You want to allow visitors to your blog to leave a comment on the latest post without having to click on the comments link or the post title?

You think this should be straight forward and easy to do?

But far from it…

First step is to locate the template file that shows your front page: in most cases,
this is index.php (but it could also be home.php, or any page template that was set to be shown on the front).

Second step is to add comments_template( ”, true ); within the loop, after the_content(), and maybe after any postmetadata.

However, this is not enough, because the wordpress template tag comments_template() has some check build-in, to make sure that comments are normally only be displayed either on a single article or page.

Find this in /wp-includes/comment-template.php line 858:
if ( !(is_single() || is_page() || $withcomments) || empty($post) )
return;

The code provides the use of a global variable $withcomments that can be set to boolean true (or 1) to allow the display of comments.

Putting it all together, here is what to add into your font page template where you want the comments and comments form to show:
<?php global $withcomments; $withcomments = true;
comments_template( '', true ); ?>

For those, who find the structure of the new wp3 default theme TwentyTen difficult to work with, here a direct pointer:
you will find the code to edit in loop.php after line 135:
<div class="entry-content">
<?php the_content( __( 'Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&rarr;</span>', 'twentyten' ) ); ?>
<?php wp_link_pages( array( 'before' => '<div class="page-link">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentyten' ), 'after' => '</div>' ) ); ?>
</div><!-- .entry-content -->
<?php global $withcomments; $withcomments = true;
comments_template( '', true ); ?>


To apply the excerpt length limit to all excerpts, a modification of a core wordpress function ‘wp_trim_excerpt()’ would be needed.
However, changing core files is not a good idea, as the changes will be lost after each update.

Luckily, the same result can be achieved by using a fillter hook on ‘get_the_excerpt’; the code for it is added to functions.php of the theme.

(updated to utilize the filters ‘excert_length’ and ‘excerpt_more’ – aug 2010)

function wp_trim_all_excerpt($text) { // Creates an excerpt if needed; and shortens the manual excerpt as well
global $post;
if ( '' == $text ) {
$text = get_the_content('');
$text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
$text = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $text);
}
$text = strip_shortcodes( $text ); // optional
$text = strip_tags($text);
$excerpt_length = apply_filters('excerpt_length', 55);
$excerpt_more = apply_filters('excerpt_more', ' ' . '[...]');
$words = explode(' ', $text, $excerpt_length + 1);
if (count($words)> $excerpt_length) {
array_pop($words);
$text = implode(' ', $words);
$text = $text . $excerpt_more;
} else {
$text = implode(' ', $words);
}
return $text;
}
remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');
add_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_all_excerpt');


edit: expanded to take remove shortcode from the excerpt; 12/07/2010

thanks to michael.oeser for his well written article: Wie man WordPress Textauszüge mit the_excerpt individuell anpasst. It contains even more details on how to tweak the excerpt.

The code that needs to be added to functions.php of the theme is shown below:
it is called in the text with: [ a d s e n s e     f l o a t = ' l e f t ' ]
// allowed parameter: 'left', 'center', 'right', 'none';
// other entries will be treated as 'none';
function add_adsense($atts) {
extract(shortcode_atts(array(
'float' => 'none',
), $atts));
if($float == 'left') $float = ' style=" float:left; margin: 10px 10px 5px 0; "';
elseif($float == 'center') $float = ' style=" display:block; margin: 10px auto; text-align:center; "';
elseif($float == 'right') $float = ' style=" float:right; margin: 10px 0 5px 10px; "';
else $float = '';
$ads = '<span class="adsense "'.$float.'>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-0123412341234123";
/* adsense_in_posts */
google_ad_slot = "1234512345";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
</span>';
return $ads;
}
add_shortcode('adsense', 'add_adsense');

