If I comment on task I almost always need to review the previous comments made. That would mean loading the entire task comment/history into a dialog which doesn't seem meaningful. The only case for "commenting from a dialog" that I can imagine is if you need to poke it for an update without seeing previous history - doesn't sound like a strong use-case. Creating/editing is modifying the task state vs. the discussion happening on the task, which makes a little more sense to have in the context of a dialog/popover.

I believe you can enable commenting through EditEngine (Maniphest Form Configuration). Beyond that we have a rough "idea" of being able to embed any Phabricator page inside a dialog, which is a non trivial amount of work with Quicksand

Basically, like @cspeckmim suggests, commenting without context isn't something we plan to add. We feel commenting when you make a edit, or commenting when reading the entire task are the two most common needs.

I do agree that commenting is usually done after reviewing the existing history. The concern expressed to me was that the extra navigational steps to get back to the workboard after commenting on a ticket were less pleasing than simply having a popover close. The only real reference I've got for this is that Trello allows viewing of the history and commenting within a popover... not that that is any justification unto itself.

I expect we'll do this eventually, but probably not until Workboards v4.

Thanks for the discussion and for improving the clarity of my request.

See also:

https://secure.phabricator.com/phame/post/view/769/advanced_internet_usage_experts_only/