Friends, Subscriptions, and Comment Tracking, oh my!

I’ve implemented the features mentioned in my entertaining title. Finally!

That’s what your sidebar looks like when you’re logged in. And that’s when you’re reading ANY blog. Very convenient, and it makes it hard to get lost. Before, there was just Site Admin and Log Out, but this is so much cooler. Clicking “Subscribe” adds the blog you’re reading to your subscribed list, which you can read in your admin panel. If you’re subscribed, the link changes to “Unsubscribe” (should you want to do that).

When you’re in your administrative section, you see this under “Dashboard”:

Updated Blogs shows the latest from every blog on thripp.com. Subscribed Blogs is from clicking the subscription links across the site; it’s different from Friends Blogs because you’re subscribing to the blog rather than the user. Remember, a user can have one blog, zero blogs, or fifty blogs on thripp.com, just as a blog can have one author or two hundred authors (not zero, though). So having two sections gives you flexibility.

This is what your new friends section looks like, with an example search. Everything blue from here on out is my annotations:

And the subscribed blogs section:

And finally, My Comments, which lets you see the comments you’ve made recently, and any comments made after yours:

Remember that thripp.com already has an awesome threaded comments system, so if anyone replies to you with the REPLY TO THIS link, you WILL be emailed (there is no opt out). So the My Comments page is just to remember where you’ve commented, or to see comments that were not in reply to you.

For the friends feature, there are no email alerts or fancy private messages. But it’s a great way to keep track of your friends’ posts on thripp.com, and for messaging, just comment on one of your friend’s blog posts (he will be emailed for that). Then everyone can read and talk too.

I added these features with the help of these modules. Enjoy, and let me know if you get into trouble.