Comic Commenter

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By Plothole

The following tutorial will show you how you can add a comment box to your comic archive so that visitors may leave comments on individual comics. Please note that while this requires the use of third-party web-software, it is NOT meant as an official endorsement of said software. Neither Comicgenesis, its parent company Keenspot, nor the writer of this tutorial are affiliated in any way with Haloscan or its services.

Now for those who have never heard of it, Haloscan is an offsite offsite commenting system designed to integrate into blogs and other things that could uses commenting on multiple pages.

Like say, comics.... (or image viewers, but thats another story!)

And in fact, there is a way to get it to work with autokeen. And its fairly simple too. You start by opening an account at Haloscan (duh).

From there, there are two possibilities: Integration through a link or integration though iframe. The latter is less code, and may better entice your readers to comment, while the former takes up less space (good for already cramped pages). Feel free to choose whichever option works best for you:

Integration through A LINK

  1. Okay, You've registered an account at Haloscan. Now place the following codes into your index and daily templates:
    • Put this somewhere within your head (<head>. . .</head>), replacing INSERTUSERNAME with your haloscan username:
      • <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.haloscan.com/load/INSERTUSERNAME">
      </script>
    • Now, place this code somewhere in the body (<body>. . .</body>), wherever you wish the link to appear:
      • <a href="javascript:HaloScan('***raw_date***');" target="_self">
       <script type="text/javascript">postCount('***raw_date***');</script></a>
      OPTIONAL: If you wanna use Haloscan's Trackback feature, add this code as well (just after the one above): 
       | <a href="javascript:HaloScanTB('***raw_date***');" target="_self">
      <script type="text/javascript">postCountTB('***raw_date***'); </script></a>
  2. Upload your updated templates, and run a regular update.

A NOTE ON THE LINK OPTION: Depending on your Haloscan settings, clicking this link will either A. popup a new window, or B. open a new page. Be sure select the method you prefer in you haloscan settings.

Integration through IFRAME

  1. Okay, You've registered an account at Haloscan. Now place the following code into the body (<body>. . .</body>) of your index and daily templates (the code should be placed where you want the frame to appear on the page):
    2. <iframe src="http://www.haloscan.com/comments/INSERTUSERNAME/***raw_date***/"
     height="HEIGHTINPIXELS" width="WIDTHINPIXELS" id="haloscan"></iframe>

    Replace the following:
    INSERTUSERNAME with your haloscan username.
    HEIGHTINPIXELS with the height you wish this frame to be (in pixels). Eg. 400px.
    WIDTHINPIXELS with the width you wish this frame to be (in pixels). Eg. 600px.

  2. Upload your updated templates, and run a regular update.

A NOTE ON THE IFRAME OPTION: If you already have a shoutbox/tagboard on your index, it might not be a good idea to put this code on your indextemplate (as visitors may confuse the two boxes). You could, however, put the LINK code on your indextemplate, and the iframe code on your dailytemplate. Just a suggestion.


Whichever option you chose, Its a good idea to link back to Haloscan. You can do that by uploading this image into your images/ directory: [1] Then add this line of code somewhere on your page (doesn't matter where, so long as its somewhere in the body of the code): 

<a href="http://www.haloscan.com/"><img width="88" height="31"
 src="/images/halolink.gif" border="0" alt="Weblog Commenting and
 Trackback by HaloScan.com" /></a>


Thats it. Any questions?


Oh, a couple things to note about Haloscan: Its template Gallery is a little flaky; It tends to reset your current style when you visit the page. If you plan on using your own CSS, I'd recommend keeping a copy on your hard drive. For templates, make a copy of the url on the template settings page.

Also, though Email Notification is a premium feature, they do offer a RSS feed for keeping track of comments. Just set your feed reader to this address (as before, replace INSERTUSERNAME with your haloscan username):

http://www.haloscan.com/members/rss.php?user=INSERTUSERNAME

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