www.ofhills.com

Hi Oscar, I am just learning about this subscribe to function and thought I would subscribe here and see how it works.

Hi Rori,

Well, see if you get notified of this comment ...

I will be posting a very much improved version of this script in a little bit, if I can just find a few more hours here and there to finish it up.

I think then it will be pretty complete, with its main virtue being NOT having to hack anything. We’ll see ...

Current version is 1.07b, and it seems to be stable across browsers. Lisa has had trouble with SimpleComments and this script but it works in a test blog for me, so I would appreciate hearing from anyone else giving that a try. Otherwise it looks as though all is well!

I have released EZ Subscribe To Comments 1.08b. There are some new features and some fixes. First, I discovered that it works just fine with the SimpleComments plugin. But, Lisa’s trouble came from another source, i.e., that she had renamed the mt-comments.cgi script for added spam protection. I have written this into the script now, so that installing from scratch will cover this. It is also covered in the scripts documentation, but requires the new user to do nothing extra.

Other changes are:

1) you can point directly to the script to look at it by the url: http://www.yoursite.com/cgi-bin/mt/sub-to-com.cgi (or whatever) instead of having to add the ?config to it. Easier.

2) You can configure the entire “From:” email address of the notification instead of just the name.

3) the entries default to sorting by the most recently created at the top of the list. You can also select an entry by entry id.

4) There is a new section in which you can enter an email address and see (and manage) all entries and opt-outs for that person. This is useful if you notice a notification email bouncing. Perhaps your reader is out of business, or commission, or worse. But at least you can delete all their subscriptions in one place instead of having to hunt through every entry.

5) There are two new configurable areas. You can put any text and HTML on both the “Processing” and the “Previewing” pages that show up for a fews seconds after you hit Post or Preview (that terrible white page from the ScriptyGoddess version). Now you can enter a background color, different text, annoying ads, or anything else you want.

Hi,
i installed as you said but if i hit “preview” with empty fields or not, my site crashes…
my installation is fairly standard and preview worked well before.

Paul and I found an error in his template.

Lest others fall prey, here’s the problem ... he had (error in red):

<input type="hidden" name="blogname" value="<$MTBlogName$>"/>
<input type="hidden" name="title" value="<$MTEntryTitle
encode_html="1"$>"/>
<input type="hidden" name="link" value="<$MTEntryLink> "/>
<input type="hidden" name="script" value="sub-to-com.cgi"/>
<input type="radio" name="subscription" value="subscribe" />Subscribe <br/>
<input type="radio" name="subscription" value="unsubscribe" />Unsubscribe <br/>
---------------------

Note the hidden input named “script” ... it should NOT be the name of our EZ script ... this is the place where the EZ script gets the name of the REAL “mt-comments.cgi” script (or whatever it might have been renamed to) ... so it SHOULD look like (correct tag in green):

<input type="hidden" name="blogname" value="<$MTBlogName$>"/>
<input type="hidden" name="title" value="<$MTEntryTitle
encode_html="1"$>"/>
<input type="hidden" name="link" value="<$MTEntryLink> "/>
<input type="hidden" name="script" value="<$MTCommentScript$>"/>
<input type="radio" name="subscription" value="subscribe" />Subscribe <br/>
<input type="radio" name="subscription" value="unsubscribe" />Unsubscribe <br/>
--------------

Enjoy!
-------------
After much email, we also found that his server is very sensitive to Perl warnings, leading me to ferret out every one of them (I think) in the script. Version 1.085b conatins all those fixes, if you’re having any trouble.

I was just over at the MT Plugin Dirctory, and noticed a section for “Other Helpful Scripts”. I thnik you should submit the EZ Subscribe To Comments script over there.

Thanks! I actually did that about three days ago, after I was certain that I couldn’t generate one single error in my httpd error log with the thing, and that I couldn’t find one browser that it didn’t work with (phew!). It always takes awhile (sometimes a long while) for the scripts and plugins to actually get processed. But thanks for the idea - I’ll follow up if it falls through the cracks! (but feel free to spread the good word ...)

Well I think I switched over Oscar .  One never knows with me right?  As no one ever subscribed/subscribes, however, I really don’t know it it ever did or does work .  You are still the most talented man I know on the net!!

Hey there Oscar, I installed the script checked my html and everything is as you explained in your setup.  But everytime I try to submit a comment to test it and subscribe at the same time I get an error:  You are not allowed to post comments.

I’m not sure what’s going on, much help appreciated!

