QUICK AND PAINLESS GUIDE TO ADDING HALOSCAN COMMENTS WHILE KEEPING YOUR OLD BLOGGER COMMENTS VISIBLE - UPDATED 5-24-05

Thanks in equal parts to blogchildren VW Bug of One Happy Dog Speaks and Contagion of Miasmatic Review for inspiration and technical assistance.

Blogger comments suck because they're miserably slow and can be hard to access, depending on how they're set up on an individual's blog.

Bug explains in her link above how to manually install both the Haloscan code and add back in the Blogger comments code so that you can still see your old comments.

The important thing to take from her post is that you need to back up your Blogger template. You can just copy & paste it to your favorite word processing program (I use NoteTab Light) and save it - just in case. If you're REALLY paranoid, you can back up your entire blog and Bug explains how. Whether you think it's necessary is up to you. Personally, I don't think there's THAT much risk involved, but again - your call.

Then Contagion got gutsy and tried an experiment. He used Haloscan's super-nifty AutoInstall feature to add Haloscan comments and - after it was done (and it worked perfectly for him) - he went into his Blogger template & manually added the code to display Blogger comments.

Which also worked perfectly for him.

I tried it out on one of the Blogger blogs I keep around for experimentation purposes, and it worked perfectly for me, too.

What to paste:

 | <a class="comment-link" href="<$BlogItemCommentCreate$>>"<$BlogItemCommentFormOnclick$> <font="1">Pre Haloscan <$BlogItemCommentCount$></a>

Where to paste it:

Haloscan will have placed its code in a section of your template a little below the tag

<div class="PostFooter">

It's the code that starts:

<a class="comment-link" href="http://www.haloscan.com/... blah blah blah...

and ends:

</script><noscript>Trackback</noscript></a>

The code I give you starts with a blank space, a vertical line, another black space, and then the critical code. Be sure to include the blank-line-blank at the beginning so there's space between the Trackback link and the old Blogger comments.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Looking around in my experimental template, I noticed that the Haloscan comment code appeared twice. Once for the main page, and once for the individual archive [permalink] pages. Assuming it's the same in your template, be sure to add the code I gave you at the end of BOTH pieces of Haloscan code. I didn't see the second one at first, and had no Blogger comments on my permalink pages. One more copy-&-paste and the problem was solved.

SUMMARY: Bacnts.k up your template, sign up at Haloscan, do AutoInstall, copy & paste old Blogger comment code, live a life of joy and happiness free of the evil of Blogger comme

UPDATE: Sissy of And What Next... mentions this in the comments:

If you want to keep the ability to forward a post, you will still need <$BlogItemControl$> this code after the "Pre Haloscan" code.

UPDATE 5-24-05: [If you've found this post useful enough to blog about, send a trackback or e-mail the permalink to me at harvolson-at-gmail.com and I'll add you to my Bad Example Groupies blogroll. See this post for details]