Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Tumblr comments with Disqus

Hello readers! This article has been around for years. Tumblr has changed the way they integrate Disqus into their system, so this post needs an update really soon. Thank you for reading!

I joined Tumblr last year after my friend Gilbz showed me his account. It's a blog service that has options that'll allow you to post specific items: music, videos, pictures, quotes, text, links, etc. Tumblr automatically codes it for you and will host most of the files you upload. Music is, however, limited to only one upload a day.

Tumblr has various other features like automatic crossposting to other blog platforms: Blogger, Wordpress, even Posterous. It also has the option where your posts will show up on Twitter. One thing I like about Tumblr is the queue post feature, where you can schedule posts at any time. Possibly the downside of Tumblr (for me) is the Tumblarity, which shows how popular or not you are in the Tumblr world. It goes up and down depending on your activity and how people interact with you. Then again, you can just ignore it. :)

Tumblr, however, lacks a decent comment system. There is something called "Answer," where other Tumblr members can answer a question you post. However, it's limited to only 140 characters and will be available only to those who have Tumblr accounts.

Enter Disqus, a commenting system that can be integrated into any blogging platform. It's a good add-on as it will allow you to monitor all comments to your blogs. Non-Disqus members will also be able to leave replies and you will be informed of any new comments that'll come in.

The good news is, Disqus can be used with Tumblr. After signing up for an account, you'll see an option on your dashboard that says "Add a new site." Click that.





You'll get a page like this. Just fill it up with your site's URL and the name.


Pick your blog platform. For this tutorial, I picked Wordpress, but if you're adding this to Tumblr, well, you know what to pick.


The next page will give you the code and how you will integrate it to your blog. With Tumblr, you would have to go under the "Theme" then click "Custom HTML." The first code Disqus will give you will be pasted before the {/block:Posts} tags for comment counter and permalink.

The Disqus code for Tumblr will be added somewhere after {/block:Posts}. This will contain the comment box itself. Note differences in the tags.

Once done, you'll be able to receive comments in your Tumblr blog. You can do this for every Tumblr you create.



This is how it looks like after the post


This is how it looks like when you click on it