In WordPress you can easily list out the categories that a post was posted in. This is done with a single tag, that must be within the Loop.

<?php the_category(', '); ?>

You can change a few parameters of this tag, including the separator. This is the piece of text that separates each category if there’re more than one. In the code I gave you, it is a comma. You can change it to a bullet •, an arrow >, or whatever else suits you.

This piece of code will display links to each of the individual category pages. You can change the structure of these links on the Permalinks page in you WordPress admin settings.

For example, if you use articles as your base, then your category pages will be linked as such
http://example.com/articles/uncategorized

When WordPress is trying to display the category page, it is going to look for certain template files. If they aren’t found, then it looks for the next one. For category page, WordPress use the category.php file. You are welcome to write out your own category.php file, but I typically use the next template file, which is archive.php. For more info on what template files WordPress uses to render pages, visit DigWP.

Anyway, your archive or category page can typically be a modified version of the Loop used on the index page. If you want to leave out something, or add some type of content, then go ahead. One thing you may want to do is display a descriptive heading. This tells the user what they’re viewing exactly. I use the following

<?php $post = $posts[0]; // Hack. Set $post so that the_date() works. ?>
<?php /* If this is a category archive */ if (is_category()) { ?>
<h2 class="archive">Archive for the &#8216;<?php single_cat_title(); ?>&#8217; Category</h2>
<?php /* If this is a tag archive */ } elseif( is_tag() ) { ?>
<h2 class="archive">Posts Tagged &#8216;<?php single_tag_title(); ?>&#8217;</h2>
<?php /* If this is a daily archive */ } elseif (is_day()) { ?>
<h2 class="archive">Archive for <?php the_time('F jS, Y'); ?></h2>
<?php /* If this is a monthly archive */ } elseif (is_month()) { ?>
<h2 class="archive">Archive for <?php the_time('F, Y'); ?></h2>
<?php /* If this is a yearly archive */ } elseif (is_year()) { ?>
<h2 class="archive">Archive for <?php the_time('Y'); ?></h2>
<?php /* If this is an author archive */ } elseif (is_author()) { ?>
<h2 class="archive">Author Archive</h2>
<?php /* If this is a paged archive */ } elseif (isset($_GET['paged']) && !empty($_GET['paged'])) { ?>
<h2 class="archive">Blog Archives</h2>
<?php } ?>

This piece of code runs through several if and elseif statements to determine what type of page you’re viewing, and display a heading accordingly. You can use it in your own archives page by inserting the above code after

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

in your archive.php file.

Lastly, let’s cover listing out your blogs categories. This is easily done with the following code -

<?php wp_list_categories( ); ?>

This will list out all of the categories and their children that exist on your blog. You can do things to customize this output such as exclude categories, or change the title of the list

<?php wp_list_categories('exclude=1,2&title_li=New Title'); ?>

Or only show the parent categories.

wp_list_categories('depth=1'); ?>

The list goes on and on.

You may have noticed on your WordPress admin category page that you can add descriptions to the categories. Well, with a bit of php magic you can list out the names of the categories along with their descriptions.

First, go into your functions.php file and insert the following function

function advanced_cat () {
	$args=array(
		'orderby' => 'name',
		'order' => 'ASC',
		'pad_counts' => '1'
	);
	$categories=get_categories($args);
		foreach($categories as $category) {
			echo '<li><a href="' . get_category_link( $category->term_id ) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "View all posts in %s" ), $category->name ) . '" ' . '><span>' . $category->name.'</span> ';
			echo '<span>'. $category->description . '</span></a></li>';
		}
}

This is creating a foreach statement that defines the display for each category in the list. In this case we have it echoing the entire category name with its description inside an li tag. The category name is displayed within a link, and a span. The categories description is then outputted inside a span, as well as within the same link and list element that the category name was listed in. You can of course customize it and add classes, or more data.

In order to actually display our list you need to put the following code somewhere in your theme -

<?php advanced_cat(); ?>

This simply outputs the function we created earlier in the functions.php file.

Fin

Well that concludes today’s post. Thanks go out to comment author – Benje for bringing up the question on how to accomplish this.

