Table of Contents

Server Configuration

[general]
dbpath = /var/lib/isso/comments.db
host = https://snorl.ax
notify = smtp
log-file = /var/lib/isso/snorl.ax.log
gravatar = true
gravatar-url = https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/{}?d=https%%3A%%2F%%2Fstatic.snorl.ax%%2Ftheme%%2Fimages%%2Ficon_anonymous.png
reply-notifications=true

[moderation]
enabled = true

[guard]
enabled = true
ratelimit = 1
direct-reply = 3
reply-to-self = true

[smtp]
host = localhost
port = 25
security = none
to = sim@snorl.ax
from = "Simputer" <admin@snorl.ax>
timeout = 10

[admin]
enabled = false

For other options I haven't set u could check the official documentation¹.

1. In [general]:

   • dbpath is the path of the sqlite database file where I store the data.

   • host is the url where I want the isso to be shown, for isso to be shown in both http and https version, it should be set as:

     host =
         http://snorl.ax
         https://snorl.ax
     

   • notify is the notification backend for new comments, I set notify = smtp so I'll receive a new email when a new comment is successfully submitted to the server, it also make the reply notification possible.

   • log-file is the path of log showing the status of the isso.
   • gravatar = true enables the use of gravatar.
   • gravatar-url defines url for gravatar images. The “{}” is where the email hash will be placed. The value after d= defines the defalut image to show if there is no image associated with the requested email hash. If you choose not to set this option, isso will automatically set the value to identicon, which is a geometric pattern based on an email hash.
     To set my own default image for the situation, I need to urlencode the url for that image. Now for me https://static.snorl.ax/theme/images/icon_anonymous.png is the url, so I do it with python²:

     $ python
     

   Import the required library for it and do it:

   >>> import urllib.parse
   >>> the = urllib.parse.quote_plus('https://static.snorl.ax/theme/images/icon_anonymous.png')
   >>> the.replace('%','%%')
   

   Then it'll return the required url-encoded string:

   'https%%3A%%2F%%2Fstatic.snorl.ax%%2Ftheme%%2Fimages%%2Ficon_anonymous.png'
   

   Now I can set gravatar-url = https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/{}?d=https%%3A%%2F%%2Fstatic.snorl.ax%%2Ftheme%%2Fimages%%2Ficon_anonymous.png to see it working. Normally we don't need to replace % with %%, however in isso if I don't do so, the following error will happen:

   InterpolationSyntaxError: '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: u'%3A%2F%2Fstatic.snorl.ax%2Ftheme%2Fimages%2Ficon_anonymous.png'
   

   To know more about how to tango with Gravatar, see the documentation.

   • reply-notification=true enables email notifications of replies to the commenters who have previously subcribed to email notification of replies.

2. In [moderation]:

   • enabled enables comment moderation queue and only affects new comments. Comments in moderation queue are not visible to other users until I activate them.

3. In [guard]:

   • enabled enable guard, for the rest of the section to take into effect.
   • ratelimit is the number of comments each IP address can send in a thread per minute.
   • direct-reply is the number of comments a thread can receive per minute.
   • replt-to-self allows a commenter to reply to his own comment.

4. In [smtp]:

   • host, port, security: the SMTP server, port and security used when a notification is sent through email. Since the isso is located in the same server as my email, the configuration works without password. If u want to set email service on ur server and haven't got a clue, u could check out my post.
   • from: The sender address of the email notification.
   • to: The receiver address of the email notification for every new comments(with their moderation address if moderation is enabled).
   • timeout: Specify a timeout in seconds for blocking operations like the connection attempt.

5. In [admin]:

   • enabled=false disable the administration page in https://isso.snorl.ax/admin/. No need to open an admin page for that while u could look into the sqlite urself.

6. [server] block has been deleted 'cause it won't work with uwsgi.

Client Configuration

Current Configuration

Since I'm using nuxt now, I could easily play with isso API, you can see how I do it from my components in the source code.

Previous Configuration

<section id=comments data-title="{{ title }}" data-isso-id="/the/path/to/the/page/">

<script data-isso=https://isso.snorl.ax/ data-isso-gravatar=true data-isso-avatar=false data-isso-reply-notifications=true data-isso-reply-to-self=true data-isso-css=false src=https://static.snorl.ax/theme/js/embed.min.js data-isso-lang=en></script>

For other options I don't use, u can check the official documention.

1. The id of the section is comments, not isso-thread, 'cause I use the edited version of embed.min.js, where I replace all the occurences of isso-thread with comments. That's generally not a recommended practice. Each update of isso will get me busy replacing. So maybe one day I'll revert it back. The data-title parses the title to the database as the title of the thread, not working on the thread existing in the database. data-isso-id resolves the problem when the same page has several urls. (For example, a soft link on a directory can cause the result.)
2. I set data-isso in the script tag 'cause the src is not the original path of the isso.
3. To get Gravatar working on the site, data-isso-gravatar=true data-isso-avatar=false is a must.
4. To enable the reply notifications on the site, data-isso-reply-notifications=true should be set.
5. data-isso-reply-to-self=true allows the commenter to reply to himself.
6. data-isso-lang=en set the language to English. So the language of the running isso on the site won't vary based on the very language the viewer is using.
7. For my css style of isso to get into effect completely without being interfered, data-isso-css=false is a must.
   Click here to seethe css code inside the embed.min.js of the newest version of isso as of December 27, 2018. Before applying my own css style completely to the running isso, editing the style based on the original code is generally a recommended practice.