Okay! Enough is enough! Here is my first WP plugin – the Contact Commenters WordPress Plugin – which has been just approved by WordPress extend team and available for download now. I have been exploring the WordPress platform and its extensibility aspects lately and this little baby is the first visible outcome of my experiments.
How can Contact Commenters plugin help you?
Well, it is a very small plugin that provides you a simple interface from your WordPress Admin Panel Manage tab through which you can:
- Search and filter for your top commenters, new commenters, those who have been inactive for the past few days, commenters of a particular post, commenters during a date range etc
- Send personalized emails (no auto responders) to selected commenters either in BCC mode or as individual mails
- Send quick mails to your contacts not just commenters (e.g. send greetings, inform them about your new services, blog contests etc)
- Reminds you of your last 10 commenters’ blog URLs, which probably you should be visiting and commenting as well
Installation and Usage
The plugin is so easy to install. Just like any other WordPress plugin, you may Download Contact Commenters, copy the contents of the zip file into your WordPress plugin directory and activate the plugin from your Admin panel. No painful settings to be done, no changes done to your WordPress DB and most importantly absolutely no performance issues on your host or your blog. It uses minimal resources only while sending the mails.
As I mentioned earlier, you can access the plugin features via the Manage tab and this is how the screens look like.
Contact Commenters Plugin – Screen 1
Contact Commenters Plugin – Screen 2
(The third step actually send the emails)
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Kim for helping me with the beta testing of this plugin. I also appreciate Chetan’s twitter help on how to upload the plugin to the SVN repository.
Feedback & Support
I request all of you to provide your valuable feedback on my first plugin. You may also log your support requests here which will be taken up as time permits.
Please bookmark this post if you find it interesting! Any WordPress.org members may take a moment to rate the plugin as well!
Update on 01-June-2009
- On WordPress 2.7 and above, the plugin features can be accessed via the Tools tab on the Admin panel (instead of the Manage tab in older releases)
- A bug related to the input box heights (being too short) has been fixed without changing the release version. Please download the latest plugin zip file
Update on 14-October-2009
- Tested for WordPress 2.8.2
- A bug related to slashes appearing in mail content has been fixed. Please download the latest plugin zip file
- Another bug of sending multiple mails in certain situations – if the commenter used multiple names but same email ID to comment – has been fixed as well
Update on 29-April-2010
- The [NAME] tag can now be added to the email subject as well. Thanks to the suggestion by Vince Samios in his Contact Commenters review
Update on 08-October-2010
- Message text length issue fixed. There was a bug whereby the message text length was restricted to 100 characters reported in newer versions of WordPress
Awesome Ajith!! It’s a great plugin and I really like the changes you made to it.
I really think it’s going to bring traffic to your site – I hope you’re prepared for any questions you may get
And thanks for the mention
Kim Woodbridge’s last blog post… WordPress How To: 5 Tips and Tricks
Thats really cool plug-in. Specially “Reminder” is amazing and thanks for added me in “Acknowledgment”
. You already specified that you can configure the plugin from MANAGE tab, also specify this in WordPress extended directory installation section, this will much user friendly.
Best luck for your great plug-in, i am testing out your plugin now
Good one Ajith,
Keep rocking…i am just going to install this..
Hi Ajith! Thanks for the plugin, been looking for something like this! The feature that suggests the websites of the commenters is purely genius! I’m running WP 2.7 RC 1 and though everything works perfectly, the interface is borked. Check out the screenshot of : http://i36.tinypic.com/k9dkye.png
@Kim, @Chetan…thanks once again for the help provided
Well, I am awaiting for bug reports from people… That’s the beauty about open source and GPL software. You get to support each other…
@TechZoomIn, thanks a lot. Awaiting your feedback…
@Pras, that’s the first ‘improvement area’ already… I see that you are running it on Chrome but the problem is obviously not the browser compatibility but RC1… If the misalignment is there in the final release, I need to fix it. Though I hate fixing bugs
more than fixing it, what I hate the most is the process of versioning and tagging it via subversion. Being in the MS technologies for a long long time, I really find it difficult to work with tools like svn.
(I am highlighting the bug reported in your comment so that I get to scan your comment faster next time. Hope it’s okay)
Wow. Great plugin. I will definitely blog about this.
Hussein’s last blog post… November 2008 Blog Report
@Hussein, thanks a lot for blogging about it buddy… So I have now another place to take feedback from
This really seems to be a very handy plugin! congratulations. i will be testing this for sure
Hugo Santos’s last blog post… Did i just got Slapped by Google?
