I've been setting up a new personal blog and getting re-aquainted with CSS (its been awhile) and the new Blogger Beta. There are not that many templates available yet, and most of them utilize 'widgets' exactly the same.
The 'x comments' link not only displays the comments without your template, with the 'Blogger' look and feel, but also includes the form, whether or not you want to leave a comment. I much prefer the option to expand comments at the bottom of the original post. This is done by default when you view a post on it's own page. Also, even though the comment widget seems to be able to detect whether or not singular (1 comment) or plural (x comments) nouns are called for, some implementations spit out plural, regardless.
Here's my fix. On the 'Edit HTML' screen, click 'expand widget templates'. Now replace the entire 'post-comment-link' span in your template with the following code:
<!--Jeffapotimus' comment hack-->
<span class='post-comment-link'><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
<b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 0'>
<span class='comment-link'>0 comments</span>
<else/>
<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.url + "#comment-anchor"'>
<b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 comment
<b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/>
</b:if>
</a>
</b:if>
<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl'
expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>Add comment</a>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</span>
And then find the 'comments-block' in your template and insert an anchor:
<a name='comment-anchor'/>
Now when a post has no comments '0 comments' is not linked. '1 comment' or 'x comments' links to the original post with the page scrolled to the expanded comments. The 'Add comment' link goes to blogger's existing comment form.
This may not be the most elegant or extensible solution, but I've been out of the game for awhile. If anyone knows of a simpler way to do this, please let me know.