1. WhatTheFont

Ever see a cool font on a site that you would just LOVE to use in your next design?  You take a closer look, and realize it’s an image.  What do you do now?  Some people might just look through all their own fonts trying to find a match.  But that leads to a lot of extra and useless work.  Why not just automate the process?  That’s what WhatTheFont (WTF) is here for.  All you need is an image with text in it.  WTF will give you a list of fonts similar to the one in the picture, and you can pick the right one on your own.  I’ve been using this tool for awhile, and I rarely have a case where it can’t find the font I’m looking for.  But when I do, I just post on their forums.  Yes, believe it or not, they have a whole community of font-enthusiasts that can instantly recognize any font, and put a name to it.

2. My IP Neighbors

Most of us are on a shared server.  Meaning that there are a bunch of other websites on the same server that our site is on.  Maybe it’s just me, but I often find myself wondering, or needing to know, what other websites are on your sever.  I’ll be honest, it isn’t the greatest service.  It works, but I’ve noticed that it can randomly go into an “Under Construction” state for months at a time.  But it gets the job done.  After five minutes of using it, I know that my host packs me on to a server with hundreds of other sites, and I need to switch hosting providers.

3. Who Is Hosting This

This goes hand in hand with My IP Neighbors.  If you’re ever curious about who is hosting a certain website, then this is the place.  When you’re actually searching for a hosting provider, this is also a great tool.  You can check out who hosts those lightning fast sites that we all love so much.

4. CSS Superscrub

As a developer, loading times should always be one of your main concerns.  Simple things like getting rid of redundant calls and stripping uneeded content can significantly reduce the size of any CSS file.  CSS Superscrub does that all for you.  This could significantly decrease page load times, as well as give you a more organized, and overall, better stylesheet.  I highly recommend giving it a try.

5. DomainScour

Every new site starts with a domain.  The problem is finding one that works for you.  You probably want to know which ones are already registered.  And you probably want to be given different options, in case your first choice was already taken.  You probably know of a few tools that can easily accomplish this task.  But in my own opinion, DomainScour is one of the best out there.  Every time I need a domain, I head to DomainScour first.

Wrapup

Well, I hope these tools make your life easier.  I find myself constantly using one or the other, whether I have a reason to or not.

Anyway, now I’ll show you how to actually use this feature in your WordPress themes.

1. Activate

For some reason, the WordPress guys decided to not make the post thumbnail post automatically show up in the “Write Post” page.  You have to activate it via a line of code in your functions.php file.

So just open up functions.php in your favorite text editor, or create a blank file if it doesn’t exist already.  Add the following snippet somewhere in the file, making sure it is within the php start and end tags.

add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');

Now, there should be a box labeled post-thumbnail in the editor.  But if you want to be backwards compatible, use an if statement so versions of WordPress below 2.9 won’t get screwed up by this function.

if ( function_exists( 'add_theme_support' ) ) add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );

2. Display the Post Thumbnail in Your Theme

Now that you’ve gotten the feature activated and available for use, you need to add it to your theme somewhere.

Add the following code somewhere in the Loop

<?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>

When you upload an image via the post-thumbnail feature it gives you several default size options.

The above code is essentially

<?php the_post_thumbnail('thumbnail'); ?>

But you can use different size such as

<?php the_post_thumbnail('full'); ?>

To display the full image.

<?php the_post_thumbnail(medium'); ?>

For medium sized images.

<?php the_post_thumbnail('large'); ?>

For large images.

These all output a generic img tag with a class of wp-post-image.

You can use this hook to apply styling to the image.

It is also possible to add a custom class to the outputted image, or customize the thumbnail size.

<?php the_post_thumbnail(array( 175,175), array( 'class' => 'alignleft' )); ?>

3. Check if the Post has a Thumbnail

If for whatever reason you need to check if the post actually has a thumbnail, use the following function -

<?php
	if ( has_post_thumbnail() )
		the_post_thumbnail( 'thumbnail' );
	else
		echo '<img src="default-image.png" alt="Example Image" title="Example" />';
?>

4. Make it Backwards Compatible

WPRecipes wrote a post on how to make the WordPress 2.9 post thumbnail feature degrade.  Here’s the code.  It just checks to see it the post thumbnail function exists.  If it does not, it serves up code for a post thumbnail that’ll work in older versions of WordPress.  This is useful for people that don’t want to go through all of their older post images and change them to be compatible with this new feature.

