Tag cloud

(This page was created using my WP Cumulus plugin)

Roy | March 17, 2008 | Uncategorized | Comments (139)

139 Comments

  1. Link: WordPress Flash Tag Cloud « planetOzh
  2. Link: RickScheibner.net | links for 2008-04-28

  3. Hi.. its a wonderful plugin

    Can i use the same for my site

    Comment by manish — August 22, 2008 @ 11:27 am

  4. How Do I Create A Page Like This With My Tags?
    Thanks

    Comment by JesusCrunk.com — August 28, 2008 @ 6:06 am

  5. Hi JesusCrunk. Please see http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cumulus/installation/ for instructions on how to set it up as (or rather ‘on’) a page.

    Comment by Roy — August 28, 2008 @ 7:54 am

  6. Hello Roy, I would like to use this plugin for a commercial site. What are the license terms? I see that it is GPL, colleagues asked me if nothing is changed in the code than I would not need to publish anything, right? Thx RTG

    Comment by RTG — September 3, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

  7. Hi RTG. That is also my understanding of the GPL license. If you change nothing there’s no need to publish your modified code.

    Comment by Roy — September 3, 2008 @ 9:54 pm

  8. Love the cloud i am a little dumb when it comes to flash and wordpress is the a way of getting the cloud to just pick up the tags off of the posting no off all site tags?

    Comment by Mark — September 4, 2008 @ 9:37 am

  9. Hi Mark. That’s an interesting idea, and I will definitely look into that, but the current version is meant to replace your blog’s overall tag cloud.

    Comment by Roy — September 4, 2008 @ 11:04 am

  10. Hi Roy,

    thanks for your quick response. I still have to consult what happens if your cool plug in is simply included into the page which is commercial and available to the public. But this is nothing different as to use it on your blog where you also offer some service. So it sounds safe.
    But if you see any issue please let me know in advance which way it could be used. Just want to keep any troubles with customer away.
    I love it :D ….

    RTG

    Comment by RTG — September 4, 2008 @ 2:20 pm

  11. No problem. It is safe. You can definitely use GPL software commercially, as long as you’re not selling it as (part of) your product.

    Comment by Roy — September 4, 2008 @ 6:56 pm

  12. Hi Roy,
    This is GREAT! you have created a living cloud :) )) I like it!

    We are fans of tags and tag clouds as well – actually, we are creating a search tool which narrow searches with help of tags :) (don’t get me wrong – it’s not an ad, just nice to meet like-minded person)

    Comment by Tanya — September 12, 2008 @ 10:50 am

  13. Hey Roy!
    A great tag cloud indeed!
    Well I had a query, isn’t this available for Blogger platform?
    Well liked it and would love to get it for my blog if possible!
    Do reply with the source..
    Thanx! :)

    Comment by Abhishek — September 15, 2008 @ 12:52 am

  14. Hi Abhishek. Please see here: http://www.roytanck.com/2008/09/02/wp-cumulus-for-blogger-blogumus/

    Comment by Roy — September 15, 2008 @ 12:12 pm

  15. Good day to You!
    Where I can find options of types? It’s in swf?
    Flash not work with cyrilic text.
    PS Thanx for good idea about this cloud!

    Comment by Exquisitor — September 15, 2008 @ 7:25 pm

  16. If I may…

    You plugin trades cool for useful.

    You’ve taken the primary attribute of a tag cloud item – its scale relative to the other tags — and completely subverted the whole point by scaling them up or down to fake a 3D sphere.

    You’ve also added another problem – that of depth – which imparts an importance of things in the foreground and a diminished importane of things in the background (after all, they are faded out).

    So the small, medium, large items are now spread out in depth which totally undermines the use of font size as a factor in determining the tag popularity.

    Yes, it’s cool.

    No, it’s not useful at all.

    I look forward to you replying and hearing your views.

    Note this is a civil UI discussion not a bitch fest/flame on my part. ;)

    Comment by Varth Dader — September 16, 2008 @ 10:22 pm

  17. Corrections:

    Your plug-in trades useful for cool.

    ;)

    Comment by Varth Dader — September 16, 2008 @ 10:24 pm

  18. Hi Vader. I agree. Even though the tags in Cumulus are scaled by the number of occurrances just like with a regular tag cloud, its harder to notice with all the 3d going on.

    But what it comes down to is that you’re right. This trades in useful for cool. The real question is whether that’s a bad thing. My guess is that it’s different for everyone. You may opt not to use my plugin on your blog, others have chosen to do.

    I would not use tags as a primary way of navigation on any website. They’re ‘extra’, and can offer a more spontaneous way of discovering a site’s content by triggering interest in often used keywords. With that in mind WP-Cumulus’ highly visual approach may not be a bad idea. But the choice is up to you.

