Wordpress Plugin: Whisper

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Introduction

Welcome to the Whisper plugin documentation page. Whisper is a unique WordPress plugin that allows your blog’s registered users to leave “whisper”-type comments to Admin or other registered users. Only the intended person (and Admin) can see the whisper. This plugin is useful for those bloggers who do not wish to leave their email addresses on their blogs but wish to have their readers leave private comments. Whisper is fully customizable via it’s own admin option page.

The current version of Whisper is version 1.2 Beta (see below for version history). Download is available in zip format for testing. Version 1.1 is still available. Please leave a comment in the original post for bug report and additional support.

Whisper is under GPL and is available for free. You can download, use, modify, or keep in the back of your plugins directory in total disregard for eternity.

Features

  • Although private comments are usually intended for Admin, whispers can also be intended for any of the registered users on the blog.
  • Only the intended users (and Admin) can see the whisper comment (with a customizable prefix string to distinguish it from normal comments). Everyone else would see instead a customizable message.
  • Ready to use right after installation with default layout and labels
  • Its own Options panel under “Options,” to ease setup and changing of settings
  • Customizable position of the whisper option line in the comment area.
  • User-definable lables and messages so you can customize the look.
  • Multiple-target functionality has been added with some customizability. Try it by turn it on in the options panel.
  • In Version 1.2 beta, non-registered users can leave a whisper to the Admin (and the Admin only). Please turn on this feature in the options panel.
  • In Version 1.2 beta, custom field dependent labels can be defined for any of Whisper’s labels. See options panel for detailed instructions.

Installation

  1. Get the plugin
  2. Deactivate and remove the previous version of the plugin
  3. Drop the new plugin in your plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins)
  4. In your Wordpress admin panel, click Plugins, and click ‘activate’for Whisper.
  5. That’s it. The plugin is ready to use right out of the box.
  6. To customize, fill out the relevant information in the Whisper Option Panel (accessed by going to the Wordpress Admin Panel, Clicking Options, then Clicking Whisper).
  7. To avoid whispers becoming visible in RSS Comment Feeds, currently the only solution is to disable comment feed completely by renaming wp-commentsrss2.php to something else.

Known Issues

  • It appears that there is currently a problem with Wordpress’s plugin hook which filters comment text…it doesn’t filter RSS text. I will look into it ASAP. In the mean time, please DISABLE comment feed by renaming your wp-commentsrss2.php to something else (e.g. wp-commentsrss2.old), until this problem is resolved.
  • If you deactivate the plugin, all previous “whispers” will become normal comments and will be visible to others! So..uhm…don’t deactivate it? (If you re-activate it again all the previously whispered comments will return to whispered status.)
  • On some themes, the whisper checkbox will appear to have a wide width.
  • When multiple-target option is selected, the selection box that appear in the comment area is rather ugly. In the future I may consider changing it to a pop-up checkbox table.

Version History

  • Version 1.2
    • Non-registered users can now leave a whisper to the Admin (and the Admin only). Please turn on this feature in the options panel.
    • Custom field dependent labels can now be defined for any of Whisper’s labels. See options panel for detailed instructions.
  • Version 1.1
    • Added a cusstomizable “Prefix” string before a whisper comment when it is displayed to the intended target. This is to differentiate it from normal comments.
    • More customizations are now available.
    • A beta-version of the multiple-target functionality has been added with some customizability.
    • The plugin now automatically detects the database structure, so both WP1.5 and WP2.0 users can use the same plugin.
  • Version 1.0
    • First release

Bugs and Additional Support

Please leave a comment in the original post for bug report and additional support.