Discussions using Disqus
I just introduced a new feature to this blog which is something I wanted to have for a very long time: Discussion threads. I already talked about this in my original revamping the site article and I basically went with what I have had planed.
So this site is now using the Disqus service for handling comments. This means you can use basically any account you already have to comment on my work here on the blog or just comment anonymously. I wonder how good the spam handling of Disqus is.
Implementation
From an implementers standpoint, the Disqus API is very straightforward and well documented. Essentially you just define some javascript variables, then include some scripts from disqus.com in your site and you're done.
The control is not as fine tuned as I would have liked though. For example you do not get the chance to iterate over every comment and output your own HTML code. I do not doubt that it is possible by looking at the javascript from Disqus, but it is not officially supported.
Style
However, the wonders of CSS gave me the power to reformat their HTML output to match the prettiness of black and yellow. I had to redefine some formatting that where already set by my styles - then overwritten by the Disqus style sheet for their elements - to match my style again. A little cumbersome, but easy.
I mostly looked at the rendered page source to figure out which classes I needed to format in the CSS, but there is also a nice blog post on onbloggingwell.com on this very topic which was useful.
So, I hope to read some comments in the future! I will go ahead and make the first test post as anonymous myself right away, you can bet on this :).