Disqus JavaScript Code

This page discuss the JavaScript code used by the Disqus comment system. If you don't know what disqus is, see: How to Add a Comment System to Website .

By default, the generic JavaScript code given out by disqus is this (as of 2011-04-04):

<div id="disqus_thread"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
    /* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * */
    var disqus_shortname = 'example'; // required: replace example with your forum shortname

    // The following are highly recommended additional parameters. Remove the slashes in front to use.
    // var disqus_identifier = 'unique_dynamic_id_1234';
    // var disqus_url = 'http://example.com/permalink-to-page.html';

    /* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * */
    (function() {
        var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true;
        dsq.src = 'http://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js';
        (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);
    })();
</script>
<noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href="http://disqus.com/?ref_noscript">comments powered by Disqus.</a></noscript>
<a href="http://disqus.com" class="dsq-brlink">blog comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a>

The HTML tags are just markers. Taking out the HTML tag, the JavaScript is just this:

    /* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * */
    var disqus_shortname = 'example'; // required: replace example with your forum shortname

    // The following are highly recommended additional parameters. Remove the slashes in front to use.
    // var disqus_identifier = 'unique_dynamic_id_1234';
    // var disqus_url = 'http://example.com/permalink-to-page.html';

    /* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * */
    (function() {
        var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true;
        dsq.src = 'http://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js';
        (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);
    })();

From the above, there are 3 parameters, and only these are relevant to you. They are:

    /* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * */
    var disqus_shortname = 'example'; // required: replace example with your forum shortname

    // The following are highly recommended additional parameters. Remove the slashes in front to use.
    var disqus_identifier = 'unique_dynamic_id_1234';
    var disqus_url = 'http://example.com/permalink-to-page.html';

Here is the documentation on these parameters, as documented from their site. Source docs.disqus.com. Quote:

• “disqus_shortname” tells Disqus which website account (called a forum on Disqus) this system belongs to.
• “disqus_identifier” tells Disqus how to uniquely identify the current page.
• “disqus_url” tells Disqus the location of the page for permalinking purposes.

The “forum shortname” is required. For example, mine is “xahlee”. The other 2 are optional.

The “disqus_identifier” is important if there's the possibility that you might move the page in the future. For example, changing the URL, or moving to a new domain. It should be unique across all pages in your current account.