WordPress Subscribe To Comments Plugin – Automatically Check Subscribe By Default

The Subscribe To Comments plugin is pretty popular among WordPress bloggers. For those that don't know, this plugin allows your readers to subscribe to specific posts and notifies them by email each time a new comment is placed. It's really a must for keeping your site visitors coming back and keeping them engaged in the discussion.

I'm in the process of launching a new site built on WordPress and installed version 2.1 which is the latest version of STC. I was a little disappointed to find that you can no longer automatically check the subscribe box by default. Here is what I found in the FAQ section of the readme.txt file that comes with the plugin.

= I'd like the subscription checkbox to be checked by default. Can I do that? =

Not anymore. But the checkbox status will be remembered on a per-user basis.

There is no real explanation of why the feature was removed. My guess is it was removed to cut down on spam complaints from users that comment, leave the subscribe box checked, and later complain that they are being spammed when they get notified of follow up comments. Personally, my goal isn't to send comment notifications to visitors that leave comments and don't care about follow up comments. BUT, I'd like to remove a step for those that do want to be notified by automatically checking the subscribe box.

I found a very simple "fix" for this issue. It involves a very easy modification to the plugin code.

1. Open subscribe-to comments.php

2. Find this code.

<?php /* ------------------------------------------------------------------- */ ?>
<?php /* This is the text that is displayed for users who are NOT subscribed */ ?>
<?php /* ------------------------------------------------------------------- */ ?>

<p <?php if ($sg_subscribe->clear_both) echo 'style="clear: both;" '; ?>class="subscribe-to-comments">
<input type="checkbox" name="subscribe" id="subscribe" value="subscribe"  style="width: auto;" <?php if ( $checked_status ) echo 'checked="checked" '; ?>/>
<label for="subscribe"><?php echo $sg_subscribe->not_subscribed_text; ?></label>
</p>

<?php /* ------------------------------------------------------------------- */ ?>

3. All you need to do is add the word checked in the line shown below.

<input type="checkbox" name="subscribe" id="subscribe" value="subscribe"  checked style="width: auto;" <?php if ( $checked_status ) echo 'checked="checked" '; ?>/>

4. Save and Upload the File

I've ran some tests on the plugin after the modification and it seems to work perfect. If anyone experiences some problems after the change, please let me know and I'll look into it.

Posted by: Brent Crouch on 07 Nov, 20096 Comments »