Unlock the Power of Engagement: Building a Comment System for Your Gatsby Blog
Why Comments Matter
Interacting with your blog readers is crucial for building a loyal community. A comment system allows you to foster discussions, gather feedback, and create a sense of belonging among your audience. While paid services like Commento and Disqus are available, we’ll explore how to build a custom comment system for your Gatsby blog using GitHub Issues.
Demo and Workflow
Take a look at our demo GIF to see the commenting system in action. Our comments are stored in GitHub Issues, and here’s a breakdown of the workflow:
- Step 1: Authentication – We check if the user is authenticated with GitHub. If so, they can comment directly. Otherwise, they’ll need to sign in.
- Step 2: Issue Creation – When a user clicks the comment button, we check if an issue exists in the blog slug, title, or unique attribute. If not, we create a new issue.
- Step 3: Comment Publication – We publish the comment into GitHub Issues, making it visible in our blog comments.
Building GitHub Authentication
To build a secure and simple authentication system, we’ll use a custom server with Passport.js. Create a custom server and add the following code to App.js:
js
// Handle Passport.js GitHub authentication and callback
Next, create a Passport.js file to configure the passport, and obtain your client ID and client secret from GitHub settings.
Building the Comments System
Using Gatsby Starter Blog, let’s build a comments section. We’ll create a New Comment component that posts comments to GitHub Issues and a Comment component that renders each comment.
New Comment Component
Create a newComment.js file and add the following code:
js
// Check if the user is authenticated, and handle comment submission
Comment Component
Create a Comment/index.js file and add the following code:
js
// Render each comment from GitHub Issues
Posting Comments and Creating Issues
In templates/blog-post.js, add the following code to post comments and create issues:
js
// Load the issueByTerm, post the comment, and load comments
Rendering Comments
Finally, render the comments in your blog by adding the following code to templates/blog-post.js:
js
// Render the comments component
You now have a simple commenting system for your Gatsby blog using GitHub Issues. Feel free to add more features, such as reactions and spam filtering, to enhance the experience.
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