Ajith, Its great to see that you have come up with a wordpress plugin.
I am also getting inspired after seeing you and chetan. I will also think of something and try to come up with a plugin in near future. Just want to know How many days it takes for the wordpress team to approve the plugin?
Nihar’s last blog post… Friday Night Links Party – 05 December 2008
Ajith, It would be better if you improve the compose new message form. That’s the only thing I can suggest by this time.
Also, why not change the link in the footer of plugin. Instead of linking the plugin page in to your homepage, link it to this post so that whoever wants a support they will ask it here.
Hussein’s last blog post… WordPress Plugin: Contact Commenters
@Hugo, thanks for testing it…. please let me know the feedback
@Nihar, thanks buddy… Well, providing extensions to WP and its awesome community is the least we could do right? I was intending to do a little more work on it but time is always short
It doesn’t take more than two days for them to approve your plugin. Before that you can actually test verify readme.txt and headers of the main PHP file etc
@Hussein, thanks again for the testing done… The easier one – the plugin URI on the footer – of your suggestions have been already incorporated
The compose new message form was done with the intention of making it simple. But I know, adding some rich text formating and may be providing a preview could be helpful. Will do that in the next release.
This is an awesome plugin, I will definitely be trying out and blogging about it if I really like it!
Awesome work, Ajith!
Rajaie AlKorani’s last blog post… Find Out How I Made $4,077.90 In One Day (and How You Can Too)
hey seems to be a great plugin……….congrats !!!…………;;;;will try on my blog also……….great work Ajith
You know what. I am really loving this plugin. I was able to contact all of my commentators that has been inactive for some days. And guess what, some of theme were back.
Hussein’s last blog post… How To Get Old Commentators Back To Your Blog
I found you through Hussein’s blog, and it’s a very cool plugin;thanks! I also subscribed here.
@Rajaie, thanks a lot buddy…. Hope you will provide some more feedback and improvement areas…
@Nagaj, please try it out
I believe that it would be definitely of some use to you.
@Hussein, thanks again buddy for your new post… Good to hear that the practical values of the plugin that I had thought of has now become real…
@Dennis, welcome to D$ and I am really glad that you are the latest user of the plugin… And hey, thanks for the subscription as well.
You’re welcome.
I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, but I’m looking forward to it!
Dennis Edell’s last blog post… Your Link Just Got MORE Valuable!
Awesome plugin. Great to see an Indian like this. Superb Ajit. Keep it up.
Harish | Blogging Kid’s last blog post… First Ever Contest At Blogging Kid Launched
Hey Ajith, that was a very useful plugin. Probably you might be the first person (as for as i know) from Bangalore to contribute to WordPress. Great work man. keep it up.
Prasanna’s last blog post… Increase your site traffic with simple SEO tricks
@Harish, @Pras – thanks buddies… Why not Indian or Bangalorean?
After all, we are among the best Software Engineers around, right? It is just that mostly we don’t care that much about open source systems and contributing to the same.
Btw, Chetan (referred in the post) had released a plugin sometime back.
Seems a nice plugin.. Just installed it.. Thanks!
Erwin Tan’s last blog post… Unleashing The Niche Genius In You
@Erwin, thanks for trying it out… Please let me know if you have any feedback (good or bad)
Ajith,
The plugin looks great. Congrats on the excellent job in releasing the very useful plugin. I’m sure the visibility of your blog will increase because of your plugin and will bring you new readers. I’m very happy for you.
Probably you already figured out [ using your plugin
], that I’ve not been that much active commenting on your blog lately. I Got tied-up at work and home on couple of projects.
Again, Congrats Ajith.
@Ramesh, thanks for your comments and feedback
Well, the plugin has not really created too much of traffic but I would continue to add more such plugins in the future. That is probably one way of stressing that I blog about blogging tips, MMO, SEO…
(And sorry for not being very active on your blog. You have some highly technical great content on Linux, DB, Security etc that technically challenge me sometimes…wherever, applicable I will surely pitch in)
Very nice plugin. Thanks for the release.
Nice plugin..I’ve installed and giving it a try.. Thanks for sharing..
Erwin Tan’s last blog post… How To Create Content Worthy of Social Media Marketing
@Shirley, @Erwin, thanks for the compliments. Please come back and update me with any bugs or enhancement requirements…
Awesome stuff Ajith ….way to go viral , I am downloading this.. will keep you updated
Hi!
I am using the plugin, it is really helpful.
