Disqus Migration - part 2 - Latest Comments widget
One of the things that I've always liked to have on my blogs over the years is a "latest comments" widget. I like to leave all my blog posts open for comment indefinitely, and this gives users a way to see the latest comments, even if they are on very old blog posts.
Disqus doesn't have a "drop-in" JavaScript snippet to do this, but Disqus does have an extensive HTTP API that allowed me to build my own.
The terminoloy that Disqus uses was a little confusing for me, but by reading some of the docs and trying a few tests in Fiddler, I was able to see that the forums/listPosts API endpoint was the one I wanted. You'll need to make sure that you have a public key generated in order to use the endpoint. Here's the widget I wrote:
Some notes:
- Disqus rate limits you to 1000/requests per hour. For my blog, that's probably more than enough.
- This script depends on jQuery, but you can use something else for your DOM manipulation, even plain JavaScript if that's your jam.
- I was at least partially inspired by Raymond Camden blogging about something similar.
