Setup Disqus Commenting System
Setup the Disqus commenting system on our website. Just use the default Disqus formatting with some minor css formatting work for fonts and button images. This is a custom built CMS so it doesn’t use a plug-in. You will use the standard javascript code available at Disqus.com to install comments.
The website is set up like a standard blog with abstract versions of articles on the homepage allowing you to click to see the full article. On the home page there will be a comments link with the count of how many comments have been posted for each abstract article (see attached image). On the full article view of each article, there will be a comments box and a list of comments that have been posted by users (see attached image)
We need to only show Disqus on new articles that don’t have any comments yet. For old articles with existing comments, just hide Disqus and show the old commenting system. We also need to disable the old commenting system so that no one can comment anymore with the old code. This will ensure that the old comments are preserved for older articles but that the new commenting system will be used on new articles.
Initial Setup Tasks:
1. Setup Disqus with standard graphical formatting
2. Show/hide comments tools based on previous comments existing
In addition to setting up the commenting system. The project will include research on some of the capabilities and possibilities for future usage of the Disqus commenting system. These features are not required right now, but you can use this opportunity to get familiar with their API and better understand the program’s capabilities. Your research will be used for developing a future project with you to set up more advanced features.
Research
Currently with the existing commenting system, in order to post a comment you have to be an email newsletter subscriber (subscriber in our mysql database). The code checks if you are a subscriber and if you are not, then you must subscribe to post a comment. We’d like to continue using that requirement to increase subscriptions to the newsletter. However, this is not a requirement for the current project.
Please research if there is a way to use the newsletter subscriber email as a requirement to post using Disqus commenting system. Also, see if there’s a way to capture the email and subscribe the user to the newsletter in the process. In addition, find out if there’s a way to import comments from our old commenting system into Disqus for the older articles. Currently, their FAQ lists different CMS platforms (e.g. WordPress) it can migrate data from so we need to find out if it’s possible to do this with this custom CMS.
Research Questions to Answer:
1. Is there a way to use the subscriber emails as a requirement to post?
2. Is there a way to grab the user email from the Disqus commenting form and subscribe them to the email list?
3. Is there a way to import old comments into the discuss system from a custom built CMS?
Please include any relevant experience with installing and configuring Disqus. You should also have a basic knowledge of MySQL and PHP.