How to Truly Customize the WordPress Comment Form?

  • Copernicus

    (@copernicus)


    12 years, 4 months ago

    Hello, there.
    I’ve been working with WordPress for years, but am perplexed by a seemingly simple task: truly customizing the comments form.

    To be clear, I’ve read through Otto’s WordPress 3.0 Theme Tip: The Comment Form and I do NOT simply want to rename the fields or remove the “Website” field.

    Instead, I want to customize the output for the WordPress comments template without having to edit a core file (comment-template.php in the wp-includes folder would be the obvious choice to edit, but would be overwritten upon upgrade).

    A couple of quick examples:
    – I’d like to edit the text and output for “Your comment is awaiting moderation,” so that it’s output in something more than just <EM> tags.
    – I’d like to edit the text that reads “says” after the comment authors name (resulting in “Author-name says…” in the comments list).

    Anyone know how to customize the WordPress comments output in this way?

    Thanks!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Christi Nickerson

    (@christini)

    12 years, 4 months ago

    Hi Copernicus,

    I would suggest looking into creating a Child Theme. That way, any changes you make to the comment-template.php (and any other files) in your Child Theme would not be overwritten by a theme update.

    You should be able to change your stylesheet (style.css) to style the “Your comment is awaiting moderation,” text however you like it.

    I like using the Firebug extension with Firefox to help me find what CSS rules are affecting elements on a page.

    Hope this helps!

    Thread Starter Copernicus

    (@copernicus)

    12 years, 4 months ago

    Hi there, ChristiNi!

    Thanks for the response.
    Am I mistaken in believing that the comment-template.php file would not be part of a child-theme? The file comment-template.php is in wp-includes, not within the wp-content or theme directories.

    More than style changes, I want to modify the coded output. Text like “Your comment is awaiting moderation” seems to be part of the core files and not something that’s easily modified from the theme end.

    Or am I mistaken?

    (thanks for any & all help!)

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    12 years, 4 months ago

    Am I mistaken in believing that the comment-template.php file would not be part of a child-theme?

    Partly. You can control the output of the comments via your child theme’s comments.php template file.

    Thread Starter Copernicus

    (@copernicus)

    12 years, 4 months ago

    Right, but not the comment-template.php which seems to hold all of the output that many of us would like to modify, including my examples above of
    – editing the text and code output for “Your comment is awaiting moderation,” and
    – editing the text that reads “says” after the comment authors name (resulting in “Author-name says…” in the comments list).

    Among other things.

    Any way to override those items (and other items in the comments-template.php file) without editing core files?

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    12 years, 4 months ago

    Oh yes it does. See http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/comment_form

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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