Some emails (of frequent commenters) appear more than once, and i have to manually remove them. Please fix this in the next release.
Cheers!
Farrhad A’s last blog post… Coolest Gadgets of the Year
@ZK, any update on the plugin?
@Farrhad, this is a known issue – actually it’s implemented that way. When people have commented in different names but with the same email ID, all names are selected.
What an excellent plugin! I am getting ready to download it and give it a test!
Tara @ Affiliate Marketing Prodigy’s last blog post… 3 Bloggers who Inspire Me To Keep Moving
Just upgraded… It works well on 2.7
Shirley’s last blog post… Free Photos Part 2: Flickr Images for Your Website
@Tara, thanks for trying it out…
@Shirley, so it works on 2.7… Cool! Any issue with the alignment of form elements, edit boxes etc? (Pras had mentioned earlier that there’s an issue with the beta version of 2.7). Is it looking like the image below?
Awesome plugin. Something Ive been waiting a long time for. Ive envisioned the idea but never had the know-how.
Works well for some simple tasks but for a very large blog, mine, to calculate out certain subgroups seems to hang the server a long time, more than 15 minutes and I had to shut down the processes in phpMyAdmin.
Any suggestions?
@Lyle, thanks for dropping by and sorry to hear that there’re performance issues. However, if you pull out a large record set (e.g. fetching all commenters since inception) it has to take time on very old and popular blogs. Pagination can be tried but might required a total revamp of the user interface. I just to make it simple mainly due to lack of time
Having some difficulty with the upper portion of the message being sent. I am unable to fill in the info: name, subject, etc. I am a bit of a novice, so maybe I am doing something wrong. I have WordPress 2.7. Is there a compatibility problem? The Plugin seems very useful! How might I be able to use it?
@Da Vinchi’s,
Thanks for using the plugin and providing the feedback. The plugin doesn’t have any compatibility problem with 2.7 however one of the users had reported an alignment issue. I am yet to upgrade to 2.7 due to the on going blog competition here. I will check it as soon as I am free
Fantastic plugin. Have downloaded it. I never thought such plugins exsist.
Make Money Online Tips’s last blog post… How To Make Money Online With Adsense
Ok, I downloaded it. I don’t know when I’ll get time to install it, but I am sure I will be making use of it soon! Thanks for such a great plugin.
Nick’s last blog post… The Assumption Song – A fun video for a Friday
Hi, I’ve try it , but didn’t work for me.
I use a different database prefix than wp_, and I get a “WordPress database error:” on the plugin options page. Waitin’ for a fix on this, cause I really need to use that plugin
Pawe? Zinkiewicz’s last blog post… Optymalizacja WordPress’a
@Pawe?… Fixed the problem with one of the queries that had explicitly used the wp_ prefix
Thanks for pointing this out. Could you test it now?
I am unable to fill in the info at the boxes, won’t actually type in? Sending this again. Look forward to using this Plugin. All the best. I hope all is sorted out.
Mail Subject
Your Name
Your Email
Da Vinci’s Muse’s last blog post… Da Vinci’s Muse Wishes…
@Da Vinci, ‘unable to fill’ in the info means what? Actually a lot of people are using it with only minor bugs reported..
Could you be more specific?
Now it works great. Thanks!
Pawel Zinkiewicz’s last blog post… Optymalizacja WordPress’a
This is a wonderful plugin. i do not know how the hell I missed it all these days. I will be testing this out soon and might even write a review
thanks Ajith!
@Raju, thanks for your comments…
@Pavan, @Harish, thanks a lot for the review/coverage…
This is a great application. Unfortunately I have been unable to use it. I thought it might be because I am running it on 2.71 but I have encountered a number of people using that version of WP who seem to be doing fine with it.
The problem I have is that the fields for entering the information on both the step one and step two pages are showing up extremely short. While the data gets entered, you can not see what the data is to be able to make any corrections. I was wondering if there is something I can do to correct that.
I have a link to a screen capture provided below
http://greeneconomypost.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/concomment.gif
Thanks
Tracey
@Tracey, Thanks for reporting the alignment issues. I am yet to install WordPress 2.7.X. Once I do that, I will certainly look into the same.
Sometimes it happens with certain browsers (On Chrome it had a problem earlier)
Wow, a cool Plugin, You are osome dude.. Great going
looking forward for more such cool plugins from you 
sir, do you have a new version of contact commenters??? because i upgraded my wordpress version to 2.7.1 and the contact commenters plugin doesn’t working properly. pls help. thanks!