Kat straightened this out herself, but I will respond here for others who might run into this. “You are not allowed to post comments” is MT’s IP Ban script speaking to you. If you get this error, chances are you have banned a range of IP addresses that includes your own. You might never have noticed it before because perhaps you don’t comment on your own blog except to test scripts like this. Anyway, I think the proverbial and time-honored phrase applies here, “it’s a feature and not a bug.”

Thanks Oscar!  You are correct, I had my ISP provider blocked and that included my own.  Did some thinking figured that was probably it since I check MT-Blacklist to be sure I didn’t put my own darn domain in it *L*.  Thanks for a wonderful script.  It was so easy to setup and configure.  Now just to finish my templates and all will be complete!  Thanks again!  (Hey kewl live preview)

My apologies to subscribers for that casino spam. I have added it to the blacklist. I think this script’s listing at the plugin directory may have opened the door…

While I definately appriciate the work that went into this —kudgy is indeed the right word for some of the coding —there are over 30 locations in the script that must be changed if you need to change the file extention to .pl

Hi Crys, well, I’m sorry to hear THAT! But this is what happens when I have to work on this thing in 5 minute dribs and drabs. Half the time I forget what I’ve done where, and duplicate all kinds of stuff. I’m about finished with a new version with several new features, but no optimized code. Maybe after that, I’ll be able to go through it and clean it up.

BTW, what ARE these changes? They are cgi specific? Or is it just the fact that there is so much duplication.

Well, anyway, it works. Cleanliness will have to wait a little longer ...

Just 30 seperate places where the literal filename was included in the code—your use of eod blocks (generally concidered poor practice these days for anything complex, btw—especially in an app that already requires HTML::Template) is going to make it rather hard to fix, other than on a case by case basis via search and replace.

Thanks for the info Crys, I appreciate it, and I’m sorry for that hassle. One of my goals, as generally unwieldy as it is, has been to make this as easy for the user as possible to install (I see that I’ve done you no favors, however ).

But that was my reason for keeping the thing all in one file (the EOD blocks instead of templates). You can imagine what a pain it has been to manage it that way. But, I wanted people to be able to throw the script in a directory and forget about it. I should probably give MT users more credit. Also, when I started the thing, I had no idea it would evolve to the extent it has - complex beyond what I originally had in mind, and full of tacked on features that people have requested. Serves me right.

Anyway, one of these days, I will clean it up. In the meantime, sorry for the inconvenience, and I appreciate your feedback!

Oh, and being so busy making excuses last night, I forgot to mention that I DID put the file name into a variable at the beginning of the script for the new version which I will release soon. That should make it easier to change the name in the future. We hobbyists sometimes don’t think of these things without being told

I have been waiting for this feature for a long time. I know that there are other scripts in the wild, but I’m particulary interested in “EZ Subscribe To Comments”.
But I have a question before using this plugin. Since I installed MT-Blacklist the spam comments have been reduced in my blog 85%. I got at least 200 spam comments a while ago, and one of my colleagues got 400 once. Now, I got just a few per week (at the moment...) My blacklist has now an important number of spammers blocked and my log activity makes me think that the nightmare is over. However I fear that spammers would be able to send their crap to my readers via my blog, despite IP banning and MT-Blacklist.
In the technical notes, you wrote:

“The script allows all comments to be accepted or rejected by IP Banning, MT-Blacklist, and any other mechanisms in place before processing subscriptions. If the comment is rejected, so is the subscription. If you wish to subscribe without posting (a valuable feature, especially if some entries are dedicated to plugins or scripts you have written, where readers want to keep up with changes and problems), then, obviously, there is no comment processing. This method does run through MT’s IP Banning however, and this confers protection against anyone wishing to subscribe people to comments out of sheer malice. The worse case is comment spam, and MT-Blacklist has us covered there.”

That’s very cool! But IP banning doesn’t works with people using dynamics IP and MT-Blacklist is not pre-emptive (I know that maybe that’s impossible).
So, I would like to know what do you think about this. Is this really a issue? Do you have feedback of people talking about some experiences with replying spamm comments to readers?

The new mt-send-entry.cgi has fixed the spam vulnerability to send mass mail via the previous version of the script, and this is good news I think. Do you think that Six Apart is addresing the spam comments issue for Movable Type 3.0? (I have heard something about registering, comments registration, but IMHO that hurts the magic of blogging, social relations and the ecosystem within the blogosphere.)

Finally, I want to thank you for your wonderful work and for sharing your technical expertise with us. You are not only providing us with great code; you are helping us in our daily activity to build and consolidate our communities.

