custom comment_form fields not displaying

Question

My ideal comment form will have 3 fields- Name, Location, Comment. I'm using the following bits of code-

comments.php

<?php comment_form(
    array(
        'fields' => apply_filters( 'comment_form_default_fields', $fields ),
        'comment_notes_after' => ' ',
        'title_reply' => 'Please feel free to share your home owning hopes, dreams, or concerns?',
        'logged_in_as' => '',
    )
); ?>

functions.php

<?php

function my_fields($fields) {
$fields['Name'] = '<p>Name</p>';
$fields['Location'] = '<p>Location</p>';
return $fields;
}
add_filter('comment_form_default_fields','my_fields');

?>

As you can see on the live site, that's not working. Any ideas why/how to remedy?

Answer 1

I think you're a bit confused about how comment_form works. So let's take a look (this is in wp-includes/comment-template.php):

<?php
function comment_form( $args = array(), $post_id = null ) {
    // snip snip 
    $fields =  array(
        'author' => '<p class="comment-form-author">' . '<label for="author">' . __( 'Name' ) . '</label> ' . ( $req ? '<span class="required">*</span>' : '' ) .
                    '<input id="author" name="author" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author'] ) . '" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></p>',
        'email'  => '<p class="comment-form-email"><label for="email">' . __( 'Email' ) . '</label> ' . ( $req ? '<span class="required">*</span>' : '' ) .
                    '<input id="email" name="email" type="text" value="' . esc_attr(  $commenter['comment_author_email'] ) . '" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></p>',
        'url'    => '<p class="comment-form-url"><label for="url">' . __( 'Website' ) . '</label>' .
                    '<input id="url" name="url" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author_url'] ) . '" size="30" /></p>',
    );

    $required_text = sprintf( ' ' . __('Required fields are marked %s'), '<span class="required">*</span>' );
    $defaults = array(
        'fields'               => apply_filters( 'comment_form_default_fields', $fields ),
        'comment_field'        => '<p class="comment-form-comment"><label for="comment">' . _x( 'Comment', 'noun' ) . '</label><textarea id="comment" name="comment" cols="45" rows="8" aria-required="true"></textarea></p>',
        'must_log_in'          => '<p class="must-log-in">' . sprintf( __( 'You must be <a href="%s">logged in</a> to post a comment.' ), wp_login_url( apply_filters( 'the_permalink', get_permalink( $post_id ) ) ) ) . '</p>',
        'logged_in_as'         => '<p class="logged-in-as">' . sprintf( __( 'Logged in as <a href="%1$s">%2$s</a>. <a href="%3$s" title="Log out of this account">Log out?</a>' ), admin_url( 'profile.php' ), $user_identity, wp_logout_url( apply_filters( 'the_permalink', get_permalink( $post_id ) ) ) ) . '</p>',
        'comment_notes_before' => '<p class="comment-notes">' . __( 'Your email address will not be published.' ) . ( $req ? $required_text : '' ) . '</p>',
        'comment_notes_after'  => '<p class="form-allowed-tags">' . sprintf( __( 'You may use these <abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr> tags and attributes: %s' ), ' <code>' . allowed_tags() . '</code>' ) . '</p>',
        'id_form'              => 'commentform',
        'id_submit'            => 'submit',
        'title_reply'          => __( 'Leave a Reply' ),
        'title_reply_to'       => __( 'Leave a Reply to %s' ),
        'cancel_reply_link'    => __( 'Cancel reply' ),
        'label_submit'         => __( 'Post Comment' ),
    );

    $args = wp_parse_args( $args, apply_filters( 'comment_form_defaults', $defaults ) );

        // $args get used to fill out the fields here
}

You need only to override the arguments you want to change. If you want custom fields, simply pass in the fields -- no need to bother with hook into comments_form_default_fields.

Overly simplified example:

<?php comment_form(array(
    'fields'    => array(
        'author' => '<input type="text" name="author" />',
        'location' => '<input type="text" name="location" />',
    ),
));

WordPress will handle saving the author field, but you'll have some more work to do for getting location saved. I wrote a tutorial about this.

Basically: hook into comment_post. Check $_POST for the field, save it:

<?php
add_action( 'comment_post', 'wpse69222_insert_comment', 10, 1 );
function wpse69222_insert_comment( $comment_id )
{
    // prolly should do more validation here?
    if( isset( $_POST['location'] ) )
        update_comment_meta( $comment_id, 'location', esc_attr( $_POST['location'] ) );
}

You might also want admin area fields and a way to edit that location from the admin, but that's another question.