Avatars covering comments

Hmm, it looks like you changed the padding-left property for .comment .comment-body from 100px to 14px. I guess that’s because when you set the default avatar to blank, you saw that empty space off to the left, so maybe you tried to close it up? The problem is that when you pick a blank default avatar, a blank image is still being output, which is why you saw that empty space. By changing the padding so that space is closed up, you are actually moving the comment text under a blank image (you don’t really notice it because the blank avatar is transparent). However, when someone does have an avatar, the comment text is obscured by it.

So, what I would do is reset the padding-left back to 100px and select a non-blank avatar as the default. By the way, you shouldn’t be modifying the theme files directly (i.e., through Appearance > Editor). If you ever update the theme because of a bug fix, a feature enhancement, security patch, or if the theme has to be updated because a change in the WordPress version requires it, then your changes will be lost. The recommended way of making theme changes is to either create a child theme or, if you are just making changes to the CSS, add your overriding CSS rules to the Custom CSS field (Appearance > Theme Options, click the Other tab).

Thank you so much for your detailed response. I’ve made the changes you suggested and it worked. Although, is there a way I can add my avatar to my responses without it replacing the commentors avatars?

I will also be working on doing a child theme for this as per your link tomorrow as I know what I’ve been doing isn’t great, and it’s stopped me from doing a theme update that I was supposed to do sometime ago.

You can go here to set up your Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar). You’ll need to create a wordpress.com account if you don’t already have one. Once you create a gravatar, it should automatically appear in your comments, and it shouldn’t affect the avatars of any other commentors.

Thanks again for this.

I’ve made the child theme so thanks so much for the instructions. However, now that it’s activated it’s now showing folder icons next to my categories on the home page, which I originally got rid of using the following in the custom css

.cat-links {
display: none;
}

I’m not sure what to do to get rid of these again.

Also, I’m having trouble setting up a Gravatar. It says I’m registered as a WordPress.com user but won’t let me log in.

Thanks again.

For any CSS which you’ve modified, just copy & paste the rule into either the Custom CSS field or into your child theme’s style.css file. It looks like you figured it out, though.

However, I just took a look at your child theme’s style.css file. What you shouldn’t do is copy in all of the CSS from the parent theme. You’ve already enqueued the parent’s style.css file, so you don’t need to copy everything into the child theme’s style.css file, only those things which changed. It makes it less confusing, plus it will make the rendering a bit faster since the browser doesn’t need to try to translate all of that excess CSS.

What error message are you getting from Gravatar? Did you forget your password? There should be a link there to have your password e-mailed to you.

Thanks again,

Just to clarify should the child theme’s style.css file only contain the changes you made to the parent theme’s style.css file?

If this is the case I’m not sure what changes I made to the parent’s file as I made quite a few. So I hope this doesn’t affect the performance of my site at all.

The folder’s next to my categories on the home page are still showing up even though I have the code I originally used to get rid of them in the custom css so I’m at a loss on how to get rid of them.

Gravatar is telling me to sign in with my WordPress.com account and when I try it says the accounts not active. Could it be because I have a www.remarpro.com account.

So for so many questions.

Just to clarify should the child theme’s style.css file only contain the changes you made to the parent theme’s style.css file?

Yes, that’s correct. Having the extra CSS shouldn’t affect it too badly.

The folder’s next to my categories on the home page are still showing up even though I have the code I originally used to get rid of them in the custom css so I’m at a loss on how to get rid of them.

Ah, OK, now I understand. The CSS that you gave earlier hides the category words from the individual posts. I didn’t read your earlier post carefully enough. To hide the folders, add this CSS rule:

#secondary .widget_categories ul li:before {
  content: none;
}

Gravatar is telling me to sign in with my WordPress.com account and when I try it says the accounts not active. Could it be because I have a www.remarpro.com account.

Are you sure you are logging in using the same e-mail address which you used to create your wordpress.com account? Try clicking the link for I forgot my password and see what happens. I have a wordpress.com account along with a www.remarpro.com account, so it shouldn’t matter.

Thank you so, so much the folders next to my categories have now gone.

You’ve been helpful beyond words, thanks for taking the time to help me.

I’m not sure what’s going on with Gravatar but I’ll keep trying.

Have a fantastic day.

Lisa.