Best regards,

aSH

Well, aSH, thanks for the kind words, and I appreciate your thoughtful comments. As I said in my most recent post, a little bit of carrying on about Comment Spam, I think we can do an okay job of limiting advertising spam, but a less good job of limiting vandalism.

MT-Blacklist can build a good database over time that significantly cramps the places a piece of comment spam can refer you. IP Banning, even by range is, as you say, not all that effective, and may actually be best for vandals, but still not much good. And I agree about not wanting to lose the magic with more severe measures.

I personally find comment spam nowhere near the threat that having your smtp server co-opted is. They can send hundreds of thousands of emails before you get on top of it if you’re not extremely attentive. This happened to me once when I was slow to re-implement my procmail filtering one weekend after a crash.

When I subscribe to people’s comments in the blogosphere, I enjoy what I receive in my inbox for the most part. And if it’s the occasional comment spam, frankly, it fits right in with the other 400 spams I get every day. I am well versed in the use of my delete button. But, that may just be me.

The worst case scenario for spamming I suppose is that someone writes a script to “subscribe without posting” hundreds of email addresses (hey, you gave me an idea - for my upcoming release, I will include a threshhold where you get notified if there are more than a certain number if subscriptions to a post - a heads up that something funny is afoot, so to speak). Anyway, after subscribing all those people, they then slip a comment spam in past the blacklist, and it is sent to the subscribers.  (I’m going to put a flood control in there too, now that I’m thinking about it, so there is a delay when entering multiple non-posting subscriptions from the same IP address).

This spamming scam is certainly easily possible, but extremely inefficient, except for vandalism purposes. There are better and easier ways to spam. Also, I personally am at constant risk of being shot when I cross the street for coffee, or dying of that coffee, or a million other dangers. If someone wants to bring me down with spam, then I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

What I can say, is that I will do my best to keep the EZ Subscribe To Comments script compatible with all comment spam protection efforts. And, I am open to ideas. I think introducing the open door of subscriptions does introduce a greater spam danger, but that is the reason for Jennifer’s original great ideas of entry-wide and site-wide opt-outs. People can always decide they’ve just plain had enough of hearing from your site, and block any mail from your comments. That’s a start. But, we hope most people will tolerate the occasional spam, secure in the knowledge that the blog author is on the case.

Well, that’s enough of my thoughts on all that. So far, people have not had any big problems that I have heard about.

Hello Oscar, thanks for your answers.
I made a post in my blog here:
http://www.actionscripthero.com/blog/archives/000239.php

That’s basically what I think now. Thank you again for your wonderful work.
Best regards,
aSH

Just wondering what difference MT 3.0 will make to this plugin…

I don’t know KO. But the structure of this script is such that it will likely be compatible as is. If it is not, I will fix it as soon as possible. This script uses nothing nonstandard.

Just got around to slapping this on my site today, Oscar, good work! Though I have run into one problem that I haven’t been able to figure out yet and which may be specific to how I’m doing things.

I’m not using a comment popup window (such as this one) for my comments as I prefer to have folks go straight to the individual archive. I made the changes to my archive page as per the instructions and everything works as advertised, but I’ve noticed that when it re-displays the page following the comment it doesn’t update the address bar of the browser properly and, in fact, shows the path to the script. If a reader then reloads the page it causes it to resubmit the comment making a duplicate. Worse yet, if they click on the MAIN link I have to take them back to the main page it still doesn’t change the URL properly leaving it pointing to the script and making a reload/resubmit possible. I’ve tested this in both IE and Mozilla and it’s the same in both.

For example the link to my entry in which I talk about your plugin is http://stupidevilbastard.com/archives/2004/01/13/a_few_minor_changes_around_the_old_blog.php and after submitting a commit it becomes http://jenkinsonline.net/mt/sub-to-com.cgi and stays that way. I’m assuming there’s something that the original MT comment script did to avoid this as it wasn’t a problem previously. If you’re not sure then I’ll see if I can’t figure it out and then fill you in on what I come up with. Still, thought you’d like to know about it. Other than this one annoying behavior it works great!

For users of inline comments, here is what I emailed to Les ...(with some editing
out of words that I intuited he would be okay with, but perhaps not others ...)
Yes, this one thing drives me nuts and is well known to me.


When I first wrote the script, the only way to NOT hack the MT code was to
use "on unload" to trigger the script. The only way it could call the script was
to either use a popup window (shades of your local porno site), or else to
use hidden frames. So I opted for hidden frames.


