In the comments count block, I'd like to change the curly brackets to straight brackets [ ]. I'm not really sure how best to do this without working in the parent theme file.
The function which creates that area is in rtp-default-funstions.php
Can the comment count block be altered with a hook or a function?
Ok as there are no proper hooks at the moment. You would have to do it in the following way.
First remove the ‘rtp_default_post_meta’ action on ‘rtp_hook_post_meta_top’ hook like that.
function rtp_remove_parent_hooks() {
remove_action( 'rtp_hook_post_meta_top','rtp_default_post_meta' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'rtp_remove_parent_hooks' );
Then you would need to copy the code from the ‘rtp_default_post_meta’ function; put it in another function and hook that function to the same ‘rtp_hook_post_meta_top’ hook. Now you can modify the function to your liking without touching the parent theme.