WP Engineer » template_tag

Comment Form Hooks Visualized

Latz — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:59:55 +0000

Most themes (e.g. TwentyTen) use the comment_form() function to insert the comment form after posts. There are quite some hooks inside the function but they are hard to localize. The codex documentation isn't too helpful, neither.
To give you an easy overview the following diagrams visualize the points where the various hooks are anchored. The number of available hooks depend on the discussion settings and the user's capabilities.

In the most common scenario the user is not logged in, is allowed to comment on the article and the comments are not closed:

There are six hooks available:

comment_form_before
comment_form_top
comment_form_before_fields
comment_form_after_fields
comment_form
comment_form_after

You might have noticed that the hooks comment_form and comment_form_after seem to be anchored almost at the same point but depending on the user's role and discussion settings they are not always available so you should take care which hook you are using in your code.

User logged in
If you are logged in you have fewer hooks available since the name, email and URL input fields are not needed. The missing hooks are

form_comment_before_fields
form_comment_after fields

User is not logged and "Users must be registered and logged in to comment" activated
If your blog is configured that only registered users can comment, an unregistered user will see this comment form and additionally the hook comment_form_must_log_in_after is available. Please notice that in this case the hook comment_form is left out.

Comments closed
If the comments on the post are closed you have only one hook left (comment_form_closed) since the form is not displayed at all:

Post Formats – More Creative Ways For A Theme

Frank — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:28:08 +0000

First day of our Advent Calendar we show tiny code snippets and brief informations for the Post Formats from WordPress version 3.1.

Some theme authors wanted more defined formats - they wanted the feature "post formats". This new functionality will be available in WordPress 3.1 and displays an additional meta-information. The Codex for this functionality is available already, and now it's up to the theme authors to use this new feature.

To use this function, you have to activate it with the Theme. This is controlled, similar to other theme features since version 3.0, over a function. The following syntax gives some of the possible post formats and these can then be used directly on the article, as the following screenshot shows.

add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'audio', 'image', 'video' ) );

Just put the code into your functions.php of your Themes.

As possible keys are the following values available.

default
aside
chat
gallery
link
image
quote
status
video
audio

Like in thumblr you can design the according article. Via the defined values you can use this across themes. The format will be output with the function body_class() for instant, which creates a class, which you can access via CSS. An exmaple for the value Aside of the post format.

Alternatively there are conditional tags and functions to get to the assigned type:

 echo get_post_format();

As so often depends the creativity and usage on the developer. The biggest benefit is probably that defined values exist and as a theme author you can respond to these formats and as a developer you don't have to create a new meta box.

Update: The UI received an update, see Andrew's comment:

Use The Comments Of WordPress For More

Frank — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:30:52 +0000

You might want to have comments displayed on different spots. For example, displaying the last x comments in a central template. This requires the latest comments or all comments on your site. This is a small solution that scans all the comments, or a certain number, and is supplied with markup.

The following code for example belongs in a template, which then serves a page in WordPress and displays the comments. Here are various possibilities and the code should be used only as a theoretical support and facilitate the SQL syntax.
The following solution displays the comments without track-and pingbacks.

global $wpdb;

$max = '-1'; // -1 for all
$result = '';
$sql  = "SELECT c.*, p.post_title FROM $wpdb->comments c INNER JOIN $wpdb->posts p ON (c.comment_post_id = p.ID) ";
$sql .= "WHERE comment_approved = '1' ";
$sql .= "AND comment_type not in ('trackback', 'pingback') ";
$sql .= "AND p.post_status != 'trash' ";
$sql .= "ORDER BY comment_date DESC";
if ('-1' != $max)
	$sql .= " LIMIT 0, $max";
$results = $wpdb->get_results($sql);

$templates = "\t" . '%gravatar% %authorname% zu %posttitle% %commentcontent%' . "\n";

foreach ($results as $row) {
	$tags = array(
		'%commentdate%', '%gravatar%', '%posttitle%',
		'%posturl%', '%authorurl%', '%authorname%',
		'%commentid%', '%commentcontent%'
	);
	$replacements = array(
		$row->comment_date, get_avatar($row->comment_author_email, '30'), $row->post_title,
		get_permalink($row->comment_post_ID), $row->comment_author_url, $row->comment_author,
		$row->comment_ID, $row->comment_content
	);
	$result .= str_replace($tags, $replacements, $templates);
}
if ($result)
	$result = '' . "\n" . $result . '' . "\n";

// output
echo $result;

If you like to use it outside of WordPress, then you can use the comment feed as an alternative. Or you include wp-load.php of the installation and you have full control of all functions of WordPress.

require('wp-load.php');

Have fun using it and we appreciate every suggestion, tips and error report in our comment area.

Individual Design for any Page

Frank — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:55:52 +0000

The blog has a Theme and for every page an extra style sheet. This current trend of individuality for each content is very common today. Even with WordPress, you can do so; there are several possibilities. One possibility is to create, based on the title, the individual stylesheet.
By default, the class assignment of function body_class() has already a lot of possibilities. More individuality can be reached with the title or ID.
It is certainly not worth for a traditional blog environment but for a site with little content it works pretty well. As I have implemented in this case.

If a page is loaded, then you can pass the title. If you use this one in the body tag as ID or class and then create for each ID or class a style, the right design will be loaded.

