Improved Email Notification On Replies
NOTE: You can now simply use the Comment Reply Notification plugin to achieve the desired result.
I know some of you use the subscribe to comments plugin, which gives the readers a choice of whether or not to receive notifications of replies. However, one problem I have with the plugin is that it emails the subscriber every time someone replies, not just when the author replies. I don’t know about you guys, but usually I don’t give much of a damn what other people are saying on someone else’s blog. Sorry. :eww:
So in search of a plugin that would give the commentors a choice of whether or not to receive an email reply from the author (in addition to having the reply on the site), which obviously failed, I decided to come up with something myself. If you’re interested in implementing this awesome feature in your blog, you’ll need to several things:
- Firefox for the Greasemonkey which is needed for the WordPress Comment Ninja
- Extra Comment Fields plugin for WordPress
Follow the instructions on WordPress Comment Ninja on how to setup and use. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but basically, it gives you the options of emailing the reply + replying on site, only emailing the reply, or only replying on site when you go to the comment section of your WordPress admin panel through Firefox.
Now, follow the instructions for Extra Comment Fields by installing the plugin and activating it. Then, instead of creating an text type input field (unless you insist), create a check box field. Give it a name and id, but make sure those two are the same and they shouldn’t contain any spaces or special symbols. For the value of the check box, set it to “yes”. Remember to label the check box so the commentors know what they are checking off. This is what mine looks like:
<input id="email_reply" name="email_reply" type="checkbox" value="yes" /> <label for="email_reply"><small>Receive email replies from author?</small></label>
Add the new input field somewhere in your comment form, found on comment.php in your theme directory. Now insert the following code to where the comments show up. I inserted mine right after <?php comment_text() ?>:
<?php print $comment->your_name_here; ?>
Replace the your_name_here with the name you gave your extra comment field. So in my case, my code would look like: <?php print $comment->email_reply; ?>. This input field won’t show up in the actual comments, but you will be able to see it in the comment section of your admin panel. That way you’ll know whether or not the commentor wishes to receive email replies!
Don’t forget to go in the your WordPress admin panel >> Settings >> Extra Comment Fields and enter in the name of the input field! Hope this helps, and any questions, comments, or suggestions, leave a comment! 
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