MT Tweak: More Meaningful Comment Notifications

One of the things that always annoys me about MovableType, is that every time I upgrade most of my customizations to the code go right out the window.

The last major update to MT wiped out one of my favorites, my "More Meaningful Comment Notifications" tweak. Things changed in the actual code to such a degree, that simply cutting and pasting my modification would no longer work. Bummer. Well, after letting it stew and bother me for many months, I finally sat down and took a good look at the code.

Now I don't do a lot of MT Tweaks, simply because I am not a Coder. Ask anyone at ScriptyGoddess, I am an idea man. I come up with wild ideas and somehow, they come up with amazing results. But there are times that I just don't feel right asking for something, mostly because I know it is within my reach. In this case, I had done it before, and now I had to knuckle down and figure out how to do it again.

So, here's the problem: I really, really dislike the default format of the mail MT sends you when you get a comment. It looks something like this:

Subj: [PromoGuy dot Net] New Comment Posted to '7 x 14 + 2 = 100 Things Aboot Me'

----------------------------------------------------------------

A new comment has been posted on your blog PromoGuy dot Net, on entry #1489 (7 x 14 + 2 = 100 Things Aboot Me).

http://www.promoguy.net/archives/001489.php

IP Address: 207.46.245.222
Name: Lisa
Email Address: SomeMail@SomeDomain.net
URL: http://www.snarkypants.com

Comments:

Hey! Where's the rest?? You promised! :) Slackerboy!

--

The problem? The Subject line it too long and doesn't tell me what I need to
know. For example, I only have one Blog. So it is not important for me to know
first thing which Blog got the comment. Also, who sent it?

Second problem? Not enough information in the Body of the message. I get a
lot of CodeMonkeys who like to try to insert PHP commands in my comment forms.
Plus, thanks to Vig-Rx, I get a lot of p0rn links pretending to be comments. I
need to know more about these folks at the click of a mouse. MT is kind enough
to include the IP address, but I need more.

So, after my modifications, my Comment Notifications look like this:

Subj: [7 x 14 + 2 = 100 Things Aboot Me] by "Lisa" - PromoGuy dot Net


----------------------------------------------------------------

"Lisa" left a new comment in your blog PromoGuy dot Net, on entry #1489 (7 x
14 + 2 = 100 Things Aboot Me).

http://www.promoguy.net/archives/001489.php



IP Address: 207.46.245.222

IP Info:
http://www.samspade.org/t/lookat?a=207.46.245.222

Name: Kathleen

Email Address: SomeMail@SomeDomain.net

URL: http://www.snarkypants.com



Comments:



Hey! Where's the rest?? You promised! :) Slackerboy!

--

Notice the difference?

When looking in your Inbox at the subject lines, which is more meaningful?

NEW: [7 x 14 + 2 = 100 Things Aboot Me] by "Lisa" - PromoGuy dot Net

(Short and to the point)

OLD: [PromoGuy dot Net] New Comment Posted to '7 x 14 + 2 = 100 Things
Aboot Me'

(Way too long, not enough information)

 

But my changes reflect my preferences, yours may be different.

1. I don't need to see "New Comment Posted to" in my subject line. It takes
up too much space, and my web mail program won't show full subject lines, so I
need the important stuff first. Besides, by looking at the Brackets I recognize
that it is a comment notification.

2. I want to know which post got the comment, so I put that first. I don't
need to know which blog it is from, because I only have one - so I moved that
part to the end. Plus, I wanted to know Who sent the comment.

3. On heavy comment days, my inbox is nearly bursting. Now when I see a
comments is posted by a certain person, I can go to read that one first.

The only major change in the Body was making the IP Address into a clickable
link to do a WHOIS and TRACEROUTE on SamSpade.com. I added a new line for that.
I also slightly changed the working on the first sentence.

Here is what I did. Again, once you see the changes I made, you will probably
want to customize it the way you want it to look. Please note: This code was
tested and executed on MoveableType 2.64. I don't know if it will work on
lower versions, so YMMV.

Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk. It should go fine, but you never
know. I won't be responsible for fixing it if you go and screw it up.

First, FTP or otherwise navigate to your MT installation directory and find:
/lib/MT/App/

Now, make a backup copy of Comments.pm (always make backups, yo).

Open up Comments.pm in your favorite text editor (I use
araneae for simple jobs
like this).

Go to Line 132 or search for "$author->email" (without the quotes) and you
will be close.

Be sure you are on the line that says "Subject =>" and we are ready to get
jiggy!

Highlight and delete:

Subject => '[' . $blog->name . '] ' .
$app->translate('New Comment Posted to \'[_1]\'',

$entry->title)
);

Replace it with:

Subject => '[' . $entry->title . '] ' .
$app->translate(
'new comment by "[_1]" - [_2]',


$comment->author, $blog->name)
);

Now if you want to Tweak the Body of the message, scroll down to about Line
146.

I edited the body of the text to lead with the Comment Author's name. So
change this:

my $body = $app->translate(

'A new comment has been posted on your blog [_1], on entry #[_2] ([_3]).',

$blog->name, $entry->id, $entry->title);

To this:

my $body = $app->translate(

'"[_1]" left a new comment in your blog [_2], on entry #[_3] ([_4]).',


$comment->author, $blog->name, $entry->id, $entry->title,);

If you want to investigate their IP address, put your cursor right under

$app->translate('IP Address:') . ' ' . $comment->ip . "\n" .

and hit enter, making a blank line.

Now copy and paste this:

$app->translate('IP Info: http://www.samspade.org/t/lookat?a=[_1]',

$comment->ip) . "\n" .

Save the file, making sure it has the .pm extension. Save it back to the same
directory, overwriting the current Comments.pm. (because you already have a
backup, right?).

Now go leave yourself a comment. See how much more meaningful those Comment
Notifications are?

Hope this makes life a little easier.

Next time: More Meaningful Trackback Ping Notifications!

file this under Blog Tweaks
Posted by on September 5, 2003 @ September 5, 2003 11:07 AM