Now with threaded comments!

I like to spend my Saturday nights doing wild and crazy things, like installing blog plug-ins. Yesterday night I installed the Simply Threaded plug-in, which I hope you all will take full advantage of. It allows you to respond directly to any comment on a post, displaying your comment directly underneath and indented, instead of displaying your comment at the bottom of all the comments (though you can still do that too). This is handy because it will allow me to directly respond to people’s questions instead of editing comments and inserting my answers in bold text as I have been doing. Here’s an example of how it looked when I responded to Jeni’s question about Cliff Blox:

All you have to do is click the “Reply” link on any person’s comment. Your browser will then jump to the bottom of the page where a checkbox will have appeared with the name of the person who’s post you are replaying to. If you are using Firefox, the checkbox is automatically checked. If you are using Internet Explorer, you’ll have to check it yourself. (Don’t make me explain why, just know that cross-browser compatibility issues like this is why IE makes web developers scream “Aye-eee!”)

Now just type your comment like normal and hit the “Post” button. Your comment will then appear indented below the comment you replied to. This feature doesn’t work if you hit the “Preview” button. Sorry, not my fault, I didn’t write the plug-in. If you just want to reply at the bottom of the post, comment like you always have, or if you already hit “reply” just uncheck the box.

Hopefully this will help make discussions in the comments less confusing. A couple weeks ago there was a kerfuffle when two people used the name “Red” when they replied to a post and someone else commented on what the first Red said, but the second Red thought the person was replying to her and OH MY GOD this is how wars start! So, no more. Please don’t be scared to try the new commenting system. It’s okay if you screw up once or twice. I’ll fix any obvious errors or double posts. Feel free to practice on this post if you want. Enjoy!