tpl

It is displayed inside a jQuery tab which displays comments together with most read articles (read the chapter List of popular articles (most read) for instructions on how to make that template).

Here is a screenshot:

This code snippet will:

• Set the current issue as the active environment
• List five articles, ordered by the latest comment, in descending order
• Set a constraint so that the article type is 'news'
  
• Apply a different style for the recent comments
• List a single comment, by date
• List the nickname given by a commenter on a comment
• Combine that with the name of the article they're commenting on
• Make that article name appear in italic
  

<ul> {{ local }} {{ set_current_issue }} {{ list_articles length="5" order="byLastComment desc" constraints="type is news" }}     <li class="recentcomments">{{ list_article_comments length="1" order="bydate desc"}}{{ $gimme->comment->nickname }}{{ /list_article_comments }} on <a href="{{ uri options="article" }}" style="font-style: italic">{{ $gimme->article->name }}</a></li> {{ /list_articles }} {{ /local }} </ul> 

Here is another example which will do the following:

• List the ten most recent comments, regardless of article
• Order the comments by date, in descending order

• Provide the URI for the comment and the article's name
• Return the count of article comments
• Return an excerpt of the article comments, truncated to 400 characters
• Return the date and time the comment was posted

{{list_article_comments length="10" ignore_article="true" order="byDate desc"}}     <a href="{{uri}}#comments">{{$gimme->article->name}}</a><sup>{{$gimme->article->comment_count}}</sup>     <p>{{$gimme->comment->content|truncate:400}} <span>{{$gimme->comment->submit_date|camp_date_format:"%H:%i"}}</span></p> {{/list_article_comments}} 

Finally, here is a similar, but more limited approach. We will:

• List the ten most recently-commented articles, ordered by last comment, in descending order, regardless of the issue and section they were published in
• Return the article's URI
• Return the article's name
• Return the count of comments for the article

{{ list_articles length="10" order="byLastComment desc" ignore_issue="true" ignore_section="true" }}   <a href="{{ uri }}#comments">{{ $gimme->article->name }}</a><sup>{{ $gimme->article->comment_count }}</sup> {{ /list_articles }} 

To learn more about listing comments for one specific article and providing the comment form, read the chapter on Article Comments.