Switch to Intense Debate Comment Form

Everybody loves Intense Debate Comment Form because it looks better than the default comment form and it is easy to use.

However, there are instances when Intense Debate Comment Form doesn't work with our templates. An online friend, iCleverClogs, found herself in this dilemma and I got curious because I was planning to switch to Intense Debate soon. I used her template in my demo site and looked for solution myself. Before I enumerate the steps I took to install Intense Debate into her template, there are few things I need you to remember:
1. RULE OF THE THUMB: before doing anything else, back up your template.
2. This only works if you want Intense Debate comment forms in ALL your posts and not just new ones.
3. If you want a 'dofollow' comment form, activate the 'CommentLuv' plugin first.
4. Try this ONLY IF you can't seem to get the Intense Debate Comment Form to work in your template (trust me, it's way easier to install it using the steps outlined in Intense Debate Website.)


First, go to your Intense Debate Dashboard (My Account )> Manage Blogs/Sites>click "Site Key" below the site where you want to install the comment form then grab your "IntenseDebate site acct". Save it somewhere. You'll use it near the end of this tutorial.

Go to your Blogger Dashboard>Design>Edit HTML> click on "Expand Widget Templates".

To keep the number of comments updated, look for this code:

          <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
            <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>

Change it to:

          <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
   <!--Intense Debate-->
    <div expr:id='"IDCommentPostInfoTitle"+data:post.id' style='display:none'><data:post.title/></div>
<div style='display:none' expr:id='"IDCommentPostInfoTime"+data:post.id'><data:post.timestampISO8601/></div><div style='display:none' expr:id='"IDCommentPostInfoAuthor"+data:post.id'><data:post.author/></div><div style='display:none' expr:id='"IDCommentPostInfoCats"+data:post.id'><b:if cond='data:post.labels'><b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'><data:label.name/>|</b:loop></b:if></div> <a expr:href="data:post.url" expr:name="data:post.id" class="IDCommentsReplace">Comments</a>
   <b:else/>
<!--/Intense Debate-->
<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>
 <!--Intense Debate-->
</b:if>
<!--/Intense Debate-->

To change the comment form. Look for this code:

        <b:if cond='data:post.embedCommentForm'>
          <b:include data='post' name='comment-form'/>

 Change it to:

     <b:if cond='data:post.embedCommentForm'>      
   <!--Intense Debate--><div style='display:none' id='IDCommentInfoPostTitle'><data:post.title/></div><div style='display:none' id='IDCommentInfoPostTime'><data:post.timestampISO8601/></div><div style='display:none' id='IDCommentInfoPostAuthor'><data:post.author/></div><div style='display:none' id='IDCommentInfoPostCats'><b:if cond='data:post.labels'><b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'><data:label.name/>|</b:loop></b:if></div>  <script type='text/javascript'>var idcomments_acct='[INTENSEDEBATE SITE ACCT #]'; var idcomments_post_id='<data:post.id/>'; var idcomments_post_url='<data:post.url/>'; var idcomments_post_title=document.getElementById('IDCommentInfoPostTitle').innerHTML;var idcomments_post_author=document.getElementById('IDCommentInfoPostAuthor').innerHTML;var idcomments_post_time=document.getElementById('IDCommentInfoPostTime').innerHTML;var idcomments_post_cats=document.getElementById('IDCommentInfoPostCats').innerHTML;var commentScriptWrapper = document.createElement(&#39;SCRIPT&#39;);commentScriptWrapper.type = &#39;text/javascript&#39;;commentScriptWrapper.src = &#39;http://www.intensedebate.com/js/bloggerTemplateCommentWrapper2.php?acct=&#39;+idcomments_acct+&#39;&amp;postid=&#39;+idcomments_post_id+&#39;&amp;title=&#39;+encodeURIComponent(idcomments_post_title)+&#39;&amp;url=&#39;+idcomments_post_url+&#39;&amp;posttime=&#39;+encodeURIComponent(idcomments_post_time)+&#39;&amp;postauthor=&#39;+encodeURIComponent(idcomments_post_author)+&#39;&amp;postcats=&#39;+encodeURIComponent(idcomments_post_cats);document.getElementsByTagName(&#39;HEAD&#39;)[0].appendChild(commentScriptWrapper);</script>
<!--/Intense Debate-->
 <!--Intense Debate-PRE ID <b:include data='post' name='comments'/> -->
 <!--Intense Debate-->
<script src='http://www.intensedebate.com/js/bloggerTemplateLinkWrapper.php?acct=[INTENSEDEBATE SITE ACCT #]'></script>
<!--/Intense Debate-->

Change  [INTENSEDEBATE SITE ACCT #] to the number you copied from your Intense Debate Account

Click Save Template.

Intense Debate doesn't have pop-up comment form and since we inserted the code to the embedded one, you'll still be able to get Bloggers' default pop-up comment form if you decide to change your settings.

Comments please?

We take time to make our websites stand out so we'll be able to proudly ask our friends and other bloggers to visit our sites or exchange links. Then when everything is set, we blog hop, read a little, post a comment then hope that the blog's author would "visit back" and post a comment too. That's one way of interacting with people around blogosphere and at the same time you get the chance to promote your site.

Blogger's "Comment Form" problem

For a blogger who doesn't always have time to update her blogs, I love getting comments from my readers. That means when a reader comments on my post, my blog is being updated. And we all know that one SEO technique to help increase our site's pagerank is constant update.