For the most part, I was able to break out of them by the end of the script,
but as it got harder and harder to write code that would work with all browsers,
I lost that ability. But, it didn’t matter much with popup windows. I have
now become much more aware of this problem for inline comments though, and I am
trying to find a cross broswer solution for my upcoming next release, with lots of
other features as well.


In the meantime, if you want to try to work around it for now, you could
change your link to your main page to:

<a href="<$MTBlogURL$>" target=_top>MAIN PAGE</a>


And that will break the frames and reupdate the address bar properly. It won’t
help if they insist on reloading the same page.

I apologize for the pain in the behind, but I am working as hard as I can on it
for the next version, and hope to find a good solution - within days, if real
life quits interfering by loading me up with work!


I’ll post this in my comments too, for others to use in the interim.


Thanks for pointing this out, and, btw, I’ve always enjoyed your great site!

Oscar, have you tested this with MT 2.66 yet?  It doesn’t seem to be respecting the throttling but it may just be that I’ve done something wrong.  Before I tear my hair out I wanna see if anyone else noticed anything…

Thanks

I am also seeing problems with comment posting with 2.66 and sub-to-com. I can’t get posts to work either with or without trying to subscribe.

I guess it serves us right (early adopters), we should have given Oscar a chance first when we saw that comment parameters have changed in MT.

It looks like Lisa and I will be your test subjects. I will stay tuned…

I can post comments, just rapidfire *whistles*.  I posted 3 in under 20 seconds, and I have the throttle in mt.cfg set to 30 seconds.  I’m not sure I’m doing that right though…

Completely MY BAD. I renamed my comment and trackback scripts to avoid comment spam. When I upgraded I forgot to rename them again. All is well now…

Thanks Lisa for making me take a second look.

Oscar, you can delete/edit my comment from earlier if you please. I do not want to tarnish it’s flawless operation.

Thanks many times once again.

Well, the way I knew it worked was that you guys were posting here and I have been upgraded for several hours now. There shouldn’t be a problem with the ThrottleSeconds either, because the comment itself is actually posted by mt-comments and not by EZ STC.

Also, I am building in the same feature to “subscribe without posting” and several other things. I will take a closer look at ThrottleSeconds then, just to be sure!

I just read over at The Tweezer’s Edge that it is actually MT Blacklist doing it.  If you use that, then throttle is ignored.

At least it’s not my imagination.

Thanks Lisa - Not your imagination, and at least this time, not my script!

This looks like a GREAT script.  I have one question though, when the script refreshes your comment window, for some reason the page is a bit off kilter to the right, resulting in a horizontal scroll bar.  I’ve checked other sites that also use the script, and they do the same thing.  I thought increasing the popup window size might fix it, but apparently it still does it.  It’s weird.  Has anyone else noticed this?

I haven’t noticed it myself, and can’t imagine why it should be, though it could be. For the version I am working on, I am doing some extensive experimenting with this aspect of the script, so it would be helpful if we could document your observation, particularly if it is a browser specific issue.

This is using IE6, but though I’ve removed the script for now till I have some free time later, you can see another example here Click on “Hisses” to send a comment, though you wont have to do that even, just send a comment without including the email address, and when it gives the error, go back, and presto, the horizontal bar appears, and stays that way until the comment window is closed.  Like I said, it’s a bit weird.  I’ve initially tried to expand my comment window’s width a few pixels, but that hasn’t seemed to stop it
Not a major issue, but being anal retentive, I like to be neat. 

I haven’t been able to reproduce this problem, nor has it been reported by others yet. I don’t know what to make of it. I’m as anal as the next guy, so if it is other than an individual problem (corrupted cache or something), or there is some way for me to see it clearly, I will immediately set about fixing it. I’m at least as anal as the next guy, believe me!

I’ve just come across this script and wanted to say thanks - it’s an excellent solution.

Oscar, I’ve been looking for a way to do comment subscriptions without converting to PHP forever. Thanks! I’ll be trying it out on a test blog soon, and can’t wait to see the results.

YES!!!!!

Halle-FREAKIN-lujah!!!!!!!!

I wuz just sitting here staring into space and drooling, and it came to me! I’ve been stewing on this since October ... I’ve been sitting on a pile of new features until I could solve the problem .... and NOW, I’ve done it, or thought of it anyway. Now it’s just a matter of testing. Initial results look real good!

NO MORE HIDDEN FRAMES OR POPUP WINDOWS! And the script is FAST!!!

