Comment Edit Pro 2.3 Released with @ Mentions and Gravatar Privacy

Comment Edit Pro 2.3 has been released and comes with two notable features: @ mentions, and Gravatar Privacy Protection.

After being tested thoroughly, Comment Avatars is out of beta as well.

@ Mentions

One feature request I received from a user was to include mentions in the plugin. I took a look at several other “mention” plugins and decided to add the feature in.

@ Mentions works just by including the “@” symbol in a comment. If there are other commenters on the post, it will bring up a short list of who you can mention.

You can enable and configure @ Mentions in the Comment Edit Pro admin.

Since there are so many moving pieces and this portion needs to be bested out further, I’ve marked the feature as Beta.

One feature is the ability to email @ mention’d users. When a user selects an opt-in checkbox on your comment form, they are emailed a subscribe request. The user can then subscribe, and when someone mentions them in a comment, they’ll receive an email with the comment.

To adhere to spam rules, each email sent to a subscriber has a prominent unsubscribe link.

Gravatar Privacy Protection

Gravatar can inadvertently expose someone’s email address by displaying an avatar associated with that email address.

If a user chooses to post anonymously, but uses an email address recognized by Gravatar, that user’s avatar will be shown.

Here’s an example of a hidden avatar.

You can configure Gravatar Privacy Protection in the Avatars tab in the admin section.

Next Steps

It’s been requested to be able to add “after comment” actions (such as webhooks) and also to be able to add a custom message when a comment has been posted. I will be exploring how to add these into the plugin.

Make sure to grab your copy of Comment Edit Pro to get all of these new features.