Custom comments.php few issues

Hi Jesse! I saw your “call for help” on Twitter, so I’m going to give it a go. A warning: I didn’t get much sleep last night, so I might have jibberish – so please bear with me, and forgive any weirdness ??

Okay so what I gather is you want a custom layout for your comments, with comment replies. It would help to see your comments_rating_list() (and our get_average_comment_rating())function – is that a plugin? From what I see here, there isn’t a whole lot that’s wrong, but without actually seeing the functions (to check for conflicts/errors), there’s not much to go by.

..and actually, you *can* use wp-list_comments, if that helps. You can use a function to rewrite how it’s output. Here’s an example I use all the time (I separate my stuff for easier management, but you don’t have to):

single.php

<div id="comments_div">
         <?php include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/commentform.php');
               comments_template(); ?>
       <!--/comments_div-->
       </div>

commentform.php holds the “form” layout. the comments_template() (which is basically comments.php) looks like so:

<?php // Do not delete these lines
	  if (!empty($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']) && 'comments.php' == basename($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']))
		die ('Please do not load this page directly. Thanks!');

	if ( post_password_required() ) {
		 // message for notifying of password-protected posts
		return;
	}
?>

<?php if (have_comments()) : ?>
    <h3 class="hot_topics">Add a Comment</h3>
    <div id="commentlist">
	<?php wp_list_comments('type=comment&callback=format_comment&style=div'); ?>
	<!--/commentlist-->
	</div>

	<div class="navigation">
		<div class="alignleft"><?php previous_comments_link() ?></div>
		<div class="alignright"><?php next_comments_link() ?></div>
	</div>

	<?php $postinfo = get_post($post->ID);
	      if(comments_open()) : ?>
		  <a class="comment-reply-link" href="#goto">Would you like to join the discussion?</a>

	<?php else : ?>
	      <small>Sorry - comments are closed on this subject. You can thank the spammers for that one.</small>
	<?php endif;
	      endif; ?>

You’ll see at the top I’m using wp_list_comments, but I’m pulling in a callback function to mess with the layout and add classes as I see fit. This section of my functions.php file looks like so:

function list_pings($comment, $args, $depth) {
       $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment;
?>
        <li id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>"><?php comment_author_link(); ?>
<?php }

add_filter('get_comments_number', 'comment_count', 0);
function comment_count( $count ) {
	global $id;
	$get_comments= get_comments('post_id=' . $id);
	$comments_by_type = &separate_comments($get_comments);
	return count($comments_by_type['comment']);
}

function format_comment($comment, $args, $depth) {
   $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment; ?>

   <div id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>" <?php comment_class(); ?>>
   <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
   <em><?php _e('Your comment is awaiting moderation.') ?></em><br />
   <?php endif; ?>

     <?php echo get_avatar($comment,$size='50' ); ?>
     <?php comment_text(); ?>

   <div class="comment-author vcard clear">
   <?php $from = $comment->extra_town;
         if($from !='') $mytown = ' (from ' . $from . ') '; ?>
     <span class="authorinfo">by <?php printf(__('<cite class="fn">%s</cite>'), get_comment_author_link()) ?><?php echo $mytown; ?>
     on <a class="date" href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars( get_comment_link( $comment->comment_ID ) ) ?>"><?php printf(__('%1$s at %2$s'), get_comment_date(),  get_comment_time()) ?></a>
     <?php edit_comment_link(__('e'),'  | ','') ?></span>
     <?php comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('add_below' => 'div-comment', 'depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?>
   <!--/comment-author-->
   </div>

<?php
}

Would that help you at all? You should be able to use your own classes and functions, and rearrange things as needed with this callback method.

@doodledee You’re awesome! Thanks a ton for your help!

Dear Jesse & Doodledee,

I saw your thread and thought that you might be “experts” in customized comments.

I have a question:
Is it possible to have a Twitter/Facebook share button on every comment? (so not on every post/page, but on every comment). If yes, do you know how to do it?

What I can imagine is that if people push these buttons, they will be directed to the comment, not to the whole post/page (but of course they can see the post and other comments too if they want)

Thanks a lot before!
I really hope for an answer

Marina