fix: refresh "N minutes ago" strings without a page reload (#154)

moment.js computed the relative time once when each comment/reply was
rendered, so "1 minute ago" never changed as the page stayed open. Hook
a 60-second interval in `init()` that walks every `.comment-created-at`
element in the sidebar container and recomputes the text from the ISO
timestamp stored in the element's `datetime` attribute, which is the
same timestamp the original render used.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: JohnMcLear

static/js/index.js

@@ -113,6 +113,11 @@ EpComments.prototype.init = async function () {
   });
   $(window).resize(_.debounce(() => { this.setYofComments(); }, 100));
 
+  // Refresh the "N minutes ago" relative-time strings (#154). The original
+  // date is stored in the `datetime` attribute so we can recompute
+  // `fromNow()` without needing to track the cached string anywhere.
+  setInterval(() => this.refreshRelativeDates(), 60 * 1000);
+
   // On click comment icon toolbar
   $('.addComment').on('click', (e) => {
     e.preventDefault(); // stops focus from being lost
@@ -694,6 +699,19 @@ EpComments.prototype.allCommentsOnCorrectYPosition = function () {
   return allCommentsAreCorrect;
 };
 
+// Recompute "N minutes ago" style text on every `.comment-created-at`
+// element, using the ISO timestamp stored in the element's `datetime`
+// attribute as the source of truth (#154).
+EpComments.prototype.refreshRelativeDates = function () {
+  if (this.container == null) return;
+  this.container.find('.comment-created-at[datetime]').each(function () {
+    const iso = $(this).attr('datetime');
+    if (!iso) return;
+    const next = moment(iso).fromNow();
+    if ($(this).text() !== next) $(this).text(next);
+  });
+};
+
 EpComments.prototype.localizeExistingComments = function () {
   const self = this;
   const padComments = this.padInner.contents().find('.comment');

static/tests/backend/specs/relative_time.js

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+'use strict';
+
+const assert = require('assert').strict;
+const fs = require('fs');
+const path = require('path');
+
+const pluginRoot = path.resolve(__dirname, '..', '..', '..', '..');
+const indexPath = path.join(pluginRoot, 'static', 'js', 'index.js');
+
+describe(__filename, function () {
+  let src;
+  before(function () {
+    src = fs.readFileSync(indexPath, 'utf8');
+  });
+
+  it('registers a setInterval that calls refreshRelativeDates (#154)', function () {
+    // Any cadence works, but the interval must actually be scheduled so the
+    // relative-time strings update without a page reload.
+    assert(/setInterval\([^)]*refreshRelativeDates[^)]*\)/.test(src),
+        'init should call setInterval(() => this.refreshRelativeDates(), ...)');
+  });
+
+  it('refreshRelativeDates recomputes text from the datetime attribute (#154)',
+      function () {
+        const match = src.match(
+            /EpComments\.prototype\.refreshRelativeDates\s*=\s*function[\s\S]*?\n\};/);
+        assert(match, 'refreshRelativeDates should be defined on EpComments.prototype');
+        const body = match[0];
+        assert(/comment-created-at\[datetime\]/.test(body),
+            'refreshRelativeDates must target elements with a datetime attribute so the ISO ' +
+            'timestamp can be used as the source of truth');
+        assert(/moment\([^)]+\)\.fromNow\(\)/.test(body),
+            'refreshRelativeDates should recompute the relative time via moment(iso).fromNow()');
+      });
+});