{"id":1363,"date":"2009-11-16T22:24:50","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T20:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/?p=1363"},"modified":"2009-11-16T22:24:50","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T20:24:50","slug":"how-to-style-editor-or-any-role-comments-in-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/how-to-style-editor-or-any-role-comments-in-wordpress\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Style Editor (Or Any Role) Comments in WordPress"},"content":{"rendered":"

I've recently moved to WordPress an active community site which is run and moderated by several editors and administrators. Each post gets dozens of comments, and I wanted to highlight those made by staff members.<\/p>\n

What not to do<\/h2>\n

If you've googled a bit for a solution on how to identify authors' or admins' comments, you've probably seen several explanations on how to implement this by comparing emails. Something like:<\/p>\n

\n\n\t\t
\n\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
code<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t
  1. <?php<\/div><\/li>\n
  2. if(<\/span> $comment->comment_author_email<\/span> == 'admin@blog.com'<\/span> )<\/span> {<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  3.     $class = 'admin'<\/span>;<\/div><\/li>\n
  4. }<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  5. ?><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

    While this is sort of OK for a single author weblog, it's totally inconvenient and not scalable for a community site run by several editors and administrators: you would need to edit the template file whenever there's a new member in the staff, and nothing prevents an unlogged user from commenting using your well known email address.<\/p>\n

    So, what to do instead?
    \n<\/p>\n

    First, collect all users and their role<\/h2>\n

    WordPress function get_users_of_blog()<\/tt> returns an array of all users with their user_id and role. We're going to loop through all users and collect their id's and roles in an array.<\/p>\n

    \n\n\t\t
    \n\n\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
    code<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
    \n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
    \n\t\t
    1. $users = get_users_of_blog();<\/div><\/li>\n
    2. foreach( $users as $user ) {<\/div><\/li>\n
    3.     $role = array_pop( array_keys( unserialize($user->meta_value) ) ); \/\/ yeah, I know, looks awkward :)<\/div><\/li>\n
    4.     $user_id = $user->user_id;<\/div><\/li>\n
    5.     if ( $role != 'subscriber' ) \/\/ collect id of anyone whose role is greater than 'subscriber'<\/div><\/li>\n
    6.         $roles[ $user_id ] = $role;<\/div><\/li>\n
    7. }<\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

      At this point, the array $roles<\/tt> is populated with something like:<\/p>\n

      \n\n\t\t
      \n\n\t\t
      \n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
      code<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
      \n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
      \n\t\t
      1. $roles = array (<\/div><\/li>\n
      2.     '1' => 'administrator',<\/div><\/li>\n
      3.     '2' => 'editor',<\/div><\/li>\n
      4.     '3' => 'editor',<\/div><\/li>\n
      5.     '4' => 'administrator',<\/div><\/li>\n
      6.     '5' => 'author',<\/div><\/li>\n
      7. );<\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

        Now identify for each comment the commenter's role<\/h2>\n

        Typically, your theme has a file named comments.php<\/tt> with a loop that looks like this:<\/p>\n

        \n\n\t\t
        \n\n\t\t
        \n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
        code<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
        \n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
        \n\t\t
        1. <ol id="commentlist"><\/div><\/li>\n
        2. <?php foreach (<\/span>$comments as $comment)<\/span> : ?><\/div><\/li>\n
        3.     <li><\/div><\/li>\n
        4.     <p>By <?php comment_author_link(<\/span>)<\/span> ?> - <?php comment_date(<\/span>)<\/span> ?><\/p><\/div><\/li>\n
        5.     <?php comment_text(<\/span>)<\/span> ?><\/div><\/li>\n
        6.     <\/li><\/div><\/li>\n
        7. <?php endforeach; ?><\/div><\/li>\n
        8. <\/ol><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

          WordPress fetches every comment as an object containing, among others, the following informations:<\/p>\n

          \n\n\t\t
          \n\n\t\t
          \n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
          code<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
          \n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
          \n\t\t
          1. stdClass Object (<\/div><\/li>\n
          2.     [comment_author] => Joe<\/div><\/li>\n
          3.     [comment_author_email] => joe@email.com<\/div><\/li>\n
          4.     [comment_author_url] => http:\/\/joe.com\/<\/div><\/li>\n
          5.     [comment_author_IP] => 100.101.102.103<\/div><\/li>\n
          6.     [user_id] => 4<\/div><\/li>\n
          7. )<\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

            If the user is logged in, $comment->user_id<\/tt> is an integer greater than 0. If the user is not logged in (assuming non logged users can comment), $comment->user_id<\/tt> is zero.<\/p>\n

            A trivial way to get an user's role would be to issue a call to get_userdata( $user_id )<\/tt> within the comment loop but that would add an extra query per logged in user, which is an unnecessary burden if you an active community of commenters and a lot of registered users.<\/p>\n

            Instead we'll simply compare each user_id with what we've collected at the beginning. The comment loop would be something like:<\/p>\n

            \n\n\t\t
            \n\n\t\t
            \n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
            code<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
            \n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
            \n\t\t
            1. <ol id="commentlist"><\/div><\/li>\n
            2. <?php foreach (<\/span>$comments as $comment)<\/span> : ?><\/div><\/li>\n
            3.     <?php \/\/ The extra stuff to get commenter's role<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
            4.     $user_id = $comment->user_id<\/span>;<\/div><\/li>\n
            5.     $role = (<\/span> isset(<\/span> $roles[<\/span>$user_id]<\/span> )<\/span> ? $roles[<\/span>$user_id]<\/span> : ''<\/span> )<\/span>;<\/div><\/li>\n
            6.     ?><\/div><\/li>\n
            7.     <li class="<?php echo $role; ?>"><\/div><\/li>\n
            8.     <p>By <?php comment_author_link(<\/span>)<\/span> ?> - <?php comment_date(<\/span>)<\/span> ?><\/p><\/div><\/li>\n
            9.     <?php comment_text(<\/span>)<\/span> ?><\/div><\/li>\n
            10.     <\/li><\/div><\/li>\n
            11. <?php endforeach; ?><\/div><\/li>\n
            12. <\/ol><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

              Now, identifying staff comments is just a matter of CSS:<\/p>\n

              \n\n\t\t
              \n\n\t\t
              \n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
              code<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
              \n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
              \n\t\t
              1. #commentlist li { border:2px solid white; } \/* not logged or subscriber *\/<\/div><\/li>\n
              2. #commentlist li.administrator { border:2px solid red } \/* blog admin *\/<\/div><\/li>\n
              3. #commentlist li.editor { border:2px solid blue } \/* editor *\/<\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

                All in all<\/h2>\n

                All in all, this very simple method only adds one extra query to the whole page (issued by get_users_of_blog()<\/tt>). You could even easily get rid of that extra query with caching in a flat .php file the array produced by get_users_of_blog()<\/tt> and refresh it with hooking into 'set_user_role' (see wp-includes\/capabilities.php<\/tt>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                I've recently moved to WordPress an active community site which is run and moderated by several editors and administrators. Each post gets dozens of comments, and I wanted to highlight those made by staff members. What not to do If you've googled a bit for a solution on how to identify authors' or admins' comments, you've probably seen several explanations\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2,324,245],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-published","tag-code","tag-comments","tag-wordpress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}