<?php
	if (  (function_exists('has_post_image')) && (has_post_image())  ) {
		the_post_image('thumbnail');
	} else {
		$postimageurl = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'post-image', true);
		if ($postimageurl) {
			echo '<img src="'.$postimageurl.'" alt="" />';
		}
	}
?>

5. Using the Post-Thumbnail Box

How many of you have used the media upload in the WordPress Editor before?

I know that for me, this was one of the first times.  Us hardcore web designers are too cool to use built in tools like “media uploads” when we have our fancy FTP software to do it ourselves, right? Right?

Well, while it may seem unusual and scary, you will be forced to venture into the unknown area of the media upload when using the post thumbnail function.  By the way, I hope I’m not the only one that just noticed that button a few minutes ago, otherwise I’ll sound like a jerk.

Anyway, you have the post thumbnail activated, and you also have it actually inserted into the theme.  The only thing left to do is upload and image and test this baby out.  Just click the “Set thumbnail” link, and up comes the media upload window.  I’m sure you can figure out how to upload your image, and then all you have to do is select “use as thumbnail”.  It’s really that easy.

That’s A Wrap

Well, hopefully you learned something about one of the newer, and more useful WordPress features.  Remember to leave a comment with questions and constructive criticism relating to this post.  And have fun with your new fancy post images, I bet all your friends will be jealous.

1.  Automatically display the copyright date

Well, I already mentioned this one so I might as well start off with it.  We just began 2010 and you know what that means, time to change those copyright dates.  Yes, go ahead and edit that date while mine changes automatically on the stroke of 12.  This can be accomplished with a simple code.

Copyright &copy; 200x-<?php echo date('Y'); ?> Example.com.

If you want to automatically display your copyright date as a range of dates (2008-2010), check out this awesome post on DigWP.

2. Display a List of Allowed HTML Tags

WordPress doesn’t allow a lot of HTML tags in comments. But your commentators may not know that, well now they will.

You may use: <?php echo allowed_tags(); ?>.

3. Display Related Posts By Tags

There’re a whole slew of plugins out there that will display related posts. In case you want to do it without a plugin, here’s how.

<?php
//for use in the loop, list 5 post titles related to first tag on current post
$backup = $post;  // backup the current object
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
echo "<div><h3>Related Posts</h3>";
	$tagIDs = array();
	if ($tags)
	{
		$tagcount = count($tags);
			for ($i = 0; $i < $tagcount; $i++) {
			$tagIDs[$i] = $tags[$i]->term_id;
			}
			$args=array(
			'tag__in' => $tagIDs,
			'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
			'showposts'=>5,
			'caller_get_posts'=>1
			);
			$my_query = new WP_Query($args);
			if( $my_query->have_posts() )
			{
			echo "<ul>";
			while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
			<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
			<?php endwhile;
			echo "</ul>";
			}
	} else echo "<span>No related posts were found!</span>";
	$post = $backup;  // copy it back
	wp_reset_query(); // to use the original query again
echo "</div>";
?>

4. Display Related Posts by Category

Depending on your type of blog, you may want to display your related posts based on the category of that actual post. Although, in my opinion tags would be more accurate, some people (myself included) don’t use tags.

<?php
$categories = get_the_category($post->ID);
if ($categories) {
	$category_ids = array();
	foreach($categories as $individual_category) $category_ids[] = $individual_category->term_id;

	$args=array(
		'category__in' => $category_ids,
		'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
		'showposts'=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
		'caller_get_posts'=>1
	);
	$my_query = new wp_query($args);
	if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
		echo '<h3>Related Posts</h3><ul>';
		while ($my_query->have_posts()) {
			$my_query->the_post();
		?>
			<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
		<?php
		}
		echo '</ul>';
	}
}
?>

5. Disable Commenting on Posts Older than One Month

If you write a REALLY good post on your blog, chances are it’ll be getting comments for quite some time. Maybe months later, people will still be talking actively about just how awesome of a post it was. That’s great and all, but there’s a certain point when you don’t have time to continuously moderate the comments on some of your older posts with new ones being made daily. This code will automatically disable the commenting function after some time. Paste it into your functions.php file ( Note – to change the number of days it will take to disable, just change the number 30)

<?php
function close_comments( $posts ) {
	if ( !is_single() ) { return $posts; }
	if ( time() - strtotime( $posts[0]->post_date_gmt ) > ( 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 ) ) {
		$posts[0]->comment_status = 'closed';
		$posts[0]->ping_status    = 'closed';
	}
	return $posts;
}
add_filter( 'the_posts', 'close_comments' );
?>

6. Place an “Edit” link next to each post.

This makes the lives of admins a whole lot easier. Just place this code somewhere within the Loop and it will automatically place an “Edit” link next to each post, that is only visible to admins.

