You may notice I’ve installed a new comment system on this site. A major problem I’ve had with comments are that some of the threads are getting way too long and I, admittedly, didn’t expect things to be so active so soon after launch.
Anyway, I happened to notice the title, “IntenseDebate Reopens”, in my dashboard when I logged in today and, after checking it out, I was so impressed that I decided to install it right away. Here’s a bit about the install and the hurdles I ran into.
IntenseDebate – An Automattic Joint
So like always seems to happen when I stumble upon some incredible new feature/plugin/effect/whatever, the best ones are always ones I’ve never even heard of before. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m in my office working on projects 16 hours a day or maybe I’m just completely braindead, but I’ve never even heard of this plugin before today – apparently it’s been around a while. In my defense, though, it seems that it’s been invite only up until recently and, before it went invite only back in Sept. of this year, which was also when the company “joined” Automattic, the company that created WordPress.
Before then it may not have been all that…or it may have been, I really don’t know…but that’s my excuse for not knowing anything about it and I’m sticking to it.
Installation of IntenseDebate Was a Breeze
I’m really impressed with how easy it was to install IntenseDebate…it’s almost entirely Automattic 
. All you have to do is register at the IntenseDebate site (because your comments are all tracked on that site as well as yours and some of the IntenseDebate settings are controlled directly from their site), download the plugin files, upload and activate the plugin, and everything else (almost – see below) is done for you.
The setup takes a bit because IntenseDebate copies all your existing blog comments to the IntenseDebate site so they can be displayed using the plugin. This all happens automatically on the settings screen within your WordPress admin shown below.
IntenseDebate Settings Screen
Intense Debate Import Process
Comment Control From the IntenseDebate Site
Your old comment settings panel inside the WordPress admin is basically replaced by a similar comment settings panel over at the IntenseDebate site. The good news is the panel is nearly identical to the comment settings panel you’re used to in WordPress as you can see from this screenshot:
IntenseDebate Comment Settings Panel
According to the IntenseDebate settings in the WordPress admin, you have the option to force “WordPress admin settings like closing and opening comments on a post, and changing your post titles, [to] be automatically recognized and reflected in your IntenseDebate settings.” Although I’m not sure if editing your comment settings the old way (via the WordPress admin) will be automatically synced with IntenseDebate as well…I guess I’ll just have to try that one out.
Two Small Problems with IntenseDebate
I think this comment system is really fantastic and, like I said, I’m quite impressed with it. There are only two small issues. The first is this little warning…
You can't really customize the CSS with IntenseDebate
…apparently customizing the CSS isn’t the greatest idea right now. Not a big deal because comments look decent as is. But that leads into the next problem…
IntenseDebate filled up the entire div that my old comments were nested inside of, ignoring the styles I set on my old comments. Not a huge deal, but I ended up with this at first:
No Margin = Ugly, We'll Fix this below
As you can see, the comments area stretches to fill the entire width of it’s container without any of the nice margins I had set up before. I figured that, seeing as how IntenseDebate is so easy to install, it was probably just replacing the existing WordPress comments code in my theme templates with the code to display these functional IntenseDebate comments…so I just wrapped my old comments code with a div with margin like so…
Adding a margin to IntenseDebate comments (only band-aid fix for now)
It’s Only a Bandaid Fix, I Know
So, the above works, but a brief look through the IntenseDebate site revealed that the plugin – since a lot of it’s functionality is dependant on the existence of JavaScript in the visitor’s browser – shows your old comment system to visitors without JavaScript enabled.
Well, that’s a problem if I’m wrapping the entire comments section with a 50px margin div, because if a visitor shows up without JavaScript and gets my old comments, they’re going to get a little more of a margin than intended.
I’m working on figuring out a fix to that, although, to be quite honest, if you don’t have JavaScript, you shouldn’t be reading this blog. Nonetheless, accessability, accessibility, blah blah blah.
You can check out IntenseDebate over at their site, or check out our comments section to see it in action.
Hi,
Do you have experience with IntenseDebate+SEO ?
This comment plugin will work 4 me or I and my blog will work 4 IntenseDebate ?
rapping the entire comments section with a 50px margin div, because if a visitor shows up without JavaScript and gets my old comments, they’re going to get a little more of a margin than intended.
Not sure what you’re saying here hunter. The 50px div was really just for my particular layout at the time. Do whatever works for your setup.
What sort of performance does IntenseDebate have with mobile devices?
I was contemplating using it on my site but wasn’t sure that if any mobile users visited they would even be able to see, or interact with the comments