So, stay tuned. I want to clear up a couple of minor bugs in some of the new features, and triple-check my new concept!

I am sooooooo happy! It’s better than sex. And drinking. And poker. Though possibly not better than all three of those things together.

I hope to release a good beta before the end of the weekend.

(PS to geeks - the key?  --> image.src

*** TEASE ***

!!!

Yeah, it’s true Lisa. Here was my idea:

In the Processing window, I call the script onUnLoad. This has meant either a popup window (invisible, but there in the past) or else by a hidden frame (current method). This is because you need a window to get a url to be refreshed, and thus to get the script to be called.

So, then I hit on the stroke of genius. Use:

var myImage = new Image();
myImage.src = “the_script”;

As a function to be called on unload. This is a way of calling a url without opening a new window and without reloading the page. Wow!

And it works! In Mac Safari, Mac IE, Windows Mozilla and Firebird, Netscape. But it does NOT work in Mac Opera or Win IE6. Not yet anyway. But I’m not sure why not. I may have to sniff the browsers and use this method where I can, and the hidden popup elsewhere. I’m not sure. Still working on it. Any great ideas from anyone are MORE than welcome!

I wonder, is here only Oscar posting?

I’d love to use this, and I tried the “subscribe without posting” option over the weekend in the hope of getting the promised email showing configuration options, but the email never showed up.  I tried it again and got a “you have already subscribed” response.

Hi Patrick - As you have probably seen by now, the emails are only sent when a new comment is posted. I hope you are receiving the emails as we post these - I know I am.

I’ve released version 1.1b. Read the updated post above for details. But I have eliminated hidden frames, so it works for popup AND inline comments without a problem. Also, added 100% configurable notification emails, user or author determined subscription durations (expirations), flood control for nonposting subscriptions, email notification of author if more than a set number of subscriptions are logged (spam warning), per blog configuration of settings, etc.

Oscar, on the ScriptyGoddess script, there was a way to add a “manage subscriptions” link right in the Individual Archive for the entry.  (the plugin directory still has this link, even though it doesn’t work, because I haven’t had a chance to figure this out until now ) Now I see that when I make a comment, it tells me where to go to manage my subscription, but is there a generic URL that can be used for USERS to see all their subscriptions in one place?

Under “Reader Interface Page”, it sounds like there isn’t, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Thanks!

Hi Kristine - Yes, I saw that link at the Directory, and was reminded of that function in the ScriptyGoddess version. The short answer is that a link is sent with every notification e-mail (at least that’s the default - blog owners can elect not to include it). When users click on the link, which includes a 10 character code unique to their subscription to that entry, they are brought to a page where they can manage all their subscriptions, i.e., change the duration, unsubscribe, opt-out of an entry, or opt out of the whole site.

If they unsubscribe to the entry that brought them to the page, they can only get back to the page by following the link and code from another one of their subscriptions - since the code for that one is now gone. But, they can choose all the actions they want first, and then click “Update” on the user page.

Heh, that was the short answer. The long answer is:

When Jennifer at ScriptyGoddess first solicited contributions to the “subscribe to comments” problem, she was particularly interested in comment and subscription security. In the original version, I think the worst malice a person could wreak on the “Manage Your Subscriptions” page would have been to sign in with someone else’s email address and delete all their subscriptions (not likely really). Now, they would be able to add an entry-wide or site-wide opt out as well. It just seemed better to ensure that only the person actually receiving the notification email would be given access to their “manage” page - hence the code. But, once there, they can manage ALL their subscriptions at once.

I am open to suggestions. It would be easy to allow a link where people could just use the email address without the code. I could include that as an option in the configuration page, but it seems a little too “unsecure” for these times. But I will respoind to what folks want in the script.

Hi, Oscar

This looks like a great script! I’ve set it up on my test blog, and the comments are posted to the site just fine, but I haven’t received any email messages. I have MT-Blacklist installed, so I should have all of the pre-reqs met. Other than cosmetic changes, I’ve pulled the forms straight out of the instructions.

I just looked at my server error log, and it is showing the rather unhelpful message “Premature end of script headers”. This despite the fact that I am forwarded on to the comment listing page.

Is there anything else I need to have installed for sending to work properly?

Thanks!

Hi Kevin - No, it should work. Try these two things - first point your browser to the script. Does the script’s Info page come up? (I assume so, since you got to the instructions). If so, go to the configuration page and select the blog, then click “Save” for any one of the sections. That should establish the database (it should work without this, but ...).

