Hey everyone! We’ve been studiously working on a new version of our WordPress plugin, v2.4. This latest version contains a lot of changes, and a few new features that will be extra-handy if you’re just getting started. Given all of the changes, we’d love your help beta testing to make sure it’s all smooth sailing.

So, what’s new?

• Lots of optimizations on when/where to load ID resources (CSS/JS) to improve page load times
• Switched to inline JS/CSS in the admin to prevent loading the WP engine again
• Now loading ID comment UI via the script object method, rather than direct <script> inclusion
• Removed some unnecessary options and just used smart defaults
• Changed so that there is no backup comments template — your theme MUST have something available, even if it’s very simple
• Made the option to reset the plugin available before import was completed
• Added the ability to reset your import any time during the installation process if you’re having problems
• Standardized on no-www for URLs
• Reversed the order of comment imports (starts oldest first now)
• Added Ping/Pong function for network diagnostics
• Cleaned up translatable strings and now shipping with a POT file for translations (translations will be ONLY for the plugin admin interface, not for anything on intensedebate.com or on the comments themselves, yet)
• Improved comment count links within wp-admin
• Updated some screenshots
• Now using a stable tag, rather than trunk, in the wp.org plugins directory

Feel free to check the Changelog for past versions of the plugin.

You may notice that a few changes have come directly from community requests/suggestions, and we love that so keep the feedback coming. We’re really excited about this release – there are some solid improvements to the whole experience, and it allows us to continue focusing on the IntenseDebate service from our end, including new features and functionality.

If you’re interested in getting in on the beta (that means actually telling us if there are any problems!), then please email us at labs@intensedebate.com, and make sure you include the URL to the website where you’re planning on installing this beta version. We’ll email you back with the plugin and some extra information to get you started. Thanks in advance!

Posted by Beau Lebens in WordPress Plugin

It’s that time again folks; time for an update to the WordPress plugin. Version 2.3 features several updates that correspond to a lot of work we’ve been doing on our end to improve performance, make importing more robust and generally improve your experience. Here are the details from the Changelog (which now appears in the WordPress plugin directory!).

1. Fixed a bug where if you didn’t have a blog title configured in WordPress, you wouldn’t be able to authenticate with IntenseDebate to set up the plugin,
2. Switched to using PHP native json_* functions where available to increase performance
3. Limited the size of outgoing sync requests to speed up communication between blogs and intensedebate.com and avoid maxing out request/response sizes (on both ends)
4. Added a tag to the error_log info for easier debugging/filtering.

We have a lot planned for the next version of the plugin, most of which is based on feedback from you all out there. Work has already begun on v2.4 and we’ll get it into your hands as soon as possible. You should get an upgrade notice for v2.3 in your WordPress admin panel soon, if you haven’t got it already.

If you haven’t started using IntenseDebate on your WordPress website yet, there’s no time like the present: Get started now and enhance your comments!

Posted by Beau Lebens in WordPress Plugin

We’ve been working away on a new version of the IntenseDebate Plugin for WordPress, and now it’s ready to come your way. This version contains a bunch of improvements and enhancements, mostly on the backend, and is also WordPress 2.8 compatible. Here’s the full list of changes, which is now included as a Changelog in the readme file included with the plugin (and which can be seen in the WordPress Plugin Directory):

1. Compatible with WordPress 2.5 – 2.8
2. Fixed a bug where versions of WordPress below 2.7 would turn off comment threading in IntenseDebate when saving Discussion Settings in WordPress
3. Improved performance of the queue system used to sync details back and forth with IntenseDebate (reduced the number of database requests made significantly)
4. Improved overall compatibility with WordPressMU (and props to Israel S. for contributed code!). Compatible WordPressMU 2.6 and 2.7.
5. Improved debugging/logging options (you can now save debug details to your error log, database or both)
6. Improved the initial import process (and there are some more improvements coming on this one)
7. Improved security of the options page via better use of nonces and whitelisted options within WordPress (where available)
8. Improved syncing of comment moderations
9. Improved translatability so that we can get the plugin localized into other languages!

So as you can see, there’s a lot more in there than just WordPress 2.8 compatibility. In amongst all of this, there have also been a number of small improvements to the way that IntenseDebate interacts with WordPress and presents information to you while you are moderating comments.

