Expandable Dashboard Recent Comments

Version: 2.0

Adds the ability to do in-place expansion of comment excerpts on the admin dashboard 'Recent Comments' widget to view full com

Author:	Scott Reilly (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:	4.6
WordPress version tested:	5.8.1
Plugin version:	2.8.2
Added to WordPress repository:	11-06-2009
Last updated:	17-09-2021 Warning! This plugin has not been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.
Rating, %:	100
Rated by:	2
Plugin URI:	https://coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/expandable...
Total downloads:	9 672
Active installs:	60+
Click to start download

By default, the ‘Comments’ section of the ‘Activity’ admin dashboard widget only shows an excerpt for the comments, truncating the content of the comments to the first 20 words while at the same time stripping out all markup.

This plugin adds a link at the end of the comment actions row (the links for the comment that become visible under the comment when you hover over the comment). The “Show more” link, when clicked, will replace the excerpt with the full comment. The full comment will include all markup, including originally utilized markup and changes applied via filters, plugins, etc (such as shortcode expansion, smilies, paragraphing, etc). The full comment can be switched back to the excerpt by clicking the “Show less” link (which replaces the “Show more” link when the comment is expanded).

“In-place expansion” refers to the ability to click the link to see the full comment and it will be presented in place of the excerpt without requiring a page reload or navigation.

NOTE: This plugin only works for users who have JavaScript enabled.

Links: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage

Hooks

The plugin exposes one filter for hooking. Such code should ideally be put into a mu-plugin or site-specific plugin (which is beyond the scope of this readme to explain).

c2c_expandable_dashboard_recent_comments_start_expanded (filter)

The ‘c2c_expandable_dashboard_recent_comments_start_expanded’ hook allows you to configure the ‘Recent Comments’ admin dashboard widget initially display all comments in their expanded state (i.e. not excerpted).

Arguments:

$default (boolean): The default state, which is ‘false’ (therefore comments are initially shown excerpted)
$comment (object) : The comment object being displayed

Example:

// Initially show dashboard comments fully expanded
add_filter( 'c2c_expandable_dashboard_recent_comments_start_expanded', '__return_true' );

Screenshots
FAQ

How do I expand an excerpted comment?

When you hover over the comment, a line of action links will appear (typically “Approve”, “Reply”, “Edit”, “Spam”, and “Trash”). If the comment has been automatically excerpted by WordPress, then a “Show more” link will appear. Click it to view the full comment.

Why don’t I see the “Show more” link when hovering over a comment?

The comment has not been been excerpted; you are already seeing the comment in its entirety so there is no need to be able to “show more”.

Why don’t I see the “Expand all” and “Collapse all” links at the bottom of the widget?

Assuming you are using a supported version of WordPress and you have JavaScript enabled in your browser, this just means that none of the comments being listed have been excerpted, thus there is no need to be able to “Expand all” or “Collapse all” in this instance.

Why does either of the “Expand all” or “Collapse all” links appear grayed out?

If all of the comments in the widget are currently collapsed, then the “Collapse all” link will appear grayed out to indicate there is nothing for it to collapse. Likewise, if all of the comments in the widget are currently expanded, then “Expand all” will appear grayed out to indicate there is nothing for it to expand. As comments are expanded and collapsed, these two links will adjust themselves to appear grayed out or active as appropriate.

Can I make it so all comments initially appear fully expanded without needing to click the links to expand them?

Yes. Please see the “Hooks” section for documentation on the c2c_expandable_dashboard_recent_comments_start_expanded filter which allows for this.

Does this work if JavaScript has been disabled in my browser?

If JavaScript is disabled in a visitor’s browser, then all of the expand/collapse links and behavior aren’t enabled. But rest assured, there aren’t any errors. Why not implement a fallback if JS is disabled? If you’re going to click a link that causes a page reload to view the full comment, you might as well just click through to the comment.

Does this plugin include unit tests?

Yes.

Hide FAQ

ChangeLog

2.8.2 (2021-09-16)

Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.8+
Unit tests:
- Change: Restructure unit test directories
  - Change: Move phpunit/ into tests/
  - Change: Move phpunit/bin into tests/
- Change: Remove ‘test-‘ prefix from unit test file
- Change: In bootstrap, store path to plugin file constant
- Change: In bootstrap, add backcompat for PHPUnit pre-v6.0

2.8.1 (2021-04-10)

Change: Escape text used in markup attributes (hardening)
Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.7+

2.8 (2020-08-21)

Highlights:

This minor update features a rewrite of the JavaScript to use vanilla JS instead of jQuery, improves handling of some unlikely edgecase situations, restructures the unit test file structure, and notes compatibility through WP 5.5+.

Details:

Change: Rewrite JavaScript into vanilla JS and away from using jQuery
Change: Prevent edgecase issues with get_comment_class()
- Verify global comment is an actual comment object before use
- Return an empty string if no comment ID is known
Fix: Remove stray double-quote from comment row markup
Change: Restructure unit test file structure
- New: Create new subdirectory phpunit/ to house all files related to unit testing
- Change: Move bin/ to phpunit/bin/
- Change: Move tests/bootstrap.php to phpunit/
- Change: Move tests/ to phpunit/tests/
- Change: Rename phpunit.xml to phpunit.xml.dist per best practices
Unit tests:
- New: Add unit tests for comment_row_action(), enqueue_admin_css(), enqueue_admin_js(), get_comment_class(), register_styles()
- New: Add another unit test for c2c_expandable_dashboard_recent_comments_start_expanded filter
- Change: Add comment separators to document test groupings
- Change: Tweak code spacing
Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.5+
Change: Change get_comments_class() from private to protected to facilitate unit testing
Change: Supplement FAQ with info regarding behavior when JS is disabled
Change: Fix some typos in readme.txt

Full changelog is available in CHANGELOG.md.

Hide ChangeLog