You can see the result here entered into a passage of ‘lorem ipsum’:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse in libero libero. Morbi porttitor, sapien et aliquam malesuada, augue elit tincidunt tortor, vel convallis orci felis quis turpis. Maecenas sit amet diam ut nibh rhoncus accumsan in eget urna. Vivamus sed tempor odio. Curabitur ultricies ultricies molestie. Maecenas eu nisl elit, vitae auctor eros. Nam quis risus libero. Nunc nec ligula sem. Nullam eget sem sed nisi porttitor imperdiet. Etiam ac sapien sed est vestibulum iaculis et id mauris. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Integer tortor magna, malesuada id imperdiet eu, fringilla eget sapien. Donec augue sem, semper et ultrices a, cursus eget nisl. Duis dui enim, ornare ut facilisis eget, egestas ac orci. Etiam viverra varius erat, id feugiat tellus egestas eget.

Aliquam sem purus, ornare ac tempor nec, accumsan ut felis. In cursus massa vitae mauris iaculis nec semper dui commodo. Proin fermentum, lacus ut accumsan scelerisque, orci dui sodales arcu, ac mollis neque odio id turpis. Mauris sagittis tincidunt ultricies. Sed diam ipsum, posuere quis scelerisque et, malesuada quis orci. Mauris nec lectus ac nibh interdum aliquet.

PS: I found more examples of shortcodes in tuttoaster.com

function custom_max_width_editor() {
echo '<style type="text/css"> textarea#content, #content_ifr {
max-width:580px;
min-height:400px;
border-right: 1px solid #ddd; }</style>';
}
add_action('admin_head', 'custom_max_width_editor');


the ‘min-height’ is optional, and will give you a larger writing area to start with.
and the border shows clearly how wide the defined writing area is.
adjust the number values, and enjoy the next level of control over your wordpress.

you might even want to add the predominant background-color of your blog’s content area …

ps:
a big thank you to @Purren from the wordpress support forum, who submitted a correction to make it also work for the visual editor.

there are plugins available which extend the functionality of the standard category widget to do this.

sometimes, however, it can be desirable to have the same feature with a function that you can use like you would use ‘wp_list_categories();’ – exactly with the same arguments.

/* hi_list_categories() to highlight the current categories of a post in single.php;
uses the arguments in the same way as wp_list_categories();
alchymyth 2010 / www.transformationpowertools.com/wordpress */
function hi_list_categories($args) {
//following section is extracted from http://phpxref.com/xref/wordpress/wp-includes/category-template.php.source.html#l389
$defaults = array(
'show_option_all' => '',
'orderby' => 'name',
'order' => 'ASC',
'show_last_update' => 0,
'style' => 'list',
'show_count' => 0,
'hide_empty' => 1,
'use_desc_for_title' => 1,
'child_of' => 0,
'feed' => '',
'feed_type' => '',
'feed_image' => '',
'exclude' => '',
'exclude_tree' => '',
'current_category' => 0,
'hierarchical' => true,
'title_li' => __( 'Categories' ),
'echo' => 1,
'depth' => 0
);
$r = wp_parse_args( $args, $defaults );
if ( !isset( $r['pad_counts'] ) && $r['show_count'] && $r['hierarchical'] ) {
$r['pad_counts'] = true;
}
if ( isset( $r['show_date'] ) ) {
$r['include_last_update_time'] = $r['show_date'];
}
if ( isset( $r['echo'] ) ) {
$echo_or_return = $r['echo'];
} ; $r['echo'] = 0;
if ( true == $r['hierarchical'] ) {
$r['exclude_tree'] = $r['exclude'];
$r['exclude'] = '';
}
extract( $r );
//end of extracted code
global $post;
// highlighting only for single post view
if(is_single()) :
$categories = wp_get_post_categories($post->ID);
foreach ($categories as $catid) {
$cat = get_category($catid);
$cats[] = $cat->cat_ID;
}
$cats_list = wp_list_categories( $r );
foreach($cats as $value) {
if(preg_match('#-item-' . $value . '">#', $cats_list)) {
$cats_list = str_replace('item-' . $value . '">', 'item-' . $value . ' current-cat">', $cats_list);
}
}
if($echo_or_return == 1) { echo $cats_list; }
else { return $cats_list; } ;
else :
//use default category list if not single post view
wp_list_categories( $args );
endif;
} //end of function hi_list_categories();

in the same way, as you would have used ‘wp_list_categories();’ you can now use ‘hi_list_categories();’ which will add the class ‘.current-cat’ to each of the categories of the post in single post view.

ps:
viewing this article made me aware of the restricted functionality of the ‘code’ plugin which does not allow empty lines and text indents – if anyone of you knows of a great code plugin, please let me know.

