Some of you may be using JComments on your Joomla Website / blog as the commenting system. JComment is a really good comment system, but the problem is that when you want to upgrade or move to another site, etc. you may find it difficult to do so. I had used JComments (I still do) for almost 2 years now. I had really a hard time with my Comments when I upgraded from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5, but it was possible.
Whereas Disqus is really a cool comment system with so much of flexibility, in terms of manageability and usability. Sadly, there is no migration tool provided by either Disqus or JComments (obviously they won’t provide it) to get your comments from JComments to Disqus. This article, I will show you a workaround, so that you can retain all your past comments and move to Disqus as a new commenting system for your Joomla site.
Workaround for Moving from JComments to Disqus
Like I mentioned, there is no straight forward way to migrate your old comments from JComments to Disqus yet. JComments do let us create an XML file containing all the comments, but it is not recognized by Disqus system, hence you are not allowed to import your comments.
A workaround I have implemented in the blog is to retain the comments in JComments and make use of Disqus for all the new comments. However, note that this may not be a complete solution to the actual issue.
Step 1: Hide JComments Form in your Website
First thing you need to do is to hide the JComments form appearing in your website / blog. You can do that by:
Logging into your Joomla Admin Page >>> Click on Components >>> JComments >>> Settings and switch to Layout tab.
Scroll down to Comment Form section >>> Select “Hide” as the Default option and click Save.
Step 2: Control the Permissions for Comments
Once you hide the Comments form from your website / blog, next thing to is to control the permission, so that the users (registered or public, depending on your site access controls) will not be able to add new comments. To do that:
Switch to Permissions tab and untick everything under Public. Do the same for other users, depending on your requirements. By doing so, we are preventing anyone from adding new comments to the site. Remember to click Save.
Once done, you can enable the Disqus plugin in your Joomla, this will bring up the Disqus Comments system and replace your JComments, preserving all your JComments comments.
Here is the video showing you exactly how to do this:
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