Thread

So I’ll try to ask this in as simple a way as possible.

I’ve got a client that periodically has to review a large, very specifically structured, text document. The idea is that the document will be broken down into sections and subsections in EE, and then a workgroup will use the commenting features of EE to facilitate discussion and get feedback.  This client has offices in different parts of the world, and they each need to independently review this document and have their own comments.

Right now there are 2 groups that need to do this, but there will be more down the road. So we need to be able to quickly and easily fire up another instance of this ‘document’ and let a new group have at it.

What would be the best way to do this?  I haven’t used the multiple-site manager, but is that the answer? Would we basically make one site and make an archive of that before letting anyone comment. Then just upload that whole backup as a ‘new’ site each time (using the multiple site manager)?

Or maybe do we set it up so each workgroup is it’s own member group, and has independent comments?  I’m not sure how that would work exactly but it seems like that might be do-able.

Any ideas would be great - I’m in the midst of coming up with an estimate as we speak and it’s a bit tough when I don’t know exactly what I’m building 😉

My initial thought was to have just one weblog with the entries and control what comments are displayed segregated by member groups as you mentioned. Seems like it would be easier to manage and set up. Not quite sure how one would go about it but it’s got to be easier than replicating everything. And adding other groups would be easier than replicating for another group.

Hmm - you know even though the purpose of this is to solicit comments, maybe using the actual comments functionality isn’t the way to go.  Maybe instead there should be a different weblog (or weblogs) that are for ‘comments’ and I use super-simple SAEFs?  I can’t remember offhand - can you set is so you can only see weblog entries posted by certain member groups?  The main weblog could be shown to everyone, and the group specific ones you need to belong to…

That seems also like it could simplify the problem of collecting all these group specific comments into one document after the fact using something like CSVee.

can you set is so you can only see weblog entries posted by certain member groups?

Yes, using standard conditionals. And you can further restrict access via template access controls.

The only problem with different weblogs is you still have to set them up manually. I guess I would investigate having commenting on the original and restricting the view by member groups first.

Hmm here’s a dilemma too:

Each ‘page’ of information has 3 sections in it, and each can receive comments independently (section 1 comments, section 2 comments, section 3 comments).  ideally each ‘page’ would be a weblog with 3 text fields in the CP so we don’t have to artificially split out each section into its own weblog and to make data entry on the back end more complex than it needs to be (3 entries to make one page).  I don’t have any experience with the commenting functionality, but I don’t think it’s possible to have 3 different threads of comments on one entry is it?  I think that might make me lean towards not using comments as well.

EDIT: And thanks for helping me brainstorm this PXLated 😊

:Each ‘page’ of information has 3 sections in it, and each can receive comments independently (section 1 comments, section 2 comments, section 3 comments).

Is there a reason there are 3 per page rather than each being a separate weblog entry with it’s own page?

ideally each ‘page’ would be a weblog

A “weblog” or a weblog “entry”? Without getting into all the details of the project, on the surface I’d probably have one document “weblog”, different overall documents would be assigned categories, and each individual section of a document would be a single weblog entry. Then comments would be specific to a single section (entry). Of course you’d still need to use conditionals using membershipGroups to quarantine comments between groups.

I don’t have any experience with the commenting functionality, but I don’t think it’s possible to have 3 different threads of comments on one entry is it?  I think that might make me lean towards not using comments as well.

There’s no standard way, comments are meant for single entries on a single entry page/template. I’ve seen some hacks but I wouldn’t want to go there 😊

Edit-Add:...Going back to the first point…You could still display 3 individual items on a page for review and have a link for each… To comment on this section, Click Here ...that would then take them to a single entry page with the commenting for that section.

You’re right - each page is an entry, not a weblog. Oops. 

One of the things they won’t budge on is the ability to show/hide all these three sections of content one each page as well as the ability to show/hide all three independent comments areas on each page. Moving them off onto different pages isn’t an option unfortunately - either the 3 sections of information or the different comment areas.

Then you’re probably going to have to search for that hack but as I recall (could be wrong) it involved hard coding entry IDs etc. in the templates as there is no other way for EE to know which to retrieve/display, or which entry to assign a comment to. But, I can see that problem rippling down to showing certain comments to different groups also.

Is there a logical reason they are inflexible or do they just have this in their head and by god it’s going to be that way? 😊

Is there a logical reason they are inflexible or do they just have this in their head and by god it’s going to be that way? 😊

++

There’s no winning this one.  In reality their information and what they want to do is actually perfectly suited to using a discussion forum. Break it down into forums/threads/posts.  We set that up for them, but one of the two people in charge has never used a discussion forum, and the first reaction was “no” and even after explaining how it works and that it actually did do everything they’re asking, it was still hopeless. There’s no changing the first impression.

They actually wanted to be able to click anywhere in the content areas and put a comment directly there - it was quite a struggle to convince them it wasn’t worth the effort to build that.

I’m extremely loath to hack into the comment system and hard-coding anything.  This is also the classic “we need it yesterday” situation and I’d rather set things up easily than spend time building extensions or modules to do things that can be accomplished in more OOB ways…

As I recall, it wasn’t actually hacking the comment system..more hacking your templates by hard coding everything in, totally taking it out of the normal EE flow of things. I probably shouldn’t have used the term :hacking: :-(

I can’t remember where I saw it but you might search here on “comments multi entry” or check the Wiki.

In the wiki, it’s an article entitled “Comments on Index” =) I think that is what PX is getting at.

Yep…See LJ, you do have a mind like a steel trap…you remember specifically 😊

Thanks Lisa,

Hmm - just to make sure I’m understanding correctly:

If I were to use the comment system and hard code the entry ID into the templates, it would mean that in the CP each 3 section ‘page’ would need to be 3 separate entries, is that correct?  And because we’re hard coding IDs into templates, that would mean that each individual page would need its own template?

If I used weblogs instead to collect each of the 3 styles of comments (with SAEFs), I could use 1 template instead of 40+ if I’m understanding correctly?  Or I guess with some finagling I could pull the current entry ids and pass them along to the 3 different comments areas? I guess you could do each comment area as an embed and pass things in that way.

I don’t know that there’s a clear winner? Can you think of something that would definitively point to doing it one way or the other?