If you’re using WordPress 2.5 or higher, or WordPressMU 2.6 or higher, we strongly recommend that you upgrade to this new version to get all the latest goodness!

If you haven’t started using IntenseDebate on your WordPress website yet, there’s no time like the present: Get started now and enhance your comments!

Posted by Beau Lebens in WordPress Plugin

Hi everyone, my name is Beau and I’ve been working with the guys here at IntenseDebate to improve their WordPress plugin and its syncing functionality. I’ve been using the WP plugin myself since last year (check out my public IntenseDebate profile!) so it’s been really great to be able to work with the team here and help improve a service that I’m personally a big fan of. WordPress has become a major part of my personal and professional life, so I’m happy that the integration between IntenseDebate and WordPress is constantly improving.

We’ve been hard at work updating the IntenseDebate service and finding out what folks like you would like to see from us. One of the biggest requests we’ve had for the WordPress Plugin is to sync moderation settings between your WordPress blog and IntenseDebate. Well, ask and ye shall receive!

Syncing Discussion/Moderation Settings
The biggest new feature in this version is that all relevant discussion/moderation settings (words/email addresses/IPs that cause a comment to go to moderation or be blacklisted, email notification options etc) will now be synced between your WordPress blog and your IntenseDebate control panel. This means that you can use either of them to make changes, and they will automatically update each other.

In addition to that, we’ve done a lot of code cleanup and some other backend tweaks to make things run more smoothly. We’ve also improved the integration with your WordPress Admin Panel for comment moderation. That panel should load faster now as well thanks to some optimizations we’ve implemented. Did you ever notice that if you saved your WordPress profile information, you’d have to log back into IntenseDebate again? Not anymore, that one got fixed as well.

Install/Upgrade
If you’re installing the plugin for the first time, it will ask you if you’d like to merge your moderation settings with IntenseDebate, right after you log into your account:

We recommend that you leave that box checked, which will add our default spam-catching naughty-words to any that you might have set up in WordPress already. Once you have the new plugin installed, things should automatically start syncing between the two systems whenever you make a change to your moderation settings.

If you already have a previous version of the IntenseDebate plugin installed, you should see an upgrade reminder appear in your Admin Panel soon. If not (or if you prefer to do these things manually), you can download the plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory now.

Once you’re finished upgrading you’ll need to trigger a sync to make sure things get started properly. Log into IntenseDebate and go to the “Settings” page for your blog. Add a single space character to the “Moderate posts containing the following words” box and hit “Save settings”. Your IntenseDebate settings will now be synced over to WordPress and things will stay in sync from now on.

Thinking about giving IntenseDebate a try? There’s no better time than the now! Get started with IntenseDebate!

UPDATE

We have identified and fixed an issue with the importer.  Please update your plugin to version 2.1.1.   You should have an upgrade message in your WP plugins panel. If you don’t please download the plugin here.

Posted by Beau Lebens in WordPress Plugin

Yet another revision of the IntenseDebate WordPress plugin is here.  So what’s different?  Quite a bit…

The most notable change is in the initial registration.  We’ve completely rebuilt the interface for initial registration of your blog with IntenseDebate to help make the process even easier and better explain what is happening during this one-time registration to clear up some confusion that was circling around the previous versions.  Below are a couple of screenshots of the new registration:

We’ve also addressed some display bugs when using our plugin with the latest 2.7 release of WordPress.

Additionally, we continue to improve the syncing between IntenseDebate and WordPress. We’ve now added a method to help us detect if your blog ends up out of sync with IntenseDebate and automatically correct the issue.

And last but not least we’ve heard your cries for XHTML validation and made some improvements to the code to address this, as well as alleviating some plugin conflicts with a handful of other plugins that conflicted with the previous version of our plugin.

If you’re an existing plugin user you can update from your Plugins page in your blog’s WordPress admin panel.  If not (or if you prefer to upgrade yourself) you can download the plugin here.  As always, give us your feedback!  We’d love to hear what you think and any suggestions you might have for making the integration with WordPress even better.

Posted by Jon Fox in WordPress Plugin