modifying the comment form

Question

I see that there are lots of filters and things you can do to remove fields or modify them. I have found some useful ones on this site. I want to take it a step further because I want to do some things that there does not seem to be a filter for. Like removing the labels. At least I have not found one yet. I also need to remove the submit button and want to replace it with an actual button. For styling purposes. So I thought I could copy the comment_form function out of the wp-includes/comment-template.php file and put it in my functions.php file so that I could make any modifications I wanted. Problem with that is that WordPress throws you one of those previously declared functions errors. So I was looking for the filter or action to unregister that function so that I can use it in my functions.php file but I can't find it. Do you know how I can do this?

I tried

 remove_action('comment_form');

but this did not work

Answer 1

That function is called directly in a theme, probably in comments.php. Remove the function call there, and use your own function with a different name.

Be aware many plugins rely on the code in the native function. If you change too much, some plugin might break.

You can edit the label element with a filter on 'comment_form_default_fields'. Please do not remove them, they are important for screen reader users.