<?php $num_cols = 4; // set the number of columns here
$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1; // for pagination
$args = array(
'posts_per_page' => 16, // optional to overwrite the dashboard setting
'cat' => 0, // add any other query parameter to this array
'paged' => $paged
); query_posts($args);
if (have_posts()) :
for ( $i=1 ; $i <= $num_cols; $i++ ) :
echo '<div id="col">';
$counter = $num_cols + 1 - $i;
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
if( $counter%$num_cols == 0 ) : ?>
<!-- core post area;
title, content, thumbnails, postmeta, etc -->
<?php endif; $counter++;
endwhile;
rewind_posts();
echo '</div>'; //closes the column div
endfor;
next_posts_link('&laquo; Older Entries');
previous_posts_link('Newer Entries &raquo;');
else:
echo 'no posts';
endif; wp_reset_query(); ?>
minimum css:
.col { width:150px; float:left; margin-right:5px; }

how is it done?

with a function that is hooked to some wordpress core actions:

function updateNumbers() {
/* numbering the published posts: preparation: create an array with the ID in sequence of publication date, /
/ save the number in custom field 'incr_number' of post with ID /
/ to show in post (within the loop) use <?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID,'incr_number',true); ?>
/ alchymyth 2010 */
global $wpdb;
$querystr = "SELECT $wpdb->posts.* FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE $wpdb->posts.post_status = 'publish' AND $wpdb->posts.post_type = 'post' ";
$pageposts = $wpdb->get_results($querystr, OBJECT);
$counts = 0 ;
if ($pageposts):
foreach ($pageposts as $post):
setup_postdata($post);
$counts++;
add_post_meta($post->ID, 'incr_number', $counts, true);
update_post_meta($post->ID, 'incr_number', $counts);
endforeach;
endif;
}
add_action ( 'publish_post', 'updateNumbers' );
add_action ( 'deleted_post', 'updateNumbers' );
add_action ( 'edit_post', 'updateNumbers' );

save it to functions.php of your wordpress theme.

the function takes care of everything:

• gets a list of all published posts
• counts through the posts
• adds or updates the custom field

anywhere you want to display this post number, use the following line:
<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID,'incr_number',true); ?>

just be aware that these numbers are not unique numbers ‘for life’ as they will be reallocated when you delete a post, or when you change the post order by changing the publish date.

Remark:
to trigger the function to generate the custom fields and fill them with the numbers, you need at least to make a new post, edit one post, or delete one post.

simple, all you have to do with this method is to create an image file with the page ID as part of the image name.

the code for this is really short:
<?php $page_id=get_the_ID();
if(is_page()) { $image='head-image-'.$page_id.'.jpg'; };
if(!file_exists(TEMPLATEPATH.'/images/'.$image)) { $image='head-image.jpg'; }
echo '<img src="'.get_bloginfo('template_url').'/images/'.$image.'"/>'; ?>

this is all.

first step: create an image file name including the page ID (on pages only);
second step: check if a matching image file exists in the images folder of the theme;
third step: if yes, echo the image name; otherwise echo a default image name.

edited and extended:
if the header image is a css background image, this code can be easily adapted:
put it into a style declaration into the <head> section of header.php:

<style type="text/css">
<?php $page_id=$post->ID;
if(is_page()) { $image='head-image-'.$page_id.'.jpg'; };
if(!file_exists(TEMPLATEPATH.'/images/'.$image)) { $image='head-image.jpg'; }
echo '#header { background: url(images/'.$image.') center top no-repeat; }'; ?>
</style>

this can even be changed to be used to show different header images for each post …

