* For the time being I advise against using this modification. I need to look into some issues that arise from it. When the issues have been resolved, this notice will be removed*

I had been looking for a way to customize my blogs comments. I wanted to do away with the boring "X Comments" link. I found what I wanted but it seemed to be only half what I sought. Experiment Garden is where I found the change but the text was only changed once viewing the whole blog post and not the comment count on the home page. So I set out to fix this.

For the first bit, you can follow what Experiment Garden had to say. This will change what readers see when they click on a topic and scroll to the bottom where they comment. Clicky here for that.

The second bit changes the way comments are seen while on the home page or browsing through posts. This is what you do.

1. Open layout -> Edit HTML.
2. Expand widgets.
3. Locate the following...

<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>

Replace it with...

<b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 0'>
<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>Be the first to reply!</a>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'><a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
  1 <data:commentLabel/> so far.  What are your thoughts?</a>
<b:else/>
  <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
  <data:post.numComments/> <data:commentLabelPlural/> so far.  What are your thoughts? </a>
</b:if>
</b:if> 

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below.