{"id":3808,"date":"2017-07-15T18:37:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-15T16:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/florianbrinkmann.com\/en\/?p=3808"},"modified":"2020-02-09T10:59:48","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T09:59:48","slug":"separate-comments-pings-in-wordpress-theme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/florianbrinkmann.com\/en\/separate-comments-pings-in-wordpress-theme-3808\/","title":{"rendered":"Separate comments and pings in a WordPress theme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Instead of listing all post reactions \u2013 comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks \u2013 in one list, I like to separate comments and pings (pingbacks and trackbacks) for the sake of clarity. That is not too difficult, but there are a few things to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The problem (with my old solution)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The way that might be most obvious (and the way I used until recently) is to call the comments template in this way:<\/p>\n\n\n

comments_template( ''<\/span>, true<\/span> );<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JavaScript<\/span> (<\/span>javascript<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
Setting the second param to true gives you the reactions separated by type via the $comments_by_type<\/code> variable in the comments.php<\/code> \u2013 to get the number of comments, I used to do a count( $comments_by_type['comment'] )<\/code>. That works without problems if the reactions are not broken into multiple pages. If that is the case, the above function call would only return the number of currently displayed comments, not the total comment number for the post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
To fix that, we need to fetch the reactions on our own in the comments.php<\/code> and do not use the second param from comments_template()<\/code>. To show you how that can be done, I will go through the comments.php<\/code> of my new theme.<\/p>\n\n\n
<?php<\/span>\n\/**\n * Comments template.\n *\n * @version<\/span> 1.0.0\n *\n * @package<\/span> Photographus\n *\/<\/span>\n\nif<\/span> ( post_password_required() ) {\n\treturn<\/span>;\n} ?><\/span><\/span>\n<aside<\/span> aria-labelledby<\/span>=\"aside\"<\/span> class<\/span>=\"comments-area\"<\/span>><\/span>\n\t<?php<\/span> if<\/span> ( have_comments() ) {\n\t\t\/**\n\t\t * We cannot use the second parameter from comments_template()\n\t\t * to separate the reactions because if they are\n\t\t * broken on multiple pages, the count() would only return\n\t\t * the number of comments and pings which are displayed\n\t\t * on the current page, not the total.\n\t\t *\n\t\t * Because of that, we use our own function to get the comments by type.\n\t\t *\/<\/span>\n\t\t$comments_by_type = photographus_get_comments_by_type();<\/span><\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> HTML, XML<\/span> (<\/span>xml<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
After using post_password_required()<\/code> to check if the post is password protected and we do not have the correct password, we check for reactions with have_comments()<\/code>. Next, we get the reactions \u2013 already separated \u2013 via a custom function. This function lives in the functions.php<\/code> (or in my case the template-tags.php<\/code>) and looks like that:<\/p>\n\n\n
\/**\n * Returns the post reactions separated by type.\n *\n * @return<\/span> array Post reactions separated by type.\n *\/<\/span>\nfunction<\/span> photographus_get_comments_by_type<\/span>()<\/span> <\/span>{\n\t$comment_args     = [\n\t\t'order'<\/span>   => 'ASC'<\/span>,\n\t\t'orderby'<\/span> => 'comment_date_gmt'<\/span>,\n\t\t'status'<\/span>  => 'approve'<\/span>,\n\t\t'post_id'<\/span> => get_the_ID(),\n\t];\n\t$comments         = get_comments( $comment_args );\n\t$comments_by_type = separate_comments( $comments );\n\n\treturn<\/span> $comments_by_type;\n}<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> PHP<\/span> (<\/span>php<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
At first, we create an args array to get the approved reactions for that post, ordered by date in ascending order. Afterwards, we get the reactions via a get_comments()<\/code> call, separate the result with separate_comments()<\/code>, and return it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We continue in the comments.php<\/code> with the part of displaying comment count and the list of comments:<\/p>\n\n\n
if<\/span> ( ! empty( $comments_by_type['comment'<\/span>] ) ) {\n\t\/**\n\t * Save the comment count.\n\t *\/<\/span>\n\t$comment_number = count( $comments_by_type['comment'<\/span>] ); ?>\n\t<h2<\/span> class<\/span>=\"comments-title\"<\/span> id<\/span>=\"comments-title\"<\/span>><\/span>\n\t\t<?php<\/span> printf( \/* translators: Title for comment list. 1=comment number, 2=post title *\/<\/span>\n\t\t\t_n(\n\t\t\t\t'%1$s Comment on \u201c%2$s\u201d'<\/span>,\n\t\t\t\t'%1$s Comments on \u201c%2$s\u201d'<\/span>,\n\t\t\t\t$comment_number,\n\t\t\t\t'photographus'<\/span>\n\t\t\t),\n\t\t\tnumber_format_i18n( $comment_number ),\n\t\t\tget_the_title() ); ?><\/span><\/span>\n\t<\/h2<\/span>><\/span><\/span>\n\n\t<ul<\/span> class<\/span>=\"commentlist\"<\/span>><\/span>\n\t\t<?php<\/span>\n\t\t\/**\n\t\t * We need to specify the per_page key because otherwise\n\t\t * the separated reactions would not be broken correctly into\n\t\t * multiple pages.\n\t\t *\/<\/span>\n\t\twp_list_comments( [\n\t\t\t'callback'<\/span> => 'photographus_comments'<\/span>,\n\t\t\t'style'<\/span>    => 'ul'<\/span>,\n\t\t\t'type'<\/span>     => 'comment'<\/span>,\n\t\t\t'per_page'<\/span> => $comment_args['number'<\/span>],\n\t\t] ); ?><\/span><\/span>\n\t<\/ul<\/span>><\/span><\/span>\n<?php }<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JavaScript<\/span> (<\/span>javascript<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\n
At first, we check for comments and save their number. We echo it inside an h2<\/code> headline using the _n()<\/code> function, which gets the following parameters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
  1. The singular form of the string.<\/li>
  2. The plural form.<\/li>
  3. A number which is used to display either the singular or plural form.<\/li>
  4. Text domain.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    We display the comments as an unordered list and hand over an array with the following arguments to wp_list_comments()<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n