June 9th, 2006
How to Create a WordPress Guestbook Reloaded
I’ve gotten emails from people griping that my previous post about making a guestbook for their WordPress blogs does not work for them. I’m making up for that lame post right now!
Ok, I am writing this post under the assumption that:
- You have FTP access to your web server containing your WordPress installation.
- You have admin access to the blog you’re making a guestbook for.
- You know basic HTML editing.
- You can tell the difference between regular text, HTML and PHP variables.
1. The very first thing to do is open up your theme folder saved in your computer. Look for the file named “single.php”.
2. Copy (Ctrl-C) the file and Paste it (Ctrl-V). The file will automatically be named “Copy of single.php”. Rename the file to “guestbook.php”.
3. Open up guestbook.php in your favorite text editor (e.g. Notepad, UltraEdit).
On top of the file, right before:
<?php get_header(); ?>
Add:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Guestbook
*/
?>
Save the file (Ctrl-S). What we just did is create a separate template for your guestbook, which we will use when we create the new page. Customize other portions of the file as needed.
4. Open up your FTP program. Change directory to your current theme folder.
Ex. blogdomain.com/wp-content/themes/theme_name/
5. Upload guestbook.php.
6. Access your Wordress admin panel to Write > Page to create a new page.
Type “Guestbook” as the page title. Compose a brief introduction for the page content.
Ex. Please Sign My Guestbook!
7. On the right-hand side, pick Guestbook as the page template.
8. Save the page. If you don’t want your guestbook to display the post date, browse to Presentation > Theme Editor > guestbook.php
Look for:
<?php the_time('Y/m/d') ?>
And delete it. Click Update File to save.
9. If you want to change the way the guestbook entries and the input form appear, here’s how. Copy comments.php and save it as ‘guestcomments.php’. Edit the file to your liking. Some samples:
Change the comment heading “X comments” to “X guestbook entries”
Change the submit button text “Post Comment” to “Sign Guestbook” or “Sign It!”
Change “Your comment is awaiting moderation” to “Your guestbook entry is awaiting moderation”
Text may differ from to template to template, so look for approximate matches in your files.
To reverse the order of comments, look for:
foreach ($comments as $comment)
and replace with:
foreach (array_reverse($comments) as $comment)
Upload guestcomments.php to the current theme folder on the server.
10. Once again, open up guestbook.php in the Theme Editor. Scroll below and change the line:
<?php comments_template(); ?>
to
<?php comments_template('/guestcomments.php'); ?>
Voila! You now have a guestbook!
I tried my best to make these instructions as painless as possible. If you’re still having issues, please don’t hesitate to leave me a note. Enjoy your new guestbook.
If you ‘dugg’ this article, click here to digg it!
Update: WordPress Generator Plugin is a sparkly new plugin that does all the dirty work for you!
Bookmark at: StumbleUpon | Digg | Del.icio.us | Twitter | FacebookPosted in Blogging, Tip of the Week, Wordpress
52 Comments
name said...
Nice site! Color scheme no bad… Add spam protect and be happy ! Happy code =619
Jun 13, 2006
Jan said...
ei! can you help me as to how to customize the guestbook page above to display another word instead of the word “Comment >>” and change the title of the submit button from “Submit comment” to any other name? please? Thanks in advance!
Jun 17, 2006
Andrew said...
Hi Jan, check out the updated instructions to achieve what you wanted.
Jun 18, 2006
jan said...
Thanks andrew! I think I missed out on that part of the instructions..ü
Jun 19, 2006
Andrew said...
Np Jan! That part was added recently because of your request.
Jun 20, 2006
me said...
thx for the instructions
Jul 5, 2006
Robin said...
Omg, this wast exactly what I was looking for, thanks a lot!
Aug 8, 2006
dato said...
sdadasdasdasdas
Sep 27, 2006
albert said...
The guestbook generator plugin doesn’t work for my almost spring theme,so I have to follow these structions to create a guestbook,I wonder if I want the comments arranged from newest to oldest,how should I do?
Oct 19, 2006
albert said...
Andrew,thanks very much,I followed the step and the problem is solved.
Oct 20, 2006
phitsanulok said...
I have been reading your guest book from the beginning, page or two a day. Often I have the energy to read and enjoy, but not write (it is difficult to explain emotions). I like the comments in different languages, even though I can read English well, and Spanish a little, and can just understand some of the words in Italian and Japanese.
————— http://www.phitsanulok.go.th/ngclink/index.html —————–
Oct 27, 2006
Fannie said...
I got it work! Thank you very much!
Oct 28, 2006
Mike said...
looked very nice, but i think my theme doesn´t support the generator.
it says:
“The required template files were not found in your current theme. Guestbook cannot be generated.”
thnx anyway, mate
greetz mike
Nov 9, 2006
C said...
