It’s that time again folks: time for another release of our WordPress plugin!

Version 2.8 is available right now in the WordPress Plugin Directory, and you’ll be prompted to upgrade within your WordPress admin panel in the next few hours if you’re already running it. With this version you’ll be able to install our IntenseDebate widgets directly through your WordPress admin panel without having to insert them directly into your theme.

To add an IntenseDebate widget to your sidebar, select the Appearance tab in your WordPress admin panel sidebar → select Widgets → drag the IntenseDebate widget from the Available Widgets or Inactive Widgets area on the left into the Sidebar area on the right. When you see a dashed line appear, you can drop the widget into place. You can also change the order of the widgets by dragging and dropping them around in the sidebar.

Please note: in order to use this widget install method, your theme must support widgets.

We’re also working on some very-cool backend updates to our sync and import queues. More details to come. 🙂

Posted by Michael Koenig in WordPress Plugin

You may have noticed some changes that were rolled out in last night’s release. Three cheers to the team for getting all this out!

HTML Parsing
We’re proud to answer the call and release HTML support in IntenseDebate comments. If you’ve got the urge to add a little self-expression, feel free to add some bold or italic characters. You can also customize your links and add some photos to your comments. You can allow your readers to add images to their comments by enabling this option in your Blog Settings page (login into IntenseDebate.com, select the tab named after your blog followed by the “Settings” sub-tab). The option is located on the right side of the page under the heading “Display Settings.” Image tags are disabled by default. IntenseDebate supports the following HTML tags – <a>, <b>, <i>, <u>, <em>, <p>, <blockquote>, <br>, <strong>, <strike>, <img>.

Popular Blog Posts Widget
We released a new widget that displays the most popular blog posts on your blog (as determined by the number of comments made per post). By displaying this widget on your home page, you’ll be able to breath new life into your past blog posts and drive some fresh traffic their way. This widget is the next step in bringing your content into the light (check out our past progress here & here). This widget can be found on our Add-on’s page along with our other kick-ass widgets (Blog Stats, Recent Comments, My Recent Comments, and Top Commenters).

New Usernames & Profile URL’s
After much deliberation, we’ve decided to take the plunge and update our approach to usernames and profile URL’s. Before we get any further into this, this does not have anything to do with your Display Name – your Display Name has not changed.

Basically we’ve changed your username from an account ID number to a friendlier name. Integrating your IntenseDebate account with other 3rd party services like FriendFeed will be a bit easier now. For those of you that have enabled IntenseDebate’s FriendFeed Comment Retrieval you might recall having to enter your IntenseDebate profile URL that consisted of an ugly user account ID number. Your profile URL is a little prettier and looks a little something like this: http://intensedebate.com/people/michael.

If you are using our IntenseDebate FriendFeed Comment Retrieval, you do not need to update your IntenseDebate profile URL in your FriendFeed account. You’re all set.

Here’s the skinny on the new usernames. Your username has automatically been updated. Please note that any incompatible characters were removed from your username. In addition, numbers from your IntenseDebate account ID may have been added to your username in the event that there were duplicate usernames. Again, this will not affect your IntenseDebate Display Name.

We wanted to let you know about this in case you want to set your username and profile URL to something that fits your style so you can remember it more easily. To update your username please edit your IntenseDebate user profile. We apologize for the inconvenience, but it will be worth it in the long run!

As always, please feel free to drop us a line with any questions or feedback.

Sincerely,
The fellas at IntenseDebate

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

As a part of our most recent release, we tweaked and improved our main site. You’ll now find that it’s much easier to get around and more enjoyable overall.

We’ve also created an Add-ons page, which contains all of the Intense Debate widgets (Blog Stats, Recent Comments, My Recent comments and Top commenters) as well as instructions for Feedflare integration and a list of all your comment feeds! It’s now easier than ever to subscribe to your friends feeds, aggregate your own feed or one of your Intense Debate-enabled blogs. You also have an aggregated feed for all your blogs, and feeds that keep you up to date with comments awaiting moderation. All served on a silver plate.

How do you like the improvements? Please comment below, we have installed a great commenting system that makes it really easy.

Posted by Isaac Keyet in features

After our last big release we got so much positive feedback that we’ve decided to update our widgets as well.

Today we’re happy to present you with a refreshed version of our three different Comment Widgets, and also a new one! We call the fourth spawn the Blog Stats Widget. It’s a slick, tiny appetizer mainly created for bragging. Have a peek at it to the right, then go ahead and install it!

The changes aren’t just visual, though. We’ve rewritten all of the widgets from the ground up to make them faster than ever before.

So if you haven’t already installed one of these great widgets check them out. They’re available on your blog widgets page as well as on your personal widgets page.

Posted by Isaac Keyet in features

We are iterating fast and furiously over here at Intense Debate. Our latest release includes a healthy list of updates and features.

First, what you will immediately notice is our site remake. This new look is complements of Isaac and features new button as well as other improvements.

For publishers, a primary concern with their comments is data control. We will be taking steps to show that we are genuine in our intentions and allow publishers access to their comment data. The first solution we are providing was released last night and allows publishers to download an xml file with their comment data whenever they feel like it. We want to be a friend to publishers and this solution will keep with that theme.

Last, but certainly not the least, for all you widget lovers we are making another available. It is a top commenters widget that displays the users that make the most comments on your blog. It displays an avatar, screename, reputation, and their rank. Best of all, the widget includes “Chameleon” capability and will adapt to the surrounding blog colors and fonts, just like the other widgets.

As always, feedback is welcome anytime. You can visit our forums and also contact me directly: josh at intensedebate dot com should you have any questions or feedback.

Posted by Isaac Keyet in features