# Example of using the comments app

Follow the first three steps of the quick start guide.

Now suppose, you have an app (`blog`) with a model (`Post`) to which you want to attach comments. Let’s also suppose that you have a template called `blog_detail.html` where you want to display the comments list and comment form.

## Template

First, we should load the `comment` template tags in the `blog_detail.html` so that we can use its functionality. So just like all other custom template tag libraries:

    {% load comments %}

Next, let’s add the number of comments attached to the particular model instance of `Post`. For this we assume that a context variable `object_pk` is present which gives the `id` of the instance of `Post`.

The usage of the `get_comment_count` tag is like below:

    {% get_comment_count for blog.post object_pk as comment_count %}
    <p>{{ comment_count }} comments have been posted.</p>

If you have the instance (say `entry`) of the model (`Post`) available in the context, then you can refer to it directly:

    {% get_comment_count for entry as comment_count %}
    <p>{{ comment_count }} comments have been posted.</p>

Next, we can use the `render_comment_list` tag, to render all comments to the given instance (`entry`) by using the `comments/list.html` template:

    {% render_comment_list for entry %}

Django will will look for the `list.html` under the following directories (for our example):

    comments/blog/post/list.html
    comments/blog/list.html
    comments/list.html

To get a list of comments, we make use of the `get_comment_list` tag. Using this tag is very similar to the `get_comment_count` tag. We need to remember that `get_comment_list` returns a list of comments and hence we have to iterate through them to display them:

    {% get_comment_list for blog.post object_pk as comment_list %}
    {% for comment in comment_list %}
    <p>Posted by: {{ comment.user_name }} on {{ comment.submit_date }}</p>
    ...
    <p>Comment: {{ comment.comment }}</p>
    ...
    {% endfor %}

Finally, we display the comment form, enabling users to enter their comments. There are two ways of doing so. The first is when you want to display the comments template available under your `comments/form.html`. The other method gives you a chance to customize the form.

The first method makes use of the `render_comment_form` tag. Its usage too is similar to the other three tags we have discussed above:

    {% render_comment_form for entry %}

It looks for the `form.html` under the following directories (for our example):

    comments/blog/post/form.html
    comments/blog/form.html
    comments/form.html

Since we customize the form in the second method, we make use of another tag called `comment_form_target`. This tag on rendering gives the URL where the comment form is posted. Without any customization, `comment_form_target` evaluates to `/comments/post/`. We use this tag in the form’s `action` attribute.

The `get_comment_form` tag renders a `form` for a model instance by creating a context variable. One can iterate over the `form` object to get individual fields. This gives you fine-grain control over the form:

    {% for field in form %}
    {% if field.name == "comment" %}
      <!-- Customize the "comment" field, say, make CSS changes -->
    ...
    {% endfor %}

But let’s look at a simple example:

    {% get_comment_form for entry as form %}
    <!-- A context variable called form is created with the necessary hidden
    fields, timestamps and security hashes -->
    <table>
      <form action="{% comment_form_target %}" method="post">
        {% csrf_token %}
        {{ form }}
        <tr>
          <td colspan="2">
            <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Post">
            <input type="submit" name="preview" value="Preview">
          </td>
        </tr>
      </form>
    </table>

## Flagging

If you want your users to be able to flag comments (say for profanity), you can just direct them (by placing a link in your comment list) to `/flag/{{ comment.id }}/`. Similarly, a user with requisite permissions (`"Can moderate comments"`) can approve and delete comments. This can also be done through the `admin` as you’ll see later. You might also want to customize the following templates:

- `flag.html`

- `flagged.html`

- `approve.html`

- `approved.html`

- `delete.html`

- `deleted.html`

found under the directory structure we saw for `form.html`.

## Feeds

Suppose you want to export a feed of the latest comments, you can use the built-in `LatestCommentFeed`. Just enable it in your project’s `urls.py`:

    from django.urls import path
    from django_comments.feeds import LatestCommentFeed

    urlpatterns = [
    # ...
        path('feeds/latest/', LatestCommentFeed()),
    # ...
    ]

Now you should have the latest comment feeds being served off `/feeds/latest/`.

## Moderation

Now that we have the comments framework working, we might want to have some moderation setup to administer the comments. The comments framework comes with generic comment moderation. The comment moderation has the following features (all of which or only certain can be enabled):

- Enable comments for a particular model instance.

- Close comments after a particular (user-defined) number of days.

- Email new comments to the site-staff.

To enable comment moderation, we subclass the `CommentModerator` and register it with the moderation features we want. Let’s suppose we want to close comments after 7 days of posting and also send out an email to the site staff. In `blog/models.py`, we register a comment moderator in the following way:

    from django.db import models
    from django_comments.moderation import CommentModerator, moderator

    class Post(models.Model):
        title   = models.CharField(max_length = 255)
        content = models.TextField()
        posted_date = models.DateTimeField()

    class PostModerator(CommentModerator):
        email_notification = True
        auto_close_field   = 'posted_date'
        # Close the comments after 7 days.
        close_after        = 7

    moderator.register(Post, PostModerator)

The generic comment moderation also has the facility to remove comments. These comments can then be moderated by any user who has access to the `admin` site and the `Can moderate comments` permission (can be set under the `Users` page in the `admin`).

The moderator can `Flag`, `Approve` or `Remove` comments using the `Action` drop-down in the `admin` under the `Comments` page.

Note

Only a super-user will be able to delete comments from the database. `Remove Comments` only sets the `is_public` attribute to `False`.