How to hide the comment form itself?

Hey Elliott!

Thank you for your suggestion! The only problem with modding comments.php, is that it wouldn’t be update-proof. But it seems to be the only way to specifically target the comment form itself.

I do have 2 solutions that can be made update-proof, by placing them in a custom functions file. But they seem to remove comment counts as well. But I’m going to share ’em anyway, as they might be of some use to someone else.

Solution 1
Can be used to close comments for certain posts:

function close_comment_form( $open, $post_id ) {
    $post = get_post( $post_id );
    if( $post->post_type == 'post' ) {
        return false;
    }
    return $open;
}
add_filter( 'comments_open', 'close_comment_form', 10 , 2 );

Solution 2
Can be used to hide the comment form via display: none; on CSS selector #HIDEcommentform:

function my_comment_form_defaults($defaults) {
    $defaults['id_form'] = 'HIDEcommentform';
    return $defaults;
}
add_filter('comment_form_defaults', 'my_comment_form_defaults');

In case someone has a solution for specifically targeting the comment form itself, via an update-proof functions file, then I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks again,

Ralph

Hi Elliott,

The reason I need to mod the comments part, is because of a special kind of post. I actually ended up creating a custom post type for this, which is actually way better than sticking to the standard WP post type. And I gave this custom post type its own file based on the original comments.php file. So now I can edit both the single-costum_post.php file plus the relating comments file, without touching Enfold’s core files. So it has pretty much the same result as a child theme, which is great!

Also, I noticed that when using a check resulting in comments_open() = false, the comment count is actually displayed when the comment count is greater than 0. So, in a comment count is greater than 0 situation, only the comment form will be hidden, while the comments and the comment count will be displayed. The reason I thought that not only the comment form was hidden but the comment count as well, is because I only tested in a zero comment situation. Had I tested a comments_open() function in a comment count is greater than 0 situation, only the comment form would have been hidden. I’m sorry for not figuring that out sooner!

Conclusion: Solution 1 is definitely suitable for hiding the comment form itself. And then, as per your suggestion, the “Comments are closed” text could be hidden using some CSS.

Thank you very much for your time and patience!

Kind regards,

Ralph