Configuring Comments

After you have installed Comments, the first step is to configure the Options for the Comments Components.

Select Components -> Comments from the Administrator Menubar.

Click the Options button in the Toolbar.

When you have finished configuring the options, click the Save button in the popup window.

Comments Configuration

To allow comments to be viewed or submitted, you must set Enable Comments to Yes.

To allow ratings to be viewed or submitted, you must set Enable Rating to Yes.

This tab has the following configuration options:

• Enable Comments: Enable or disable the commenting system overall.
• Enable Guest Comments: Allow guests (users not logged in) to post comments.
• Enable Comment Feeds: Enabled syndication feeds for comments.
  
• Enable Rating: Enable or disable the rating system overall.
• Show User As: Optaionally show the user who posted by real name or login name.
  
• Show Form: Show the comment form by default or hide the form and the user is required to click to display it.
  
• Enable Subject Field: Show a subject field in the form for posting a comment.
  
• Enable Web Site Field: Show a web site field in the form for posting a comment.
  
• Rating Stars: Select the color style for the rating stars.
  
• Enable HTML: Allow comments to be posted with HTML code.
  
• Enable BBCode: Allow comments to be posted with BB code.
  
• Enable Smiley Palette: Allow comments to be posted with emoticons.
  
• Enable Gravatar: Allow the display of avatars via the supplied email if registered at gravatar.com.
  
• List Display Order: Whether to display new comments first or last.
  
• Comments per page: How many comments to display per page.
  
• Date Format: The format to display the posting date.
  
• Enable Notification: Whether to send an email when new comments are posted at all, for guest only, or for everyone.
  
• Notification Email Address: The address to send new comment notifications to.
  
• Comment Moderation: Whether to moderate comments at all (comments will post immediately), for guests only, or for everyone.
  
• User Comment Flood Limit: The number of seconds required between consecutive comment posts from an individual user.
• Guest Comment Flood Limit: The number of seconds required between consecutive anonymous comment posts.
  

Spam Configuration

This tab has the following configuration options:

• Minimum Length: The minimum number of characters that a comment can have to allow posting.
• Maximum Length: The maximum number of characters that a comment can have to allow posting.
• Enable Captcha: Whether to use graphical captcha at all, only for guests or for everyone.
• Enable reCAPTCHA: Whether to use reCAPTCHA support (see: recaptcha.net).
• reCAPTCHA Public Key: The public key the reCAPTCHA provides you.
• reCAPTCHA Private Key: The private key the reCAPTCHA provides you.
• Enable Akismet: Enable the Akismet spam filtering service (see akismet.com).  Note that sometimes this service can cause delays and/or timeouts when posting comments.
• Akismet API Key: The API key Akismet provides you.

Social Bookmarking Configuration

This tab has the following configuration options:

• Enable Social Bookmarks: Allow social bookmarks to be displayed.
• Icon Style: Display icons or text or both.
• Share Heading: Whether to display the share heading, with or without and icon and/or text.
• "Bookmark Name": For each bookmark listed, select whether you want to display it or not.

Blocking Configuration

This tab has the following configuration options:

• Users to Block: A comma separated list of Joomla usernames to block from commenting or rating (only applies to registered users that are logged in).
• IPs to Block: A comma separated list of full IP addresses to block from commenting or rating.
• Hosts to Block: A comma separated list of host names to block.