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Put Number Of Comments On Front Page And Additiona

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Matt Haughey

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User since: 08 Jul 1999

Articles written: 9

I think a big UI enhancement to evolt would be to show the number of comments a particular article has on the index page.

I know doing a query within a query in ColdFusion is a big no-no, but I found a hack to get around CF's limitation.

(I swear I'm not here for self promotion) On my site, I set an array and populate it with a record count of comments on each page. Then I make up a variable of comments. Now, within each output, I display the contents of the variable for that single output. It's a total hack, but it works. I'd be happy to funish the CF coder responsible for the evolt site with the code.

I got a bunch of customization ideas because I solicited comments on my site to a bunch of friends. So here's another one that they told me to add: customization of the index page's length. On my site, I show the last 7 days of entries, and I noticed on evolt, it shows 5 topics at a time. I have big monitors and a fast line at home and work, so I'd prefer to see about 10-20 topics per page.

Also, letting someone edit their comment might come in handy, or at least do a preview before post. I do it at my site by storing someone's post in hidden form elements. After they preview what their comment or post will look like, then they hit submit and I dump the hidden form elements to the database.

I love evolt, it's a great resource and I should post more articles and comments. I think these ideas (along with the persistent logins) would make evolt easier to use and might lead to more interaction with the audience.

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