Guide to commenting with IntenseDebate

Welcome to Effortless Anthropologie’s guide to commenting with IntenseDebate! I have integrated this commenting system to help communication flow better. My hope is that the extra options IntenseDebate has will be a vast improvement over Blogger’s native commenting system.

Let’s take care of a few quick FAQs first.

Do I need an IntenseDebate account to comment on Effortless Anthropologie?
No. You can also comment via your Facebook, Twitter, WordPress or OpenID account, or you can comment as a guest after providing some basic information. If you plan to comment on this blog often you may find it worthwhile to create an IntenseDebate account. It’s free.

Why should I create an IntenseDebate account?
It makes it easier to subscribe to threads and to take advantage of some of the features of the commenting system. But again, it’s not required.

Can I subscribe to comment threads?
Yes. You can subscribe to a single post’s comments, or to every comment on the blog. I have complete instructions below.

How to…

SUBSCRIBE TO COMMENT THREADS:
If you’re not logged in to either IntenseDebate or one of the account types it supports (Facebook, Twitter, WordPress or OpenID) you will see a comment box similar to the below.

To subscribe to comments use the dropdown box that says “Subscribe To.” Your options are: none, replies, all new comments.

If you are logged in you’ll see a view similar to this:

In this case you’ll want to click on the tiny orange RSS button in the upper right corner of the comments section. You can subscribe to comments via various RSS services or by email.

REPLY TO COMMENTS:
No more using the @ tag! Ah, what a relief. Replying is very easy. You can either hit the reply button (as highlighted in the photo below) or even reply via email if you are subscribed to a comment thread.

Replies are shown in “threads.” What this means is that there are indentation to help you distinguish between ongoing conversations and replies to the overall post. Replies to a comment are slightly indented and have an arrow to the left. Replies to replies are further indented, and so on. So even if you’re replying 3 days later, it will still show up immediately under the comment you’re replying to. It’s so easy to see when someone is talking directly to you this way!!

ADD A PHOTO TO YOUR COMMENT:
This is the feature I’m most excited about. This requires some simple HTML knowledge. You cannot upload photos from your computer into the comments. The photos need to either be hosted with a service like Flickr or Photobucket OR you need to have the URL of the image.The W3 schools have a nice tutorial here.

You will need the URL of your image (that’s the location in your browser’s address bar that starts with http://). Using the HTML img attribute, you will add the photo to your comment like so: (note: you can click on the image below to see a larger version of it.)

Your photo HTML has two components: the image URL and an alt tag. (“kyoto” is the alt tag in the example above).You can edit your comment after you hit submit, so if you make a mistake it’s easy to fix or try again.

For more advanced HTML users:
Most likely you’ll want to use an image directly from Anthropologie’s site. To do this, go to the product page of the image you want to use. You’ll need two details: the style # of the item and the color code. To get the product’s color code, click on the “view larger image” link below the product image and look for a 3-numeral code. This is the color code. (Note: you can click on the image below to zoom.)

Once you have the style # and the color code you’re ready for the next step. In a new browser tab, paste the following URL template:

images.anthropologie.com/is/image/Anthropologie/013206_009_b

Replace 013206 with the style # of your item and the 009 with the color code. Viola! The image should pop up. Then you can use that URL to place the image in your comment.

After a few tries you’ll get the hang of it. I’m happy to help as well if needed. The example above is the Kyoto Medallion Top. Here’s what the final comment looks like:

You can add text in the comment — whatever you need!

As more questions come up I will continue to update this page. Happy commenting!


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