IntenseDebate Comment System

You can install IntenseDebate on any site using our Generic Install (your template must support JavaScript). Our Generic Install gives you access to our code. IntenseDebate is two JavaScript code snippets: one for the actual comment section and one for comment links that you can place on the index page of your site (which will bring up the comment sections).

Once you create an account you will have access to these code snippets. Here is an example of what our code looks like for the comment section:

<script>
var idcomments_acct = ‘YOUR ACCOUNT VALUE THAT WE ASSIGN’;
var idcomments_post_id;
var idcomments_post_url;
</script>
<span id=”IDCommentsPostTitle” style=”display:none”></span>
<script type=’text/javascript’ src=’http://www.intensedebate.com/js/genericCommentWrapperV2.js’></script&gt;

Here’s an example of what the code looks like for the comment links on the index page of your site:

<script>
var idcomments_acct = ‘YOUR ACCOUNT VALUE THAT WE ASSIGN’;
var idcomments_post_id;
var idcomments_post_url;
</script>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.intensedebate.com/js/genericCommentWrapperV2.js”></script&gt;

Setting Variables

In that code there are several values that are set which will tie the comment section to your account along with the correct comments on for your posts. The first is the var idcomments_acct. This is your IntenseDebate blog account number, which we assign when you create your account. This is automatically included in the code.

The next two are the var idcomments_post_id and var idcomments_post_url. These values are determined by your CMS, and are to be entered in by you. The post_id is the unique identifier that is assigned by your CMS for each post. You would enter the post_id in the code snippet and that will ensure that the comments are tied to the particular post. You can also set the post_url value as well to further ensure that everything works properly.

About Variables↑ Table of Contents ↑

The goal with setting the post_id and post_url in your JavaScript snippets is to ensure that:
1. The correct comments are associated with the correct post
2. Your visitors see the correct set of comments when visiting the post
3. The comment count links on your index page correctly reflect the number of comments that have been submitted.

The post_id is something that is built in to your CMS and automatically assigned. It’s a unique identifier within your CMS for the specific page/post that is usually a URL and number.

If you’re not sure where to find the post_id, then you can make up a unique ID to be used in our JavaScript. As long as you use the same unique post_id in both the JavaScript code for the comment section (that’s on the actual post) and in the comment link JavaScript for that particular post (that you’ve installed on your index page), then the code snippets will match-up correctly.

What this means is that you’re creating a unique value for each post that we will use to tie each comment section to the correct post and comment link. Again, this will ensure that the number of comments posted in the comment section will be correctly reflected in the comment count displayed on the index page. This also means that anyone who visits that post page will see the correct comments for that specific post.

Setting the post_id↑ Table of Contents ↑

You will need to give it a custom postid for each post. This can be whatever you want it to be, but must be unique to the post, and reflected in the comment link JavaScript code:

So if the original URL is:
http://YOUR URL.com/

Please add something like:
http://YOUR URL.com/?unique=1

where “1” is different for each post.

Setting the post_URL↑ Table of Contents ↑

You should use the specific post permalink. The permalink is the URL of the actual post. You can access this by navigating to the post page from the index page of your site. For instance, http://blog.intensedebate.com is the URL of the index page of our blog, and http://blog.intensedebate.com/2010/01/25/wordpress-plugin-v2-6-minor-update/ is an example of a post permalink.

If you’re still not familiar with post permalinks then you might not be able to get the URL vars to work perfectly. If that’s the case then we can use a similar solution to what we did for the post_id’s. Please make sure that the URL’s are unique by adding a dummy variable to the end of the URL. If you choose to do this, keep it simple and use the same values that you set for your post_id’s.

So if the original URL is:
http://YOUR URL.com/

Please add something like:
http://YOUR URL.com/?unique=1

where “1” is different for each post.

If you have further questions about how to set your post_id’s and post_URL’s please get in contact with us.

Tags: Generic Install, JavaScript, Setting Vars — Can't find your answer here? Let us know.

Last modified: January 27, 2012 by Michael