Modify "Must be logged in to comment" text/links?

Question

My site requires users to login to comment. Unregistered and logged out users see "Must be logged in to comment. You may also register for an account."

How do I change this text and the links?

Saw this old post, but that doesn't work: How to change "You must be logged in to post a comment."

Ultimately, I'd like to make these bring up popup forms, so users aren't diverted away from the page.

Or is there a better solution to make this happen, like somehow hiding the text altogether and showing a login form (in a block) for unregistered/logged out users only?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The text, "You must be logged in to post a comment." comes from this line in WordPress: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/efaf4a8938bbeb8510c8e1e4cc6fe84a434c17c3/wp-includes/comment-template.php#L2449

Whenever you see something wrapped in the double underscore function __( ), it means it's a translatable string.

You can use a function like this and add it to your themes functions.php file:

add_filter('gettext', 'change_comment_logged_in_notice', 20, 3);
/*
 * Change the text for needing to be logged in to post a comment
 * 
**/
function change_comment_logged_in_notice( $translated_text, $untranslated_text, $domain ) {

    switch( $untranslated_text ) {
        case 'You must be <a href="%s">logged in</a> to post a comment.':
            $translated_text = __( 'You need to <a href="%s">log in</a>' );
    }
   return $translated_text;
}

More info on the gettext filter: https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/gettext/

Alternatively, you can use a plugin like Loco Translate which let's you view strings that are translatable and let's you translate them in an interface: https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/loco-translate/