Fri Nov 10 2023 -

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Seamless Dark Mode Switching Added

What's New

FastComments always supported dark mode. However, it used to require a reload of the comment widget to switch to dark mode.

This means that if a site used dark mode, or allowed users to switch back and forth between light and dark modes, we would completely remove the comment widget from the browser and reload it. This was done for technical reasons to simplify the product on initial launch since state has to be communicated back and forth between the parent page and the widget's iframe.

In light of spooky season being over - the dark mode switch has been improved. The comment widget now supports seamless transitions between light and dark modes. However, it still requires passing the hasDarkBackground flag when applicable.

For Developers & Gotchas

To tell the comment widget that your site is in dark mode - or has a dark background applied - you would pass the hasDarkBackground flag. This does not change. However, now when you call instance.update(newConfig) (or change state in one of our libraries like React, Svelte, etc), we will detect if the only changed parameter is hasDarkBackground and if so gracefully update the comment widget. The widget will asynchronously load the dark mode extension in the background and update its styling if necessary.

One major gotcha is that when you pass newConfig - this must be an entirely new object for this feature to work.

In Conclusion

Like all major releases, we're glad that we could take the time to optimize, test, and properly release this feature. Let us know below if you discover any issues.

Cheers!