<?php edit_post_link('Edit', ''); ?>

7. Include Your 404 Page

In the Loop of your themes, you probably have something like this -

<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php else : ?>
<404 TEXT HERE>
<?php endif; ?>

This is normally text to display if there are no posts. Instead of repeating this text on your index.php, single.php, search.php, ect… You can just put in your 404.php file, and replace the text after the “else” with

<?php include('404.php');?>

8. Display Popular Posts

A helpful list for visitors is to display the posts that other visitors supposedly liked. If 200 other people liked it enough to comment, chances are they will too. Try out this bit of code to display this information, make sure you put it in the functions.php file.

/*For Popular Posts*/
function popularPosts($num) {
    global $wpdb;
    $posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count, ID, post_title FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 , $num");
    foreach ($posts as $post) {
        setup_postdata($post);
        $id = $post->ID;
        $title = $post->post_title;
        $count = $post->comment_count;
        if ($count != 0) {
            $popular .= '<li>';
            $popular .= '<a href="' . get_permalink($id) . '" title="' . $title . '">' . $title . '</a> ';
            $popular .= '</li>';
        }
    }
    return $popular;
}
/*End of Popular Posts*/

To output the results, paste the following code into your theme. The number 10 can be changed to fit the number of posts you would like to show.

<?php echo popularPosts(10); ?>

9. Show a “Tweet This” link

With the growing popularity of Twitter, it’s an opportunity you simply can’t miss out on. Putting a simple link at the end of each post could lead to quite a bit more traffic.

<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=I just read <?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Send this page to Twitter!" target="_blank">Tweet This!</a>

10. Show a Send to Facebook Link

Just like Twitter, facebook offers a lot of exposure and traffic. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourself with this code -

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<?php the_permalink();?>&t=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="blank">Share on Facebook</a>

11. Widgettize Your Sidebar

Widgets are a dynamic and quick way to update content in your sidebar and footer.
Just put the following code in your functions.php file -

/*For Sidebar Widget*/

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'sidebar',
'before_widget' => '<div class="box">',
'after_widget' => '</div><!--.box-->',
'before_title' => '<h3>',
'after_title' => '</h3>',
));
/*End of For Sidebar Widget*/

Then, wherever you want your widgets to appear, put this

<?php if ( function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar(1) ) : else:  ?>
				<?php endif; ?>

12. List the Author’s Bio

On multi authored blogs you may want to list a bit of information about the author of a post. This information can easily be edited via the WP admin panel, and can easily be used via this code

<?php the_author_description(); ?>

13. Adding a Print Button to your Posts

While this is arguably redundant to built-in browser functions, some people might find it useful. It’s also worth mentioning it’s not a WordPress only trick, so all of you poor non-wordpress users get to have fun with it too.

<a href="javascript:window.print()">Print this Article</a>

14. Display Schedule Posts

Scheduling posts can help create a consistency of publish time for readers. Chances are, you don’t want to wake up at 5:00 AM to publish a post, but maybe your loyal foreign readers like to check their favorite blogs around lunchtime.

Well, with this code, you can also help create some suspense ahead of time.

<?php

$my_query = new WP_Query('post_status=future&order=DESC&showposts=5');

if ($my_query->have_posts()) {

    while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>

        <?php the_title(); ?>

    <?php endwhile;

}

?>

15. How to Exclude Subpages in the Nav

For whatever reason, you may want to exclude subpages when showing the navigation for your WordPress theme.

<?php wp_list_pages (array ( 'depth' => 1, 'title_li' => _ _('')))?>

Note – This also discards the “Pages:” text that would normally precede the actual list of pages.

