Comment Form Custom Form Field

Question

Is it possible to add custom form fields to the EE comment form? What I would like to do is to require people to be logged in members to post but allow them to comment anonymously.

If I add a checkbox with a "Reply Anonymously" option it doesn't record the checkbox state in the exp_comments table.

Answer 1

You cannot use custom fields in the comment form but you can repurpose any of the native fields to use as needed.

You might look at repurposing the "location" or "url" field and passing your value to that column in the database..

Answer 2

Sweet, after checking Devot-ee (why didn't I look there first) I found a recent addon called 'Custom comment fields' (http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/custom-comment-fields) which allows you to add some simple custom fields (Text input, Textarea, Safecracker File) to EE comments module posts. I then used this as a way to add the ability for logged in users to specify if there wished to post a specific comment anonymously.

I added a new custom field using this addon called {comment_anonymously} and then set this as a checkbox field in the {exp:comment:form}

<label>
    <input type="checkbox" name="comment_anonymously" value="y" /> 
    Post my comment anonymously
</label>

Then in the {exp:comment:entries} loop, I used a conditional on the custom comment field to display the users name or not:

Posted by 
{if '{comment_anonymously}' == 'y'}
    Anonymous 
    {if logged_in_group_id == '1'}
        (<em>{name}</em>)
    {/if}
{if:else}
    {name}
{/if}

Note that I've also placed in a conditional for if a Super Admin is looking to show the users actual name for easy verification.

Cheers Brendan