[Rob Locke]

Originally Posted by psico

I want to change the style of the comments to be more like the postbit, anyone can help me with this?

That is pretty much the same for me. I have been experienting a lot over the last week. Here is what I have found...

You can change the look of the comments on the 'comments only' page, as it calls a dedicated template called GAS_comments_pb. I would suggest that you just need to copy the regular forum postbit into this template to make the comments look the same.

As for the 'article page' comments, this is a stumbling block. The problem is the whole page is, in essence, a thread. That is why the comments which follow the article always begin at #2. You can't change the look of the comments without affecting the article layout and vice versa. That's why the 'article page' comments have a horizontal line above the 'edit', 'quote' and 'quick reply' buttons. Also, user signatures do not appear, no matter what you do, unless you are the writer of the article and have included your signature. This is then the only one that appears in the 'article page' comments. I imagine this is why Geek removed the signatures from the 'comments only' template, as an attempt to make them match more.

Unless I can find a way around this, I am going to completely remove the comments from the article page, as I too am frustrated that they do not look the same as the comments only page, and do not start at #1. Also most users seem to consider their signatures important (usually their avatar too). I think not having the ability to display them is a shame.

Geek, is there any way to make the comments on the 'article page' call the GAS_comments_pb template?

Here are my requests for future versions:

1) The ability in admin to completely 'turn off' comments on the 'article page' (currently, if you set the number of comments to '0' you still get the 'viewing first x comments out of y' message with blank space in between). Maybe add an additional 'view comments' link between the 'previous article' and 'next article' links if the comments are turned off.

2) The ability in admin to choose between the 'compact' comments (as they are on the 'comments only' page curently, but add back the signatures), and 'full' comments - which are essentially calling on the standard postbit template (which gives back the choice to display avatars).

3) The comments on the 'article page' to be called from the GAS_comments_template, so that they start at #1 and look the same as the 'comments only' page. This will also mean, if you want to customize, you only have to edit this one template and all comments will match.

3) The ability in admin to chose between 'comment previews' on the 'article page' and expanded comments (which will match the 'comments only' page, based on whether you chose 'compact' or 'full' in the other suggested admin addition). The 'comment preview' should look similar to the GAS_threadbit, but without the thumbnail image. This means the user clicks 'Read More' to view the whole comment, which redirects them to the 'comments only' page and the appropriate comment.

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In my honest opinion, GAS is superlative. If the above changes (which hopefully would be fairly easy to implement) are added, I think it will make GAS the definitive articles system.

I hope that my requests can be implemented and soon, as I am going to be running a largely article oriented web site and need this additional functionality.

Thanks for all the hard work Geek and please help!

Rob.