Threaded/no threaded comments switch

[Ezd]

I think threaded comments are totally great and useful but considering that buddypress should be a community which can be used to lots of different purposes and layouts I think I would be really nice to make an easy on/off switch in the admin area to allow/disallow threaded comments.

The thing is. in order to use threaded comments you need a really wide column/a lot of space to allow deep commenting and I can figure that someone would like to use that extra space for something else/other informations. Right now it's a bit difficult to work with a 3-4 column layout as the threaded comments takes up a lot of space.

So why not let the community administrator decide weather to use threaded comments or not in his community setup? Make it an easy backend switch. Just an idea.

[DJPaul]

Threaded comments for what?

1) bbPress doesn't support thread comments/replies so BuddyPress can't.
2) Threaded comments in the blog theme are supported already.
3) Threaded comments in the activity stream are also supported.

[Ezd]

Actually me and others are just looking for an easy switch in backend to basically turn off the "reply" link in comments. All comments will then stay in the root of the status update/thread just like it's only possible on Facebook. Thats all.

(Should not be a too big enhancement?)

[DJPaul]

No, this is a theme-specific decision and a global setting isn't the best idea.

You can change this in a child theme by, for example, passing bp_has_activity( array( 'display_comments' => 'stream' ) )

[r-a-y]

I actually think this should be the decision of the BP admin.

I don't mind fiddling with code, but the majority of BP adopters (esp. with v1.2 coming) will not like adjusting PHP files.

Point of reference: WP has a setting for threaded comments in the admin area...

[r-a-y]

Reopening for discussion. Feel free to close though.

[Ezd]

I want to point out that there's been a a lot of discussions in the forum on this topic. Some want to use threaded comments in their community and others don't. People are actually pretty divided on this one in my opinion which is why I'm suggesting a global setting. A small but powerful switch.

[DJPaul]

Regardless, 1.2 is feature-frozen.

[cnorris23]

I'm with r-a-y. I'm fine messing with the code, but not everyone is that adept, so an admin option might be necessary. A constant might be okay. I do, however, think the "reply" link should be left to the theme.

[boonebgorges]

FWIW when the choice is between a constant and a Dashboard option, I lean toward the constant. Also, parallels with WordPress's admin choices are not necessarily always valid, since the majority of WP users are also blog admins, while the minority of BP users are.

What would the option/constant do? Turn off activity commenting altogether? Or turn off *threaded* activity commenting?

[r-a-y]

I believe the OP meant the latter: the option to turn off threaded, multi-level activity stream comments.

You can do it by editing the theme like Paul mentioned here:
​http://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1608#comment:3

Though I believe you have to make changes across multiple template files in order to achieve this.

[boonebgorges]

If that's true, then you'd really need a couple different settings - one for the admin to turn off activity commenting altogether, and the other for the admin to turn off *threaded* activity comments. Constants (and corresponding templatetags) for these two things seem like a reasonable request. I'll write a patch in a few weeks if no one else beats me to the punch.

[DJPaul]

I think this issue is really about the BP-Default theme; the activity stream has parameters to disable threaded activity comments, which can be set in a child theme. I'm against adding constants like this into the theme; a theme option panel would be a more appropriate place if we want to expose this choice to the site admin.

[boonebgorges]

Since #2768, activity thread depth can be modified by using WP's comment depth settings. #5562 is a specific request to add the ability to disable activity threads altogether via this same setting. Beyond this, we have a filter 'bp_activity_can_comment' that can be used for more customized settings. So I think that the root issues discussed here are covered in other tickets. Marking as duplicate.