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Better Disqus Comments

Latest Comments Widget ​

WordPress's own Recent Comments widget can't see Disqus comments. The Latest Comments Widget addon adds a Disqus Latest Comments widget that lists them: who commented, a short excerpt, and a link straight to the comment.

It needs your Disqus public API key.

Adding the widget ​

  1. Go to Appearance → Widgets, or open the Customizer.
  2. Add Disqus Latest Comments to a widget area.
  3. Adjust its settings and save.

You can add it more than once, with different settings.

Settings ​

Each widget has its own settings.

SettingDefault
TitleLatest CommentsLeave empty for no title.
Number of comments51 to 25.
Words per comment151 to 500. Longer comments are cut with an ellipsis.
Show avatarsOnThe commenter's Disqus avatar, linked to their Disqus profile.
Avatar sizeSmallSmall (40 px) or Large (60 px).
Accent colourDefaultDefault (grey), Blue or Green — the colour of the dividers and avatar rings.

Each comment shows the author, the excerpt, the post it was left on and the date. The post title links to the comment itself.

Deleted, spam and unapproved comments are never listed.

Caching ​

The widget never slows your pages with API requests:

  • One request, every widget. A single Disqus API request fetches the 25 latest comments for every widget on the site.
  • Cached for 5 minutes. Pages in between use the cached list.
  • A backup for outages. The last good list is kept for a day. If Disqus can't be reached, or your API limit is used up, the widget keeps showing it.
  • Back-off on errors. After a failed request with no backup, the widget waits a minute before trying again, instead of trying on every page view.
  • Instant with sync. With Comment Sync on, the cache is cleared whenever a new comment arrives.

The Disqus API allows 1,000 requests an hour per key, shared with everything else using the key. At one request per 5 minutes the widget uses 12.

When the widget is empty ​

The widget hides itself when it can't get comments — usually because the public API key is missing. Logged-in administrators see a note in its place explaining why; visitors see nothing.

A site with no comments yet shows "No comments yet."

Styling ​

The widget's small stylesheet loads only while the widget is in use. The list keeps DCL Pro's class names — dcl-latest-comments-widget, dcl-latest-comments-item, dcl-latest-comments-author and so on — so custom CSS carries over.

The accent colour is one custom property:

css
.dcl-latest-comments-widget {
    --dcl-lc-accent: #c00;
}

Block themes ​

Block themes have no widget areas, so the widget can't be placed there.

Developer hooks ​

dcl_latest_comments_cache_time ​

How long the list is cached, in seconds. Default 300; the minimum is 60.

php
// Refresh every 15 minutes.
add_filter( 'dcl_latest_comments_cache_time', function () {
    return 15 * MINUTE_IN_SECONDS;
} );

Coming from DCL Pro ​

Widgets you placed with DCL Pro 11.x stay where they are. DCL Pro had one set of widget settings for the whole site; each widget now has its own. Until you save a widget, it uses your DCL Pro settings, so nothing changes. DCL Pro's on/off switch is gone: the addon being active is the switch.

The widget is also much lighter than DCL Pro's, which made one extra API request for every comment it showed.