Running from default theme: you can apparently switch off the plugins after creating the guestbook. Running the plugin again will create a new page.
Nov 22, 2006
Y said...
Hi I tried to generate the guestbook but I got the following message
“The required template files were not found in your current theme. Guestbook cannot be generated.”
I wanted to copy single.php as you instructed but I can’t find it. I am using the theme “Sky3c by Kaushal Sheth” and wordpress 2.0.4
Any ideas?
Thanks
Y
Dec 6, 2006
Y said...
I finally realized I could copy the index.php and then rename it, this solved the problem
However the guest book page has “Please sign my Guestbook. Thanks!”, with no link so I don’t understand how to post a comment. I think my initial theme was modified to remove the comments… any ideas ?
thanks Y
Dec 6, 2006
Michiel said...
It also said that I was missing the “single.php” file, but Y’s solution worked just fine. I was just wondering if it’s possible to remove the numbering of the comments/entries. Or to turn them around, so that the latest entry get’s the highest entry-number.
Jan 10, 2007
peter said...
Feed for this Entry did not work in the newest k2 revision 291
Mar 20, 2007
Marcel van Leeuwen said...
Hello Andrew,
I have followed the instructions on your site, but my comments aren’t displayed. I lookerd everywhere but can’t find what’s wrong. Could you please have a look at my site and tell me what to do? You have to click at “Alle reacties”, that’s the page I added.
Thanks for your help.
Kind regards,
Marcel
Mar 24, 2007
vane said...
Hello!
Does not exist a way to allow the amount of signatures of guestbook when visualized the page of guestbook? Thanks!
Apr 29, 2007
Ricard said...
Hi!
When they wrote a comment to my guestbook, and sign the required mail and name. it comes back with error that says it was a wrong email-adress. i can’t figure out why?
May 24, 2007
funsin said...
can you help me as to how to customize the guestbook page above to display another word instead of the word “Comment >>” and change the title of the submit button from “Submit comment” to any other name? please? Thanks in advance! help~!
Jul 24, 2007
jeela said...
Overall this has been great, since the Guestbook Generator plugin did not work for my theme. But I’m also stumped at changing the text that says things like “Leave a Reply” and the Submit Button… the file looks to have the text I want but doesnt display??
here is my guestbook, thanks to you!
http://www.jeelago.net/work/guestbook/
Sep 3, 2007
parabat said...
I have received this error. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
“Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in …./guestcomments.php on line 51″
Oct 5, 2007
James Bliss said...
Hi Andrew, great instructions, thanks.
I’m not (yet) using this on my public blog but I am on a non-public blog I author and it works really well.
Feb 12, 2008
Jomarie said...
Ahm… is there any codes for registration for the viewers together with their comments?
Jul 14, 2008
Hans said...
Great guestbook, thxs!
very easy, but i have one question. I don’t want the comments to be approved by the moderator, but they have to be approved automaticly, so they appear at the same time on my website. Without any controle. How can create that? please help
Jul 25, 2008
miner said...
Hey, is it possible that you can help me with my Guestbook? It’s not working for me!
Please contact me by e-mail.
Thanks
Jan 31, 2009
mixor said...
Well it doesn’t work for me… When I open comments.php there is only this text:
How can I change this to how I want it?
Feb 4, 2009
Bianca said...
With that simple tutorial make is so easy for us to make. Thanks for the instructions.
Feb 16, 2009
Erick S. said...
Brilliant!
This way you have total control over how it will look in the end…I really like this tutorial!
Jun 17, 2009
Dax said...
Hi there,
I use your guest book plug-in and is working fine. The only problem is pagination. On my guest book, comments are approaching 150+, i want it to be like 20 0r 25 per page. How to do it ? Your input is much appreciated.
url: http://www.mitixa.com/guestbook
Jan 2, 2010
SuperTiti said...
Hi Everybody there,
Some template have a “page.php” file along with a “single.php”. So if Guestbook Reloaded seems to not work with your template, search for “page.php” in your template folder and apply same modifications. I mean you should duplicate “page.php” instead of “single.php” and It should work perfect.
(WordPress 2.9.1, ok !)
Jan 16, 2010
SuperTiti said...
I just forgot to say :
Thanks Andrew for this tuto !
Jan 16, 2010
Sushil Gupta said...
Hi there, thanks for the code and all the instruction. I am now using guestbook. But I have got a problem, the page doesn’t breaks automatically or what I mean to say is, all the comments are on the same page instead of breaking up! How can I do so, I mean I want latest 5 0r 10 comments on the first and then older on the secondary page.. I am not able to configure it out. Please help me.
Thank you.
Feb 20, 2010
Mihir Lakhani said...
dude ! this is a good way of making simple guestbook in WP. may be location could make it much better, but still this is awesome.
thank you
Mihir
Aug 30, 2010