One of the features I love in Wordpress 2.7 is the ability to have threaded (nested) comments up to 10 levels deep. While viewing comments on this - or any Wordpress 2.7-powered - site, you’ll notice a Reply button (assuming nested discussions are enabled). Clicking that will enable you to reply directly to that comment, keeping discussions in context.
This is probably not all inclusive, but here is the basic structure for ol.commentlist as it exists in the Default theme’s comments.php. To take advantage of the new discussion features, I copied this file over to my own theme. (You’re more than welcome to roll your own.) For many of the elements, more than one class is used with it. Where applicable, I’ve chosen the most descriptive class (e.g. li.comment instead of li.alt) as the parent for child formatting.
ol.commentlist {}
ol.commentlist li {}
ol.commentlist li.alt {}
ol.commentlist li.bypostauthor {}
ol.commentlist li.byuser {}
ol.commentlist li.comment-author-admin {}
ol.commentlist li.comment {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.comment-author {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.vcard {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.vcard cite.fn {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.vcard cite.fn a.url {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.vcard img.avatar {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.vcard img.avatar-32 {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.vcard img.photo {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.vcard span.says {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.commentmetadata {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.comment-meta {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.comment-meta a {}
ol.commentlist li.comment * {} - (p, em, strong, blockquote, ul, ol, etc.)
ol.commentlist li.comment div.reply {}
ol.commentlist li.comment div.reply a {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.alt {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.bypostauthor {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.byuser {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.comment {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.comment-author-admin {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.depth-2 {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.depth-3 {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.depth-4 {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.depth-5 {}
ol.commentlist li.comment ul.children li.odd {}
ol.commentlist li.even {}
ol.commentlist li.odd {}
ol.commentlist li.parent {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.comment-author {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.vcard {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.vcard cite.fn {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.vcard cite.fn a.url {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.vcard span.says {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.commentmetadata {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.comment-meta {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.comment-meta a {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback * {} - (p, em, strong, blockquote, ul, ol, etc.)
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.reply {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback div.reply a {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.alt {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.bypostauthor {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.byuser {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.comment {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.comment-author-admin {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.depth-2 {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.depth-3 {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.depth-4 {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.depth-5 {}
ol.commentlist li.pingback ul.children li.odd {}
ol.commentlist li.thread-alt {}
ol.commentlist li.thread-even {}
ol.commentlist li.thread-odd {}
Here is the CSS I’m using to stylize my comments below. (You can see an example of the nesting here.) Even though a number of the selectors are currently unused, I am keeping them in place in the event I decide to do something with them in the future.
I updated the following code to account for the presence of pingbacks in a comment thread. For my site, I used the more generic selector of ol.commentlist li instead of specifying a class (such as comment or pingback). This will allow pingbacks to be styled in much the same way as comments. The CSS above lets you target the types individually. (Which, if you wanted pingbacks to look different, you’d obviously would want to do.)
ol.commentlist { list-style:none; margin:0 0 1em; padding:0; text-indent:0; }
ol.commentlist li { }
ol.commentlist li.alt { }
ol.commentlist li.bypostauthor {}
ol.commentlist li.byuser {}
ol.commentlist li.comment-author-admin {}
ol.commentlist li.comment { border-bottom:1px dotted #666; padding:1em; }
ol.commentlist li div.comment-author {}
ol.commentlist li div.vcard { font:normal 16px georgia,times,serif; }
ol.commentlist li div.vcard cite.fn { font-style:normal; }
ol.commentlist li div.vcard cite.fn a.url {}
ol.commentlist li div.vcard img.avatar { border:5px solid #ccc; float:right; margin:0 0 1em 1em; }
ol.commentlist li div.vcard img.avatar-32 {}
ol.commentlist li div.vcard img.photo {}
ol.commentlist li div.vcard span.says {}
ol.commentlist li div.commentmetadata {}
ol.commentlist li div.comment-meta { font-size:9px; }
ol.commentlist li div.comment-meta a { color:#ccc; }
ol.commentlist li p { font-size:11px; margin:0 0 1em; }
ol.commentlist li ul { font-size:11px; list-style:square; margin:0 0 1em 2em; }
ol.commentlist li div.reply { font-size:11px; }
ol.commentlist li div.reply a { font-weight:bold; }
ol.commentlist li ul.children { list-style:none; margin:1em 0 0; text-indent:0; }
ol.commentlist li ul.children li {}
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.alt {}
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.bypostauthor {}
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.byuser {}
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.comment {}
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.comment-author-admin {}
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.depth-2 { border-left:5px solid #555; margin:0 0 .25em .25em; }
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.depth-3 { border-left:5px solid #999; margin:0 0 .25em .25em; }
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.depth-4 { border-left:5px solid #bbb; margin:0 0 .25em .25em; }
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.depth-5 {}
ol.commentlist li ul.children li.odd {}
ol.commentlist li.even { background:#fff; }
ol.commentlist li.odd { background:#f6f6f6; }
ol.commentlist li.parent { border-left:5px solid #111; }
ol.commentlist li.pingback { border-bottom:1px dotted #666; padding:1em; }
ol.commentlist li.thread-alt { }
ol.commentlist li.thread-even {}
ol.commentlist li.thread-odd {}
If you would like to learn more about the enhancements made in comments, here are a couple of sites you should check out for further information:
