Limit Characters in Widgets.php output – Comment Author

  • Hi, I have found the code for the recent comments widget in the widgets.php file.

    What I would like to be able to do is change this code so that it will truncate the number of characters output for “comment author’s” name. I have a lot of comments and lately, they are doing silly things like using names like “mindy in a bedazzled hot pink leather jacket in new jersey” as their comment author name and it is WACK.

    So, here is the code I need help with.

    function wp_widget_recent_comments($args) {
	global $wpdb, $comments, $comment;
	extract($args, EXTR_SKIP);
	$options = get_option('widget_recent_comments');
	$title = empty($options['title']) ? __('Recent Comments') : $options['title'];
	if ( !$number = (int) $options['number'] )
		$number = 5;
	else if ( $number < 1 )
		$number = 1;
	else if ( $number > 15 )
		$number = 15;

	if ( !$comments = wp_cache_get( 'recent_comments', 'widget' ) ) {
		$comments = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_author, comment_author_url, comment_ID, comment_post_ID FROM $wpdb->comments WHERE comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT $number");
		wp_cache_add( 'recent_comments', $comments, 'widget' );
	}
?>

		<?php echo $before_widget; ?>
			<?php echo $before_title . $title . $after_title; ?>
			<ul id="recentcomments"><?php
			if ( $comments ) : foreach ($comments as $comment) :
			echo  '<li class="recentcomments">' . sprintf(__('%1$s on %2$s'), get_comment_author_link(), '<a href="'. get_permalink($comment->comment_post_ID) . '#comment-' . $comment->comment_ID . '">' . get_the_title($comment->comment_post_ID) . '</a>') . '</li>';
			endforeach; endif;?></ul>
		<?php echo $after_widget; ?>
<?php
}

    I will buy you a nice beverage if you help. ??

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

  • You probably have your situation figured out but I am posting this
    for anyone else that might look at this post.

    If wordpress already has a function like this and anyone has found
    it, please let me know.

    I modified a version of code taken from
    https://www.totallyphp.co.uk/code/shorten_a_text_string.htm
    “This will also round the text to the nearest whole word instead
    of cutting off part way through a word.”

    I added the strip_tags function because when I used shorten_text(),
    it would cut the string half way through a html tag which leaves
    an open html tag when the page is rendered. (left the <p> tags in)

    This is a simplified version of what I have so hopefully it works.

    function shorten_text($text, $chars) {

	$text = strip_tags($text, '<p>');	

	$text = trim($text);

	if(!$text){
		return;
	}
	else{
		if(!chars){
			echo $text;
		}
		elseif($chars){

			$text = $text." ";
			$text = substr($text,0,$chars);
			$text = $text."...";
			echo $text;
		}
		else{
			return;
		}

	}
}
Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • The topic ‘Limit Characters in Widgets.php output – Comment Author’ is closed to new replies.