16.  Display Recent Comments

If you want to display the most recent comments on your blog, simply paste the following code into your functions.php file.

<?php
function recent_comments($src_count=10, $src_length=60, $pre_HTML='<ul>', $post_HTML='</ul>') {
global $wpdb;
$sql = "SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title, post_password, comment_ID, comment_post_ID, comment_author, comment_date_gmt, comment_approved, comment_type,
SUBSTRING(comment_content,1,$src_length) AS com_excerpt FROM $wpdb->comments LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->posts ON ($wpdb->comments.comment_post_ID = $wpdb->posts.ID) WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND comment_type = '' AND post_password = '' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC
LIMIT $src_count";
$comments = $wpdb->get_results($sql);
$output = $pre_HTML;
foreach ($comments as $comment) {
$output .= "<li><a href=\"" . get_permalink($comment->ID) . "#comment-" . $comment->comment_ID . "\" title=\"on " . $comment->post_title . "\">" . strip_tags($comment->com_excerpt) ."...</a></li>";
}
$output .= $post_HTML;
echo $output;
}
?>

Then, to display the actual output, just use this code anywhere in your theme.

<?php recent_comments(); ?>

17.  Remove Curly Quotes from Your Posts

There are actually two different types of quotes that you can use.  There are the commonly used ones on your keyboard, and then there are the pretty looking ones that WordPress uses.

WordPress automatically replaces all of your quotes with curly quotes, and this can sometimes mess up code you have in your posts.  To avoid this, paste the following code in your functions.php file.

<?php remove_filter('the_content', 'wptexturize'); ?>

18. List Categories as a Dropdown

If you want to list the categories on your blog as a dropdown, use the following code anywhere within your theme files.

<?php wp_dropdown_categories( ); ?>

19. Display a Login/Logout Link

Blogs that allow user registration may find it helpful to display a logout/login link for use by themselves and their visitors.

<?php wp_loginout(); ?>

20. Display a Admin Panel/Register Link

Many theme developers just put a direct link to the WordPress admin panel if they want one.  Well, WordPress has a built-in function that will display as a register link and automatically change to a link to the admin panel when the user logs in.

<?php wp_register(); ?>

21. Display Ads on Old Posts

We already know how to disable commenting on older posts.  Well, it’s also plausible that you may want to insert advertisements on those posts.

Paste the following code into your functions.php file -

function is_old_post($post_id=null){
   $days = 30;
   global $wp_query;
   if(is_single() || is_page()) {
      if(!$post_id) {
         $post_id = $wp_query->post->ID;
      }
      $current_date = time();
      $offset = $days *60*60*24;
      $post_id = get_post($post_id);
      $post_date = mysql2date('U',$post_id->post_date);
      $cunning_math = $post_date + $offset;
      $test = $current_date - $cunning_math;
      if($test > 0){
         $return = true;
      }else{
         $return = false;
      }
   }else{
      $return = false;
   }
   return $return;
}

Then, place the following in your single.php file.

<?php if(is_old_post()){ ?>
INSERT AD CODE HERE
<?php } ?>

22. Display the Total Number of Posts

If you want to showoff how many posts you’ve made on your blog, you might want to try out this code. ( I think I’m at 5 right now )

<?php $numposts = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT count(*) FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_type = 'post'");
if (0 < $numposts)
     $numposts = number_format($numposts);
echo $numposts.' posts.';
?>

23. Display an Ad after the First Post

If you want to display an ad after the first post, place the following code right before the endwhile in the Loop of your WordPress theme (index.php).

<?php if ($loopcounter <= 1) { include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/ad.php'); } ?>

Then, you’ll need to place the code for your ads in a file called “ad.php”

24.  Display Featured Posts

If you want to add featured posts functionality to your WordPress blog, you’ll first need to give each of your featured posts a category of “featured” or something similar.

Then place the following code in your theme files -

<?php query_posts('cat=2&showposts=5'); ?>  <ul>   <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>   <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>   <?php endwhile;?> </ul>

The number after “cat=” should be changed to fit the ID of your featured category.

