Feature Request: Remove all HTML Comments

[bacoords]

Opening a new discussion to carry on what was discussed here: #1864

The topic: removing all HTML comments from Understrap. I think the PHP comments are valuable (and there is a lot of improvement on that front, especially moving comments for PHP functions out of HTML and into PHP) but there's a number of HTML comments that honestly we could do without.

Examples of unnecessary HTML Comments

Area comments

<!-- ******************* The Navbar Area ******************* -->

Closing tag comments

	</div><!-- #content -->

</div><!-- #single-wrapper -->

Request

So this is essentially a public poll: Are there strong arguments in favor of keeping the HTML comments in the template files or is it time to move past them?

[shikkaba]

Please don't do this. When I first started out with this theme, the comments were a godsend.

[IanDelMar]

Please don't do this. When I first started out with this theme, the comments were a godsend.

May I ask in what way the comments were useful? And what comments exactly were useful?

[shikkaba]

Area comments. Helped with figuring out what was what.

[gettonet]

I always use this, might be handy for someone:
// Remove html comments from frontend.
`function cleanIt($buffer)
{
$buffer = preg_replace('//', '', $buffer);
return $buffer;
}
function buffer_start()
{
ob_start("cleanIt");
}
function buffer_end()
{
ob_end_flush();
}

add_action('get_header', 'buffer_start');
add_action('wp_footer', 'buffer_end');`

(and I also vote for removing them)

[IanDelMar]

@gettonet I recommend to not use this code. Your're literally matching nothing. If you want to remove // (which indicates a PHP comment and would only remove the // part, making the comment visible to users or even cause a fatal error) you would have to use $buffer = preg_replace('/\/\//', '', $buffer);. Also, this removes // from all string, eg. https://.

Here's what it should look like:

$buffer = preg_replace('/<!--(.*)-->/U', '', $buffer); // removes <!-- <p>I am a comment!</p> -->

[gettonet]

@IanDelMar I just saw that code was sanitized and is not showing properly in comment :)
You're absolutely right, the code I use is actually (let's try again):

$buffer = preg_replace('/<!--(.|s)*?-->/', '', $buffer);

[IanDelMar]

@bacoords is it possible to move this issue to the discussions page and have a poll over there?

[bacoords]

Yes good idea.

[pattonwebz]

As a matter of personal preference (talking purely about the 2 types of HTML comments above) I have no need or never had value from seeing large section comments in any markup.

I do however find great value in ending comments for any tags which may open in one file but close in another. A common example is the content area opening in the header.php file and closing in the footer.php file.

No strong opinions on them by any means. Just adding one other voice and thoughts to the discussion :)