Comments module

When you publish a content item on your website, users can leave comments and rate it. You can also drop the Comments and Reviews widgets anywhere on the page. You can then manage these comments and ratings, using the Comments module. The Comments page contains all comments and ratings for content types or pages. For example, comments for news or ratings of a product.

Users can leave comments for the following content types:

• Pages
• News
• Blog posts
• Events
• Images
• Videos
• Documents and other files
• List items
• Products
• Dynamic content types

All of the above, except pages, have a built-in comments widget. For pages, you must drop the Comments widget where you want to display comments functionality.

For each content item or page, users can read and leave comments. If you have enabled ratings, for each item, the average rating is automatically calculated and displayed.

By default, comments are enabled for all commentable types of content and pages. By default, ratings are not enabled.

To enable and disable comments and ratings, perform the following:

1. Click Content » Comments.
2. In the right pane, click Settings.
   If there are no comments yet, the right pane is not visible. Click Comment settings instead.
   The Settings page appears.
3. In the left pane, expand CommentsModule » Commentable types.
   All commentable types appear.
4. Click the type whose setting you want to change.
   You can configure the following:
   • AllowComments
     Enable and disable the comments for this type of content.
     For example, if you have selected the checkbox in the News content type, when you read a news item on the frontend, you see Leave a comment link. When you click it, a textbox and a submit button appears.
   • Requires authentication
     If you select this setting, only logged in users are able to leave comments and ratings.
     When a user that is not logged clicks the comments link, Sitefinity CMS redirects to the frontend login page.
     For more information, see Frontend login page.
   • Requires approval
     When a comment is submitted on your site, it is not automatically published and is not visible before you approve it.
     The comment appears in the Comments module in status Waiting for approval. To make it visible, you must manually publish it.
   • Enable email subscription
     When enabled, it allows users to subscribe for email notifications. After the comment text box, the system displays Subscribe to new comments link. If a user click it, an email is sent for each newly submitted comment for the particular content item.
     Only authenticated users can subscribe. The link is not displayed to anonymous users.

     When a user is subscribed for the comments of a particular content item, the system displays a link to unsubscribe.

     Before Sitefinity CMS can send emails, you must configure the Default notification profile. For more information, see Configure notification profiles.

   • Enable user ratings as part of the comments
     In addition to comments, you can display ratings. Users can write a review and leave a rating.
     If you want to enable ratings, you must also select the AllowComments link.

     NOTE: If you have enabled rating, the system displays the Write a review link, instead of the Leave a comment link.

   • Enable user to create Thread only by convention
     This setting is enabled by default and forces the validation process of the comment thread's key.

View submitted comments and ratings

You can view all comments submitted on the site for all types of content and pages on the Comments page.

To open the Comments page, in the main menu click Content » Comments.
All submitted comments appear.

You can filter comments using the following options available in the right pane:

• Comment’s status
  A comment can be one of the following statuses:
  • Published
    The comment is publicly visible on the website.
  • Waiting for approval
    The comment is submitted, but requires approval before being published.
  • Hidden
    Use this option if you do not want a comment to be visible on the website, but you do not want to delete it.
  • Spam
    Use this option to mark a comment as spam and activate the spam filters.
• Date modified
• Content type
  If you want to filter by a dynamic content type, you must add it to the commentable types, for more information, see Comments and ratings for dynamic content types.

Edit a comment

1. To open a comment for editing, click the Edit link of the particular comment.
   The Edit comment page appears.
2. You can edit the text of the comment using the Text editor.
3. You can edit the rating of a comment.
4. You can change the status of a comment.
   For more information, see the procedure bellow.
5. When finished editing, click Save changes.
   The system returns you to Comments page.

Change the status of comments

You can change the status of a comment in one of the following ways:

• On the Comments page, select one or more comments and click the respective button in the toolbar of the page.
  You can choose Hide, More actions » Mark as spam, or Publish.
• To hide a comment, click the Hide link of the respective comment.
• To mark a comment as spam, click the More actions link of the respective comment and click Mark as spam.

Delete comments

You can delete a comment in one of the following ways:

• Select one or more comments and click the Delete button in the toolbar of the page.
• Click the Delete link of the respective comment.

A dialog box appears where you must confirm the deletion.

By default, comments are enabled for each newly created dynamic module. You can control the comments settings for newly created modules from Comments module Default settings. The default settings are the settings that each newly created dynamic module inherits.

To view and change the Default setting for comments, click Administration » Settings » Advanced » CommentsModule » Default settings.

For more information about the setting, see Enable comments and ratings.

After you create a dynamic module, you can change its comments settings individually. To do this, you must add its type to the commentable types.

Perform the following:

1. Click Administration » Settings » Advanced » DynamicModules » Controls.
2. Click the type of content that you want to add to comments module administration.
   You can see the exact type of the content.
3. Copy the content of input field The type of the Content items.
4. In the tree on the left, click CommentsModule » Commentable types.
5. On the right, click the Create new button.
6. In Friendly name, enter the name of the content type that is displayed in the backend.
7. In Item type, enter the content you copied in Step 3.
8. Configure the comments settings.
   For more information, see Enable comments and ratings.
9. Save your changes.

The dynamic content type is added to the commentable types and you can configure its comments settings individually.

It is also added as a filter option in the Comments page. You are able to filter comments left for this dynamic content type.