<?php
if ('1' == $user_ID) :
echo 'you are logged in - this will not be shown to the public: <br/><br/>';
  // test routine begin //
echo 'cat-id , cat-slug , cat-name , number of posts <br/><br/>';
$categories= get_categories('');
foreach ($categories as $cat) {
echo $cat->cat_ID.' , '.$cat->category_nicename.' , '.$cat->cat_name.' , '.$cat->category_count.'<br/>';
}
  // test routine ends //
echo '<br/>end of logged in section <br/>';
endif; ?>

in this example, i displayed a full list of all categories with id, slug, and name.

the wordpress back-end (dashboard) is generally a good place to work, however for developers, some lists don’t show all the variables or parameters that would be useful for programming custom displays or functions. for instance, the IDs of posts, pages, categories, tags, etc. are not easily found in the back-end.

you can (and sometimes need to) build your own code snippets to show them on the spot where you are working with them.
this avoids a lot of guesswork.

and now you know how to hide these displays from public view.

see the effect here in action: under pages ‘grid of posts’.

EDIT:
as this code can have its challenges, and is not always easy to apply, i would like to point to another approach with the same results:
Playing with columns – stacking posts in a grid.
END of EDIT

here, i am going  to present yet another solution: a flexible core structure to allow any number of columns with any number of rows, limited only by screen space, readability and fantasy…

a three column grid category template

the structure (for instance 3 columns, 4 rows, 12 or more posts):
1 5 9
2 6 10
3 7 11
4 8 12

the structure (for instance 3 columns, 4 rows, less than 12 posts, i.e. 7):
1 4 6
2 5 7
3

i’ll begin with a step by step introduction into the concept:

1. setting of variables
2. query_posts
3. calculate rows
4. loop 1 – the columns
5. the wordpress loop – the rows
6. page navigation

1. setting the variables:
$set_number_of_columns = 3; // enter numbers of columns here;
$set_number_of_rows = 3; // enter numbers of rows here
$set_showpost = $set_number_of_columns * $set_number_of_rows ;


2. query_posts:
global $query_string;
$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
query_posts($query_string.'&showposts='.$set_showpost.'&paged='.$paged);


3. calculate rows:
// make adjustment to get three equaly long columns even on last paged page
// get number of posts for this,
$num_of_posts = $wp_query->post_count;
// divide by $set_number_of_columns to get number per column,
// round up to next integer to make $ppc posts per column variable, or $set_number_of_rows whatever is smaller
$ppc = min(ceil($num_of_posts/$set_number_of_columns),$set_number_of_rows);
// calculates number of rows, i.e. showposts for the following query_posts and get_posts


4. loop 1 – the columns:
<?php for ( $col = 1; $col <= $set_number_of_columns; $col += 1) { ?>
<div class="col<?php echo $col; ?>">
<?php $row = 1;
$noffset = ($col -1) * $ppc + ($paged - 1) * $set_showpost ; //calculate offset parameter if paged ?>


5. wordpress loop – the rows and posts:
<?php $posts = get_posts($query_string.'&numberposts='.$ppc.'&offset='.$noffset); foreach ($posts as $post) : start_wp(); ?>
<div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?> class="post row<?php echo $row; ?>">
<?php //output all post related data, i.e. date, title, content/excerpt, postmetadata, tags, etc. // ?>
</div> <!--closing .post div -->


6. page navigation:
<div class="navigation">
<div class="alignleft"><?php next_posts_link('&laquo; Older Entries') ?></div>
<div class="alignright"><?php previous_posts_link('Newer Entries &raquo;') ?></div>
</div>


here is the full code:

the naming of the css classes is:
class .col1 for the first column; class .col2 for the second column; and so forth.
same thing for the rows: class .row1 for the posts in first row, on so on.
going with this code is the css:
.col1, .col2 {float:left; width:49%; }

you can see the code in action: under pages ‘grid of posts’.
the effect ia achieved by giving each post a fixed height; and using a bit of javascript trickery.