Replace "No Comments" With A More Friendly Caption

Ever since Blogger improved the comment count caption / link, they have gotten criticism.

They just replaced the vague 0 comment count, that was originally part of the link to the comment form, with a more indicative caption "No Comments" (or whatever language equivalent may apply, on your blog). But they cannot please everybody.

People think I don't want comments, what can I do?

I think the old saying

Don't try to please everybody!

applies here, in spades.

So people ask, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, about template customisation.

How do I replace "No Comments" with something more reader friendly?

And the first question needs to be

Are you comfortable with editing the template?

This can be a rather forbidding question, to some blog owners.

If you don't like "No Comments" (or whatever local language variant your blog uses), you can replace the "No comments" caption with any phrase that pleases you.

This may be better if your reader population is concentrated around one language - and if you are able to edit the template. Blogger wants the residents of different countries to read "Comments", and "No Comments", in their local languages.

The comments link caption is accessed, in your template, as "post.commentLabelFull", in pre "Responsive" class themes.

You will want to find

<data:post.commentLabelFull/>:

and replace it with

Dude, hit me with a comment!

Or whatever friendly greeting you have in mind.

Here's the theme code, from my blog that uses "Picture Window":

<b:if cond='data:post.commentSource == 1'>
    <span class='cmt_count_iframe_holder' expr:data-count='data:post.numComments' expr:data-onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick' expr:data-post-url='data:post.url' expr:data-url='data:post.url.canonical.http'>
    </span>
  <b:else/>
    <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
      <data:post.commentLabelFull/>:
    </a>
  </b:if>

And there is your target. Just a simple change is all you need, for most templates.

<b:if cond='data:post.commentSource == 1'>
    <span class='cmt_count_iframe_holder' expr:data-count='data:post.numComments' expr:data-onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick' expr:data-post-url='data:post.url' expr:data-url='data:post.canonicalUrl'>
    </span>
  <b:else/>
    <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
      Dude, hit me with a comment!
    </a>
  </b:if>

Search diligently! Some templates may have more than one instance of

<data:post.commentLabelFull/>:

With "Responsive" class themes, you will similarly find "data:messages.postAComment".

Here's the theme code, from this blog:

<b:if cond='data:post.numberOfComments > 0'>
              <b:message name='messages.numberOfComments'>
                <b:param expr:value='data:post.numberOfComments' name='numComments'/>
              </b:message>
            <b:else/>
              <data:messages.postAComment/>
            </b:if>

As always, I suggest that you backup the template - before and after you make this change.

Just please keep in mind that you will be editing the post template - and the post template is subject to update, by Blogger. If your change causes a problem, you may end up having to reset the post template, and start over.