{"id":417,"date":"2011-11-08T15:59:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-08T15:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/?p=417"},"modified":"2011-11-08T16:04:55","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T16:04:55","slug":"customizing-wordpress-comments-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/customizing-wordpress-comments-form\/","title":{"rendered":"Customizing the WordPress comments form"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are numerous plugins out there that enhance the "outta-the-box" WordPress comments form in various ways. But, if you are looking for very specific functionality, you may not have considered simply creating your own from scratch.<\/p>\n

You've no doubt heard about all the negatives to customizing any files within the WordPress "core", as they would be overwritten by any upgrade you apply.<\/p>\n

But, by creating your own comments form within your theme's loop-single.php or single.php, you can get around this issue.<\/p>\n

High-level, we need three things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. To modify the loop-single.php or single.php file and add our own comments form.<\/li>\n
  2. In WordPress Admin -> Discussion, turn off allowing new comments (essentially hiding the default WordPress comments form)<\/li>\n
  3. Create your own script for validating, then adding the comment to the WordPress comments table.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Creating the comments form:<\/h3>\n

    <form action="\/your_comments_processing_scipt.php" method="post">
    \n\t    <input type="hidden" name="came_from" value="<?php echo $_SERVER['REDIRECT_URL']; ?>" \/>
    \n\t    <input type="hidden" name="post_id" value="<?php echo $post->ID; ?>" \/>
    \n\t    <div>
    \n\t        <label for="comment-fullname">Name<\/label>
    \n\t        <input type="text" name="fullname" id="comment-fullname" value="<?php echo $_REQUEST['fullname']; ?>" \/>
    \n\t    <\/div>
    \n\t    <div>
    \n\t        <label for="comment-email">Email<\/label>
    \n\t        <input type="email" name="email" id="comment-email" value="<?php echo $_REQUEST['email']; ?>" \/>               
    \n\t    <\/div>
    \n\t    <div>
    \n\t        <label for="comment-text">Comment<\/label>
    \n\t        <textarea name="comment" id="comment-text"><?php echo $_REQUEST['comment']; ?><\/textarea>               
    \n\t    <\/div>
    \n\t    <input type="submit" value="Submit" \/>
    \n\t<\/form><\/p>\n

    \t<\/code><\/p>\n

    The Processing Script<\/h3>\n

    <?php
    \n\t\/\/ your validation goes here<\/p>\n

    \trequire('wp-config.php');
    \n\t$conn = mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD);
    \n\tmysql_select_db(DB_NAME);
    \n\t<\/code><\/p>\n


    \n\t$sql = "INSERT INTO wp_comments
    \n\t        (
    \n\t            comment_post_ID,
    \n\t            comment_author,
    \n\t            comment_author_email,
    \n\t            comment_author_url,
    \n\t            comment_author_IP,
    \n\t            comment_date,
    \n\t            comment_date_gmt,
    \n\t            comment_content,
    \n\t            comment_karma,
    \n\t            comment_approved,
    \n\t            comment_agent,
    \n\t            comment_type,
    \n\t            comment_parent,
    \n\t            user_id,
    \n\t            fbconnect
    \n\t        )
    \n\t        VALUES
    \n\t        (
    \n\t        {$_REQUEST['post_id']},
    \n\t        '{$_REQUEST['fullname']}',       
    \n\t        '{$_REQUEST['email']}',
    \n\t        '',
    \n\t        '{$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']}',
    \n\t        NOW(),
    \n\t        UTC_TIMESTAMP(),
    \n\t        '{$_REQUEST['comment']}',
    \n\t        0,
    \n\t        '0',
    \n\t        '{$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT' ]}',
    \n\t        '',
    \n\t        0,
    \n\t        0,
    \n\t        0
    \n\t        )";<\/p>\n

    \t$result = mysql_query($sql);
    \n\tmysql_close($conn);
    \n\theader('Location: ' . $_REQUEST['came_from']);
    \n\t?>
    \n\t<\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are numerous plugins out there that enhance the "outta-the-box" WordPress comments form in various ways. But, if you are looking for very specific functionality,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[138],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sitekickr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}