The purpose of this plugin is to add a guestbook site which uses the wordpress integrated comments. Using the wordpress integrated comments system has some important advantages:

• Consistent styling of guestbook form and comment list for every theme you are using.
• All wordpress comment features are available for the guestbook comments also (e.g. E-Mail Notification, listing in "All Comments" on admin page,...)
• All plugins which are modifying the comment list or comment form will also work with Comment Guestbook automatically (e.g. a captcha plugin for antispam).

Other features and options:

• Setup comment form position (in page, above comment list, below comment list). You can also use more than one of them.
• Ajdust the comment order to your requirements.
• Option to show numbered pagination links for the comment list.
• Ajdust the comment html-code for the guestbook page.
• Option to include all comments of your site in the comment list on the guestbook page.
• Sidebar widget to show recent comments with a lot of options.
• Show a message after a new comment was made. This option you can also enable for all post/pages in your blog).

Simply insert the shortcode [comment-guestbook] into a page to enable this plugin.

On the admin page (goto Comments -> Guestbook) you can find a detailed description and a lot options to modify the output.

If you want to follow the development status have a look at the git-repository on github.

1. 

   Admin page (general settings)

2. 

   Admin page (message after new comment settings)

3. 

   Admin page (comment-list settings)

4. 

   Admin page (comment html code)

5. 

   Admin page (comment-form settings)

6. 

   Widget options on admin page

7. 

   Example guestbook site

8. 

   Example guestbook widget

The easiest way to install is using the wordpress plugin installation mechanism. On the admin page you can install new plugins in "Plugins" -> "Add new". Search for "Comment Guestbook" and press "Install now".

If you want to install the plugin manually download the zip-file and extract the files in your wp-content/plugins folder.

0.4.0 (2013-05-12)

• Added the possibility to show a message after a new comment was made
• Minor security improvements

0.3.1 (2013-04-07)

• Fixed link to comment in widget for some special settings
• Added widget option to truncate author
• Added widget option to truncate page title
• Added widget option to change the date format
• A lot of code cleanup in widget class

0.3.0 (2013-03-30)

• Fixed required user capability to change guestbook options
• Added option to show comments of all pages/posts on guestbook page
• Added widget to show recent comments with a lot of options
• Improved some help texts on admin page

0.2.2 (2012-12-27)

• Added section for comment form settings on admin page
• Added options to define comment form position(s)
• Fixed html-code on front page
• Small html-code fixes on admin page

0.2.1 (2012-11-11)

• Fixed overwriting of Allow comments status
• Fixed redirected page after creating a new comment when Comment list order is Newest comments first
• Added a new option to create a numbered pagination navigation

0.2.0 (2012-11-03)

• Internal code changes
• Added several new options to modify the output (find details on the admin page)

0.1.2 (2012-09-01)

• Fixed all php warnings
• Added screenshots

0.1.1 (2012-06-24)

• Rearrangement of settings on admin page via different tabs

0.1.0 (2012-04-30)

• Allow adjustment of comment html code

• Added the options "Comment adjustment", "Comment html code" and "Domain for translation"

0.0.2 (2012-04-08)

• Allow adjustment of comment list output

• Added the options "adjust comment list output" and "comment callback function" on the admin page

0.0.1 (2012-04-03)

• Initial release

Where can I find the settings to manipulate the output (e.g. of the comment list)?

You can find a lot of options on the admin page in the submenu "Comments" -> "Guestbook". There you have the possibility to change the output of e.g the comment list only for the guestbook page, independent from the general Wordpress settings.

I have included the shortcode in my guestbook page but the comment form and/or the comment list are not appearing.

Please check if comments are enabled for your guestbook page. There are several places to change these setting:

• General wordpress discussion setting (Settings -> Discussion -> "Allow people to post comments on new articles"): This setting changes the behavior for all pages and post, but can be overwritten from the settings below.
• Post/page discussion setting (Discussion box -> "Allow comments." in post/page edit screen): This setting overwrites the general wordpress setting for each page or post. If you cannot see the Discussion box you have to enable it in the Screen Option.
• Theme settings: A lot of themes have their own options for displaying the comment list. They often will overwrite the wordpress settings.
• Guestbook settings (Comments -> Guestbook -> General Settings -> "Guestbook comment status": This option will overwrite the wordpress settings for the guestbook page. But the theme settings can still causes problems.

Can I call the shortcode directly via php e.g. for my own template, theme or plugin?

Yes, you can create an instance of the "sc_comment_guestbook" class which located in "php/sc_comment-guestbook.php" in the plugin folder and call the function show_html($atts).With $atts you can specify all the shortcode attributes you require. Another possibility would be to call the wordpress function "do_shortcode()".