Programmatically Turn Off Comments in WordPress with Filter

To turn comments off programmatically with a filter in WordPress, you can set the post object’s comment_status variable to “closed”. Call the filter at some point after the post is loaded but before the comments are rendered. This is a hack, but I haven’t seen a simpler approach, beside installing another plugin. In the example below, the condition to disable comments is simple. If a post is in a certain category, comments aren’t allowed. Otherwise, go ahead and behave as normal. You can still disable comments on a per post basis in other categories.

One thing to note is the use of the global $post object. The function needs access to the object to set the variable.

add_filter('get_header', 'sb_turn_comments_off');
function sb_turn_comments_off(){
    if(in_category("Projects") AND is_single() ){
      global $post;
      $post->comment_status="closed";
  }
}

I’ve only tested this with the Thematic framework. I assume that other themes will check the comment_status variable before allowing comments.

Thematic Function Reference

I could not find a listing of all thematic theme functions for WordPress online. So the following is just a recursive grep of the thematic directory.

grep -rh "function thematic_" *

Each function needs to prepended with “thematic_” when adding as a action or filter eto a WordPress childtheme. Example

function my_function_says_hello(){ print "Hello!"; }
add_filter('thematic_abovepagebottom', 'my_function_says_hello');

Here is the list

remove_generators()
abovecomments()
abovecommentslist()
belowcommentslist()
abovetrackbackslist()
belowtrackbackslist()
abovecommentsform()
show_subscription_checkbox()
belowcommentsform()
show_manual_subscription_form()
belowcomments()
singlecomment_text()
multiplecomments_text()
postcomment_text()
postreply_text()
commentbox_text()
commentbutton_text()
commenter_link()
comments_template()
include_comments()
abovecontainer()
archives()
navigation_above()
navigation_below()
above_indexloop()
archiveloop()
authorloop()
categoryloop()
indexloop()
searchloop()
singlepost()
tagloop()
below_indexloop()
above_categoryloop()
below_categoryloop()
above_searchloop()
below_searchloop()
above_tagloop()
below_tagloop()
belowcontainer()
page_title()
nav_above()
archive_loop()
author_loop()
category_loop()
index_loop()
single_post()
search_loop()
tag_loop()
time_title()
time_display()
postheader()
postheader_posteditlink()
postheader_posttitle()
postheader_postmeta()
postmeta_authorlink()
postmeta_entrydate()
postmeta_editlink()
content()
archivesopen()
category_archives()
monthly_archives()
archivesclose()
404()
404_content()
postfooter()
postfooter_posteditlink()
postfooter_postcategory()
postfooter_posttags()
postfooter_postcomments()
postfooter_postconnect()
nav_below()
previous_post_link()
next_post_link()
author_info_avatar()
cats_meow($glue)
tag_ur_it($glue)
comments($comment, $args, $depth)
pings($comment, $args, $depth)
body_class( $print = true )
post_class( $print = true )
comment_class( $print = true )
date_classes( $t, &$c, $p = '' )
abovefooter()
footer()
footertext($thm_footertext)
belowfooter()
after()
subsidiaries()
siteinfoopen()
siteinfo()
siteinfoclose()
create_doctype()
head_profile()
doctitle()
create_contenttype()
seo()
canonical_url()
use_excerpt()
use_autoexcerpt()
create_description()
show_description()
create_robots()
show_robots()
create_stylesheet()
show_rss()
show_commentsrss()
show_pingback()
show_commentreply()
head_scripts()
add_menuclass($ulclass)
before()
aboveheader()
header()
brandingopen()
blogtitle()
blogdescription()
brandingclose()
access()
belowheader()
trim_excerpt($text)
the_excerpt($deprecated = '')
excerpt_rss()
tag_query()
sidebar()
abovemainasides()
betweenmainasides()
belowmainasides()
aboveindextop()
belowindextop()
aboveindexinsert()
belowindexinsert()
aboveindexbottom()
belowindexbottom()
abovesingletop()
belowsingletop()
abovesingleinsert()
belowsingleinsert()
abovesinglebottom()
belowsinglebottom()
abovepagetop()
belowpagetop()
abovepagebottom()
belowpagebottom()
abovesubasides()
belowsubasides()
subsidiaryopen()
before_first_sub()
between_firstsecond_sub()
between_secondthird_sub()
after_third_sub()
subsidiaryclose()
search_form()
widgets_init()
sort_widgetized_areas($content)
primary_aside()
secondary_aside()
1st_subsidiary_aside()
2nd_subsidiary_aside()
3rd_subsidiary_aside()
index_top()
index_insert()
index_bottom()
single_top()
single_insert()
single_bottom()
page_top()
page_bottom()
before_widget_area($hook)
after_widget_area($hook)
before_widget()
after_widget()
before_title()
after_title()

Thematic is a nice theme framework for WordPress. More info is available at the developers website ThemeShaper. Using the above filters it is possible to create a highly customized child theme quickly.