Comments on future posts

Question

I have enabled future (scheduled) posts to display as single post so on that page comments are enabled but there is a problem when i try to post comment. I get a blank screen without any warning or error displayed?

I suppose that there is a problem when commenting on posts that are not yet published. Is there a way to enable commenting on future posts?

Answer 1

You can not enable comments in future posts. Those posts are not public and are not private, so they verify the conditional in line 61 of wp-comments-post.php file; that conditional is (WP 4.1.1):

} elseif ( ! $status_obj->public && ! $status_obj->private ) {
    /**
     * Fires when a comment is attempted on a post in draft mode.
     *
     * @since 1.5.1
     *
     * @param int $comment_post_ID Post ID.
     */
    do_action( 'comment_on_draft', $comment_post_ID );
    exit;
}

To allow comments in scheduled posts you could hook in comment_on_draft action and copy the insert comment code from wp-comments-post.php inside the callback function.

add_action( 'comment_on_draft', function( $comment_post_ID ) {

    do_action( 'pre_comment_on_post', $comment_post_ID );

    $comment_author       = ( isset($_POST['author']) )  ? trim(strip_tags($_POST['author'])) : null;
    $comment_author_email = ( isset($_POST['email']) )   ? trim($_POST['email']) : null;
    $comment_author_url   = ( isset($_POST['url']) )     ? trim($_POST['url']) : null;
    $comment_content      = ( isset($_POST['comment']) ) ? trim($_POST['comment']) : null;

    // If the user is logged in
    $user = wp_get_current_user();
    if ( $user->exists() ) {
        if ( empty( $user->display_name ) )
            $user->display_name=$user->user_login;
        $comment_author       = wp_slash( $user->display_name );
        $comment_author_email = wp_slash( $user->user_email );
        $comment_author_url   = wp_slash( $user->user_url );
        if ( current_user_can( 'unfiltered_html' ) ) {
            if ( ! isset( $_POST['_wp_unfiltered_html_comment'] )
        || ! wp_verify_nonce( $_POST['_wp_unfiltered_html_comment'], 'unfiltered-html-comment_' . $comment_post_ID )
            ) {
                kses_remove_filters(); // start with a clean slate
                kses_init_filters(); // set up the filters
            }
        }
    } else {
        if ( get_option( 'comment_registration' ) || 'private' == $status ) {
            wp_die( __( 'Sorry, you must be logged in to post a comment.' ), 403 );
        }
    }

    $comment_type = '';

    if ( get_option('require_name_email') && !$user->exists() ) {
        if ( 6 > strlen( $comment_author_email ) || '' == $comment_author ) {
            wp_die( __( '<strong>ERROR</strong>: please fill the required fields (name, email).' ), 200 );
        } else if ( ! is_email( $comment_author_email ) ) {
            wp_die( __( '<strong>ERROR</strong>: please enter a valid email address.' ), 200 );
        }
    }

    if ( '' == $comment_content ) {
        wp_die( __( '<strong>ERROR</strong>: please type a comment.' ), 200 );
    }

    $comment_parent = isset($_POST['comment_parent']) ? absint($_POST['comment_parent']) : 0;

    $commentdata = compact('comment_post_ID', 'comment_author', 'comment_author_email', 'comment_author_url', 'comment_content', 'comment_type', 'comment_parent', 'user_ID');

    $comment_id = wp_new_comment( $commentdata );
    if ( ! $comment_id ) {
        wp_die( __( "<strong>ERROR</strong>: The comment could not be saved. Please try again later." ) );
    }

    $comment = get_comment( $comment_id );

    /**
    * Perform other actions when comment cookies are set.
    *
    * @since 3.4.0
    *
    * @param object $comment Comment object.
    * @param WP_User $user   User object. The user may not exist.
    */
    do_action( 'set_comment_cookies', $comment, $user );

    $location = empty($_POST['redirect_to']) ? get_comment_link($comment_id) : $_POST['redirect_to'] . '#comment-' . $comment_id;

    /**
    * Filter the location URI to send the commenter after posting.
    *
    * @since 2.0.5
    *
    * @param string $location The 'redirect_to' URI sent via $_POST.
    * @param object $comment  Comment object.
    */
    $location = apply_filters( 'comment_post_redirect', $location, $comment );

    wp_safe_redirect( $location );
    exit;

});

Additionally, we could check for "future" status to exclude "draft" posts, but in this case we can end up with conflicts with other plugins that use comment_on_draft action hook:

add_action( 'comment_on_draft', function( $comment_post_ID ) {

    if( get_post_status( $comment_post_ID ) != 'future' ) {
        exit;
    }

    //Rest of the code

});