Plugin Activation

Verifying Plugin Activation

After clicking Activate, follow these steps to ensure the Private Comments plugin is running correctly and securing your discussions.

1. Confirm Activation Status

Navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins in your WordPress dashboard. Locate Private Comments in the list. It should have a blue background (in the default theme) and an option to "Deactivate," indicating it is currently active.

2. Functional Verification

The plugin works automatically upon activation. To verify that comment privacy is enforced, test the visibility across different user roles:

Visibility Matrix

Use the following table to confirm the expected behavior:

| User Role | Can See Their Own Comments? | Can See Others' Comments? | | :--- | :---: | :---: | | Administrator | Yes | Yes | | Post Author | Yes | Yes | | Comment Author | Yes | No | | Logged-out Guest | No | No | | Other Registered User | Yes (own only) | No |

3. Testing Visibility (Manual Check)

To perform a live test:

1. As an Admin: Leave a comment on a post. You should see it normally.
2. As a Guest: Open an Incognito/Private browser window and navigate to the same post. The comment section should indicate that there are no comments, or the specific comments made by the Admin should be invisible.
3. As a Subscriber: Log in as a standard user and leave a comment. You should see your own comment, but you should not see any comments left by other users or the Administrator.

Troubleshooting

If comments remain visible to the public after activation:

• Clear Site Cache: If you use a caching plugin (e.g., WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache) or a server-level cache (e.g., Varnish), clear the cache to ensure the private visibility logic is applied to the generated HTML.
• Theme Compatibility: Ensure your theme uses the standard WordPress comments_template() function. Custom comment engines may require additional configuration.