Then try a test again. Also, what browser are you using? Does it work with a different one? Any info you have will help me track down the problem.

Also, did you subscribe to a test post? Does the subscription show up in the management page?

Yes, the script’s info page does come up, and my test subscriptions are even saved. I had actually already changed some settings (most specifically the sending email address). So, it would appear that the database is set up OK.

I’m using Mozilla 1.5 and haven’t tried any other browser with it at this point. The symptoms seem to point to a server-side issue, anyhow.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much access to poke around on my server. I could try adding some logging statements to the script sometime to see if I can track down the problem. I figured I’d see if you had heard of anything similar before I went down that route…

Hmmm ... it doesn’t throw any errors on either of my two servers, so I’m not sure what the problem might be. Do you get regular notification emails of posted comments yourself? Are you possibly not hooked into your emailer? This uses MT’s Perl email hook.

I do get the comment emails from MT (including the handy link back to MT-Blacklist). So, MT doesn’t have any issue sending mail. There are no other required perl modules or anything?

You have all the modules you need on your linux server.

If you are getting a “Premature end of script headers” each time you post a comment to an entry that has a subscription, then there is either a server side problem or some bad data in the comment listing template being passed. I just can’t get the script to produce an error here (not to say that there might not be a bug somewhere).

Do you have a link to the test blog I could take a quick look at? Otherwise, I’m just not sure what the problem is ... no one else has reproted it (yet!) ...

Thanks for writing this great script. It’s running, and I have all the modules installed on my server, but I’m not getting the emails when I try a test subscription on my site. So I thought I’d do a post here after subscribing and see if it works. Thanks!

I’m still trying to get it to work...I think I have Plugindata in the wrong place or not installed. Where does it go? I found a copy of it somewhere, and put it in /extlib/MT/plugins. Is this where it goes?
Thanks!

Ah, yes. That works. Thanks for your help and excellent plugin!

Justin - Which thing worked? The plugindata module or the test script I sent you?

After I installed the script you emailed me, I still couldn’t get it to work. When I uploaded the plugindata module, it started working. I had also had a few issues with closing the tags in the wrong place, but this was easier to fix because I could just copy and paste from a site that worked (in this case, MT-Plugins, since I like their layout and use the same features). It works great now.

I hope this experience is useful to others. To summarize what I did (not in order, but what ideally would have been the order):
1. I had my webhost install the storable.pm module, which they did within ten minutes, since it wasn’t already on the server.
2. I installed the plugindata.pm module in cgi-bin/extlib/MT/plugins. CHMOD to 755. (not sure if this is necessary)
3. I added the EZ Subscribe to Comments plugin file to my main MT directory (the cgi-bin). CHMOD to 755.
4. I modified my templates to include the necessary subscription forms (by copying the HTML from pages like this one that work).
5. I tested it with my email account.

To answer your question - I’m not sure which part wasn’t working. It may just have been the MT template/form tags. At any rate, subscriptions are working. Thanks!

Thanks Justin. The test script I sent just cleaned up a few things, but I have no idea whether any of that is really necessary. So far, the folks who have had trouble have solved it by hunting down other problems on their servers. I am working on a few other things related to the script, so I won’t bother with another release at the moment unless someone finds that the current script doesn’t work for them. Thanks again for the update.

Hi Oscar,
I sent you an email a few days ago about my problems…
I don t know if you had time to look at him but my server went down for a few hours this We and some mails might have been lost… please let me know.
Thank you for your time and help. and devotion.

Hi Paul - I DID get your email. Sorry to be long in responding, but I have been overloaded with non-computer work. I willm take a look as soon as I can ...

Hello!
I installed your great plug-in. It works just fine with English Posts.

But I sometimes use Japanese, which contains 2 byte characters. When I use Japanese in comment, the letters are destroyed. I think I need to set CHARSET to UTF-8 and I tried hard to find where in the code to modify, but never succeed.

Would you please give me some hint?
Thank you very much in advance.

Oscar- I just had a problem with my comment-posting code in my individual archives (I use inline comments) that I thought would be helpful to share.
My “remember me” feature was not working (unrelated to EZSTC), and in the process of fixing it, I inadvertently deleted this line of code:
<input type="hidden" name="static" value="1" />
from this section of my template:
<div class="comments-body">
<form method="post" action="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTCommentScript$>" name="comments_form" onsubmit="if (this.bakecookie[0].checked) rememberMe(this)">
<input type="hidden" name="static" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="<$MTEntryID$>" />
This omission makes MT take the user to the MT comment script after they post a comment, which isn’t good if you aren’t using popup comments. I assume the “static” part means one is using inline comments rather than viewing from “mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=xxx”.
Like I said, it really has nothing to do with EZSTC other than that I could just as easily have deleted that crucial line when installing EZSTC. Also, people like me may blame your script when this is the error. Thanks for the great script.
Oh, and ShoutBox spam seems to be growing…

Thanks Justin. Yes, people often don’t know about that line. Very important for inline!