25. Exclude a Certain Category From being Shown

If you don’t want a certain category to be shown, use the following code -

<?php query_posts('cat=-YOUR CATEGORY ID NUMBER'); ?>  <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>   //the loop here <?php endwhile;?>

THAT’S ALL FOLKS

Well, I hope you all feel a bit smarter than you did prior to reading this.  Hopefully you’ll find these tips and tricks as useful as I have.  If you have any problems with one of them, you can always comment below.  Good luck!

For the record, this post consists of 1982 words.

We’re all pretty familiar with the old WordPress comment form.

Long foreach PHP Statement

That’s really all you need to know about the old comments template. The old comments template was just a big jumble of code that was completely incomprehensible by those who didn’t know any PHP. It worked just fine, but it wasn’t easy to customize or understand for the average user. Now, upgrading your comments.php file is incredibly easy. Just replace the entire foreach statement with this function :

 wp_list_comments( );

This should be within php tags of course.
To make your theme up to date, you could just do that, but you’ll probably want to download the default comments.php file from WordPress.org if you’re starting a new theme.

Well, that seemed pretty easy. But the first thing that’s going to confuse you is where you make your edits. Well, it’s easier than you may think, and I’ll so you how to get everything you could with the old template and much more.

So with the old comments template, you could just add a line of code to display a gravatar or something. What now? Well, that’s what I’m going to teach you.

Ok, so you have all of your current files. First things first, you need to add the following somewhere in the head of the header.php file. It makes the threaded comments work correctly.

 if ( is_singular() ) wp_enqueue_script( comment-reply ); wp_head();

This should be within php tags of course.
Now, that you have a completely working and current, comment template, it’s time to customize it. Unless you like the default style of comments.

1. Open comments.php
You need to replace the wp_list_comments function with the following -

wp_list_comments('type=comment&callback=theme_comment');

This should be within php tags of course.
This is defining a function for our custom comment form that will be in the functions.php file. Of course, if you don’t like the fact that code related to comments isn’t in the comments.php file you can move it there, but this is how I did it.

2. Ok open up functions.php, if you don’t already have one, just create one.
Insert the following code -

function theme_comment($comment, $args, $depth) {
   $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment; ?>
	<li> id="comment-"&gt;</li>

Everything inside your li tags is what is displayed for each single comment. Keep in mind, this is just the individual comments, things like the comment submission form should go above or below the function in your comments.php file.
Anyway, here’s a quick rundown on everything you just put in your functions.php file.

The comment_class(); function displays all the classes for the comments, and there are a lot of them. The comment_ID() just displays the comments ID number. Simple right?

Now, it’s all up to you. But I won’t leave you up a river without a paddle, I’m going to give you some useful snippets of code that you should definitely use in your comments template. These, and much more can of course be found on WordPress.org.

1. Gravatar

 echo get_avatar($comment,$size='80',$default='
' );

This should be within php tags of course.

Displays the gravatar of the comment author. Just edit the size, and the path to url.

2. Comment Time

comment_date('F jS, Y');

This should be within php tags of course.

Displays the time that the comment was left.

3. Reply to Comment link

comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('reply_text' => 'REPLY ', 'depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth'])));

This should be within php tags of course.

If you want to take advantage of the threaded comments, you’ll need this. It allows users to reply to individual comments. The result is a nested list, so make sure to code your CSS and markup accordingly. You can of course change the text that is displayed in the link.

4. Comment Text

comment_text();

This should be within php tags of course.

You won’t get many comments without this. It displays the text of the comment, rather basic,

5. Comment Status

comment_approved == '0') : ?>
<em></em>

This displays the status of your comments. I.e. If it’s awaiting moderation or not. You should place this code above your comment text.

6. Edit Comment Link

edit_comment_link('Edit');

This should be within php tags of course.

This allows the Administrator quick access to editing individual comments. Helps with spam, and whatnot.

7. Author Comment Style

You may want the author to have their own special style of comments. Luckily, that’s already built into WordPress, so all you need to do is target the CSS class in your style.css file.
The class you want to use is bypostauthor.
In case you also want certain users to have specially colored comments, use comment-author-USERNAME

Wrapup

Well, hope you found this tutorial useable. Because I know I’ll get comments about this, yes I know 2.7 was released awhile ago, but it’s never to late to write a tutorial on something from it. If you want to see the finished result, scroll down and leave me a comment.