Alternatively, you can work with the ID of the page or article, function the_ID() passes it. Please note, IDs and classes may not start with a number and therefore you must add a string before, for example:

As a final alternative, I would like to mention that you can expand the function body_class() via Hook with own classes. So you can have the title of a page/post via hook in this function.

function fb_title_body_class($classes) {
	global $post;

	$classes[] = sanitize_title_with_dashes( get_the_title( $post->ID ) );

	return $classes;
}
add_filter( 'body_class', 'fb_title_body_class' );

In the following I'm showing you the simplest case via title, so that you output only this class and and body_class() is not used.

With the help of the Title

Put the stylesheet in the header of your Theme:

Alternatively, this is integrated via Hook wp_head if the specific page is loaded, so you load the explicit style sheet only if it is needed. Everything happens in the functions.php of your Theme.

in your body tag of page.php is the title of the page:

Therefore the page "My Home" has the body tag:


and so on...

in your custom.css you define all style for class home: for example

.my-home a { color: #090; text-decoration: none; }
.my-home a:visited { color: #999; text-decoration: none; }
.my-home a:hover { color: #f60; text-decoration: none; }

in the original Theme it looks like this:

a { color: #009; text-decoration: underline; }
a:visited { color: #999; text-decoration: underline; }
a:hover { color: #c00; text-decoration: underline; }

I think it's an approach with a lot potential and so I leave it to your creativity. So if you would like to have for each page a different style sheet, this is an easy solution.

Alternativ a small plugin to add the title of the post to the template tag body_class() as example.

= 2.8 and tested with PHP Interpreter >= 5.2.9
*/

if ( !class_exists('title2body_class') ) {

    global $wp_version;
    if ( !function_exists ('add_action') || version_compare($wp_version, "2.8alpha", "<") ) {
        if (function_exists ('add_action'))
            $exit_msg = 'The plugin requires WordPress 2.8 or newer. Please update WordPress or delete the plugin.';
        else
            $exit_msg = '';
        header('Status: 403 Forbidden');
        header('HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden');
        exit($exit_msg);
    }

    class title2body_class{

        define( 'FB_T2BC_BASEDIR', dirname( plugin_basename(__FILE__) ) );
        define( 'FB_T2BC_TEXTDOMAIN', 'title2bodyclass' );

        function __construct() {

            add_action( 'body_class', array( &$this, 'title_body_class' ) );
        }

        function title_body_class($classes) {
            global $post;

            $classes[] = sanitize_title_with_dashes( get_the_title( $post->ID ) );

            return $classes;
        }

        }
    }

    function title2body_class_start(){
        new title2body_class();
    }

    add_action('plugins_loaded', 'title2body_class_start');
}
?>

New feature in WordPress 2.9 – the_post_image()

Michael — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:08:42 +0000

In WordPress 2.9, there will be the ability to add an image to a post, as it's been known of magazine themes. The image need not be insert into the post. With the new feature the_post_image() you can use the new feature and thus control where to display.

The two screenshots show the new post thumbnail dialog when creating a new article. Here you set the picture.

In the template you can use the function the_post_image() to place the image. Here's an example:

You can also determine what resolution you want to display.

the_post_image(); // without parameter -> Thumbnail
the_post_image('thumbnail'); // Thumbnail
the_post_image('medium'); // Medium resolution

Unfortunately, the developers haven't implemented a way to align the image with the classes alignleft, alignright and aligncenter. And this is how it looks like with the default theme of WordPress:

WordPress Category Exists?

Frank — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:17:45 +0000

Already tried in WordPress to check if a category exists? There is no Template Tag so you need to create your own solution.
I have 3 different solutions prepared, although one solution only works within the framework of the admin area.

The individual solutions are not explained in depth but surely understandable if you read the code. Alternatively, you can also create a custom function and then use it, like a separate Template Tag for the theme. Therefore put this function in the functions.php of the theme.

In order to understand the code, I have as an example either the category called „Uncategorized“ , or the ID 1. These values must of course be adjusted to your theme.

wp_page_menu in WordPress 2.7

Michael — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:56:01 +0000

New in WordPress 2.7 is the template tag wp_page_menu(). This function creates a page navigation. As parameter you can add a menu "Home" with show_home , or whatever you like.

wp_page_menu('show_home=Home');

wp_page_menu() is a wrap for wp_list_pages(), which additionally add a link to the homepage and assign the class current_page_item, if the starting page is active. For users who doesn't know a lot about PHP, this will be a great help.

From the aspect of a theme developer, it might be a problem using CSS Frameworks, which uses their own classes and structure.

wp_list_comments In WordPress 2.7

Michael — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:54:10 +0000

The comment functionality enhances quite a bit in WordPress 2.7. Additional to the possiblility to answer comments directly in your backend, there is also a threaded comment support available. Threaded comments enables users to reply on an exist comment, and the discussion will be displayed threaded or nested. Below you can see a screenshot from the default theme:

If you take a look into comments.php, you will notice some alterations. A short "comment loop" was introduced wp_list_comments() and it manages the complete output of comments. Here is the code:






// some other code

This purge the comments.php immense. But it might be a disadvantage for theme authors, since they hardly have the possibility to change the output of comments. And that WordPress developers having their own vision of HTML and CSS is a common knowledge. Right now, we have to wait and see, since it's an early version. It will be interesting how this develops.