Oscar,

I recently moved my EZ-Subscribe-To-Comments enabled blog from one host to another, and now I get a 500 error when I try to get to the sub-to-com.cgi script via my Web browser.  I checked my HTTP error logs, and found this:

“Storable binary image v2.5 more recent than I am (v2.4) at blib/lib/Storable.pm
(autosplit into blib/lib/auto/Storable/thaw.al) line 355, at lib/MT/PluginData
.pm line 28”

I was getting a similar error when I installed MT-Blacklist, so I used the YAML option instead of relying on Storable… but thing is, on my old host I had both MT-Blacklist (YAML version) and EZ Sub-to-Com working fine.  So a Storable issue with MT-B is not necessarily a dead-end with Sub-to-Com.

I checked the script, it’s set to 755.  Can’t figure out what else to do… any thoughts?

Thanks for the excellent script!

Great script! Is there anyway to make it so it can include my main template for the Processing your comment ... page and also the page that loads when just subscribing to the entry and not posting a comment?

Now that MT3 is in public beta and I can officially “come out” as a tester, I was wondering if this plugin is compatible with 3.0 as-is. If you’re not sure yet yourself, I can try it out on my “guinea pig” blog and let you know how it goes.

Adam-
I can’t think of a way to do that without manually copying your template into the custom page box, which I’m assuming you know about. I don’t think includes would work, since those processing pages are CGI files. I’ll be interested to see your implementation.

I’ve been testing MT3 since the alpha as well, with the initial plan of tweaking this script to update it for compatibility. I have assumed that the new plugin hooks would allow me to do away with some of the old kludges. I have a MT3 test blog up and running and it looks great! Unfortunately, however, I have been so busy with real-life work that I just haven’t had the time to take a close look at the script with respect to MT3. I hope to get to it sometime soon! I welcome any information and/or suggestions.

test

I’m trying to get STC working correctly, and it does send out emails, great!  The problem I’m seeing is that it seems to be sending two copies of emails?

Any idea what I’m doing wrong?  I just followed the manual instructions, and am using inline comments.

Any hints welcome!

Hi Dan,

Does it do this with all browsers? The problem with this script has always been trying to make it hackless, and there was always something of a race condition with browsers - each one handled onUnLoad and the like a little differently. Sometimes, people’s individual servers handled the same code differently - causing some to send, some to send twice, and some not to send at all. That said, it was very rare that I would get this complaint. So, I’m not entirely sure, but it would be helpful if you could test with a couple of different browsers ... (also, presumably with the latest version of the script) ... thanks ...

Tested with Firefox and IE6.  When I posted a comment on my test post, I get 5 emails now, in this order:

1. From: comments, To: testing@…
2. From: comments, To: testing2@…
3. From: testing2, To: myemail@…
4. From: comments, To: testing@…
5. From: comments, To: testing2@…

Anything else I can look up that might help?

My test post is here:

http://www.vraal.com/MT/dan/archives/000244.html

Thanks!

Dan

I’ve applied this to my blog and it seems to be working.  The only question I have is this: is there anyway to apply a CSS file to the processing screen?  I had my comments posting screen set so that it would pull from a matching CSS file.

Hi Kymberlie - Well, allow me to say that without having looked more closely at it, if I were going to implement this function right now on an MT blog, I would use Chad’s Notifier plugin. 1) It is up to date, 2) it is integrated into the MT code in a way that I tried to avoid (for now essentially obsolete reasons) and thus is not dependent on weird ways that different browsers operate, and ... well ... a lot of reasons.

That said, a number of people do use this script with plenty of satisfaction, so, since it is installed, you could stick with it. If I ever get a free minute, I will try to add CSS to the processing window. In the meantime, it does accept HTML, so you can paste the CSS in there (I know ... it duplicates it), but that would work, unless you have many skins.

The next couple of weeks will be impossible for me, so there’s no way I can get to looking at it, but maybe sometime after that I could tune it up.

