How to use a custom comments template

My wordpress makes use of custom post templates. I'm now trying to create a custom comments template as well.

I noticed that the comments template is called via this function <?php comments_template( '', true ); ?>

I checked in my functions.php and comments.php but don't see the function being declared anywhere. Can someone please advise on how to go about introducing a custom comments template?

My wordpress makes use of custom post templates. I'm now trying to create a custom comments template as well.

I noticed that the comments template is called via this function <?php comments_template( '', true ); ?>

I checked in my functions.php and comments.php but don't see the function being declared anywhere. Can someone please advise on how to go about introducing a custom comments template?

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Share Improve this question asked Oct 27, 2011 at 13:05 swordfish81swordfish81 56633 gold badges1212 silver badges3232 bronze badges 2

• 1 @Chip Bennet, thanks for the heads up. Reading through that page, I notice that to set up an alternative comments template, i'd have to use this <?php comments_template( '/short-comments.php' ); ?> so am I right in assuming that I can start off by copy pasting the code from comments.php into short-comments.php and then work my way through from there? – swordfish81 Commented Oct 27, 2011 at 13:31
• You can do it that way, but why? What are you trying to accomplish? – Chip Bennett Commented Oct 27, 2011 at 15:06

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2 Answers 2

Sorted by: Reset to default 2

The comments_template() template tag sets up the commenting variables and functions, and includes the comments.php template-part file. So, to create a custom comments template, use comments.php.

From there, you will need to get comfortable with the arguments, filters, and callbacks for wp_list_comments(), which is used to output the comment list, and comment_form(), which is used to output the comment-reply form.

You can use the callback function on wp_list_comments() function.

wp_list_comments();

Usually, you will find this line in comments.php file of your wordpress theme. And the output from this command is a pretty straightforward HTML structure.

Wordpress have a option of passing the callback function as an argument to wp_list_comments function.

This callback function should return the modified HTML structure of comments section, which we are looking to implement.

<ul class="comment-list comments">
    <?php
    wp_list_comments( array(
        'style'      => 'ul',
        'short_ping' => true,
            'callback' => 'better_comments'
    ) );
     ?>
</ul><!-- ment-list -->

You can check detailed tutorial here

https://www.5balloons.info/custom-html-for-comments-section-in-wordpress-theme/