Separating WordPress comments from pings and trackbacks

Aug 9, 2007 | Tags: guide, php, plugin, theme, wordpress | Written by Administrator

Alternative separation method

As with most things there are several alternatives, and a popular technique is to filter the pings. This requires less PHP code, but I also find it less flexible, and it needs extra work to show comment and ping counts.

First we modify the comments section so it looks like this:

<?php if ($comments) : ?>
  <h3 id="comments">
    <?php comments_number('No Responses','One Response','% Responses');?>
    to &#8220;<?php the_title(); ?>&#8221;
  </h3>
 
  <ol class="commentlist">
 
  <?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
    <?php if (comment_type == 'comment') : ?>
    <li <?php echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
      <cite><?php comment_author_link() ?></cite> Says:
      <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
      <em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em>
      <?php endif; ?>
      <br />
 
      <small class="commentmetadata">
        <a href="#comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" title="">
          <?php comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at <?php comment_time() ?>
        </a>
        <?php edit_comment_link('edit','&nbsp;&nbsp;',''); ?>
      </small>
 
      <?php comment_text() ?>
 
    </li>
    <?php endif; ?>
  <?php
    /* Changes every other comment to a different class */
    $oddcomment = ( empty( $oddcomment ) ) ? 'class="alt" ' : '';
  ?>
 
  <?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>
 
  </ol>
 
 <?php else : // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?>
 
  <?php if ('open' == $post->comment_status) : ?>
    <!-- If comments are open, but there are no comments. -->
 
   <?php else : // comments are closed ?>
    <!-- If comments are closed. -->
    <p class="nocomments">Comments are closed.</p>
 
  <?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

What's happening here is that we are stepping through all our comments as normal, but before we display a comment we check the type (line 10 and 28). If the type is 'comment' we display it, otherwise we assume it is a ping or trackback and move on.

The pings themselves are then displayed with:

<?php if ($comments) : ?>
  <h3 id="pings">Pings</h3>
 
  <ol class="commentlist">
 
  <?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
    <?php if (comment_type != 'comment') : ?>
    <li <?php echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
      <cite><?php comment_author_link() ?></cite> Says:
 
      <br />
 
      <small class="commentmetadata">
        <a href="#comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" title="">
          <?php comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at <?php comment_time() ?>
        </a>
        <?php edit_comment_link('edit','&nbsp;&nbsp;',''); ?>
      </small>
 
      <?php comment_text() ?>
 
    </li>
    <?php endif; ?>
  <?php
    /* Changes every other comment to a different class */
    $oddcomment = ( empty( $oddcomment ) ) ? 'class="alt" ' : '';
  ?>
 
  <?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>
 
  </ol>
  <?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

This is the reverse of the previous code and as we step through the comments we are only displaying comments whose type is not 'comment' (line 7 and 23) - all the pings and trackbacks.