Chad’s plugin gets rid of that whole processing window anyway, and makes the whole subscription thing essentially transparent the way it should be, btw ...

do you know if this script passes every field submitted to it by the form to the mt comments script?

i implemented a spam prevention solution that require passing a random number to mt comments but it seem to fail everytime a submission has to go thru sub-to-com.

Hi Oscar, I’m doing a fresh install of your script, however, when I point my browser to http://divamaggie.com/sub-to-com.cgi I get nothing .  The sub-to-com.cgi is CHMOD to 755 and I’m not sure WTF is up.  Any ideas??  btw...your pages are taking forever to load.  Did you know that.  btw...how the heck are you???

faf - no, the script does not pass every variable passed to it. I didn’t have any reason to write it that way at the time, though it would have been nice if I had. Any new variable would have to be hard-coded into the script.

I am recommending Chad’s Notifier plugin to people, since it is much more professionally written, and he has kept up development through the latest versions of MT. EZSTC has never really satisfied me because I tried to do it without hacking MT code, and that was never 100% possible. It has always had a few problems.

Maggie, I have no idea whether this script works with MT3 - I would doubt it. But, nonetheless, you should get it to come up at the stage of installation you are talking about.

I would recommend using Chad’s Notifier plugin for MT3, but if you wish to try mine, let me know how it goes. I would just try re-uploading the script - maybe it got corrupted on upload.

Thanks for pointing out my page load problem, btw. I think I fixed that Damned computers!!!

And, I am fine. Hope all is well with you too

i would rather modify it to work for me… can you show me where exactly to make the changes to pass the extra values.

i’ve got one value for a random number for spam checking but it doesnt get passed on… so the first time submission always fails

Okay, faf, now you’re asking the tough questions, since it’s been awhile since I’ve looked at this thing closely, but for you, I’ll look again ...

Let’s try this ...

Go to line 3839

There you will se the following code. These are the hidden values passed in the usual MT comments template.

--------------------------------
<form method="post" action="$script_name" name="comments_form"/>
<input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="$form{entry_id}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="author" value="$form{author}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="email" value="$form{email}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="url" value="$form{url}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="bakecookie" value="$form{bakecookie}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="text" value="$form{text}"/>
--------------------------------

Duplicate the last line, and then change the word "text" to whatever the name of your random number field is, so if it is named "foobar" you have:

--------------------------------
<form method="post" action="$script_name" name="comments_form"/>
<input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="$form{entry_id}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="author" value="$form{author}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="email" value="$form{email}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="url" value="$form{url}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="bakecookie" value="$form{bakecookie}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="text" value="$form{text}"/>
<input type="hidden" name="foobar" value="$form{foobar}"/>
--------------------------------

I think that might just do it, but let me know what happens, and we can troubleshoot further if it doesn’t work.

hi oscar,

great work on the plugin. i seem to be having the same problem that kevin dangoor had around 2/12 of last year. the script installs fine, the interface comes up ok, and everything looks right. but when i post and subscribe, while MT notifies me as the blog owner that a post has been made, and i can see the subscription in the sub-to-com.cgi interface, nothing actually happens. instead, i see this in the error log:

[Tue Feb 15 14:08:24 2005] [error] [client 198.95.226.224] File does not exist: /home/ed/public_html/500.shtml
[Tue Feb 15 14:08:24 2005] [error] [client 198.95.226.224] Premature end of script headers: /home/ed/public_html/mt/sub-to-com.cgi

any ideas?

thanks!

I use MTBlacklist on my MT 2.661 blogs installed on IIS running ActivePerl. I can access the sub-to-com.cgi interface just fine. But when I try and “Show Subscriptions” or click “Show Subascriptions by Email” the script times out.

Also when I post a comment, it goes through successfully, but I never receive any notification.

I wonder if MTBlacklist is interfering?

Here’s a link to my Comment Listing Script in case you see anything obvious. Thanks in advance for your help. Comments Listing

(saved as text file)

Also, if you have a debugging test script, please email it to me.

Tom - I’m sorry to say that I just haven’t kept up with this script, since it is basically obsolete and MT Notifier is a far more elegant solution. EZ SHOULDN’T conflict with MTBlacklist though, but I don’t understand why the script should time out in just looking at subscriptions either, even if the database is empty. I don’t see an obvious problem. Perhaps it is having trouble accessing the database? Or writing to it? But I can’t imagine why this would be, especially because Blacklist uses plugindata also, so if that’s working, EZ should also. Sorry I can’t help better. But, I would definitely consider Notifier.