    Comment by Roy — September 17, 2008 @ 10:50 am

  19. Can we use this wonderful, eye catching and very attractive search option on any other platform – I mean not WP?????

    Comment by Hasnain — September 18, 2008 @ 5:18 am

  20. Thanks for the reply Roy.

    Fun is fun, cool is cool and I think there is a sufficiently large amount of people that never grokked what a normal tag cloud is supposed to “do” to begin with (besides look cool) to be bothered by the things I pointed out. And your 3D versions is just cooler to them.

    It’s odd that I haven’t heard any similar criticisms. I guess any pro web designer would avoid it (unless forced to use it by a client) as opposed to a blogger that just thinks it’s neato. No offense, again. :) I just couldn’t use it. ;)

    It’s rare that you have a web tech phenomenon (tag cloud) which has really just one key attribute as its reason for being (font scaling to indicate ranking) and to have another one come along and subvert that one attribute to the point of uselessness. And a secondary resulting aspect, the tag cloud’s general irregular blobiness is now also gone in favor of a tighter, nothing-at-all-like-a-cloud, sphere. Less 3D tag cloud, more 3D word ball. The shape is rather more like a sack for of cats fighting rolling down a hill. ;)

    Anyhoo, thanks for the distraction.

    Comment by Varth Dader — September 21, 2008 @ 11:00 pm

  21. Thanks for the great plugin. I fell in love with it and decided to put it up on my political blog. Ever since visitors have been asking me where I got it, so I have been directing them to you :)

    Comment by Alex — September 24, 2008 @ 12:39 am

  22. Roy… I love this thing. Simply love it

    Thnx

    Comment by alberto d'ottavi — October 13, 2008 @ 10:14 am

  23. Wow…very nice

    Comment by D e n n i e — October 14, 2008 @ 5:25 pm

  24. Is it possible to use this as a constantly rotating sphere for presentational purposes? Are there any unpublished variables? Ie. (Disable rotation easing) or (direction of the rotation) or (speed of the rotation)?

    Comment by Jon — October 16, 2008 @ 11:51 pm

  25. Hi Jon. There are no undocumented features whatsoever, but it slowdown effect is quite easy to disable if you’re able to edit the sources a bit and recompile the movie (which basically means: if you have Flash installed and know the bare basics).

    Simply open up the tagcloud.as file, find the line that says “active = false; and change false to true. Then scroll down a bit and comment out the next two lines bij adding a double slash in front of each one.

    stage.addEventListener(Event.MOUSE_LEAVE, mouseExitHandler);
    stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, mouseMoveHandler);

    That should disable the motion easing and mouse exit detection. If you want to have the cloud move constantly in one direction no matter where the mous is, scroll down a bit further to the “updateTags” function and set the ‘a’ and ‘b’ variables to fixed values.

    Comment by Roy — October 17, 2008 @ 1:00 pm

  26. Thanks Roy. This is great news! I’m eager to give it a try.

    I did not realize the source code was available. How do we go about getting this?

    Thanks for your support.

    Jon

    Comment by Jon — October 17, 2008 @ 5:24 pm

  27. Sorry…found the source code on your download site and got everything working perfectly.

    Thank you so much!

    Jon

    Comment by Jon — October 17, 2008 @ 5:50 pm

  28. Hi Roy,
    Thanks for a great plugin, and for replying to people- should never be under estimated!

    My question is a simple one- I am using Categories rather than Tags in the cloud because then it becomes an effective navigation tool :D
    However, I can’t exclude/include categories, only Tags (when used as a tag cloud or both).

    Also

    Comment by Also — October 18, 2008 @ 9:33 pm

  29. Hi.
    Two questions.
    I would add the target (<a target=”_parent” …) option for my links. It’s possible?
    I would use in my site, which is not WP, your tagcloud.swf file and changing a little your wp-cumulus.php ! It’s possible?
    Many thanks

    Comment by Gal — October 19, 2008 @ 10:14 am

  30. Very cool. Not something I would find terribly useful, but nonetheless – very, cool.

    Comment by Matt Chatterley — November 21, 2008 @ 4:10 pm

  31. I would use this more than a normal tag cloud, I often think tag clouds are messy and kinda detract from a site but this puts a whole new perspective on it and its entertaining, nice work Roy.

    Comment by SLoB — November 21, 2008 @ 8:28 pm

  32. Hello Roy Tanck,

    I like toyr tag clud which had been modified to be Joomulus and which I’m using in my website now http://www.MiMusic.co.cc

    But I have problem with the text size, it’s too big. Which caused of very many article that are using that tags. Is there any tips to make the text become smaller?

    Thanks

    Mickeel

    Comment by Mickeel — November 22, 2008 @ 12:59 am

  33. Link: 3. Repérer des blogs sur wordpress pour estimer les possibilités graphiques et techniques «

  34. This is the best tag widget EVER, now if someone could only show me how to embed it into my IntegraMod portal.
    Im nowhere near being a techie so a few step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated.
    Here is my site
    http://www.loadedparanormal.com

    Comment by XHIBIT — November 27, 2008 @ 5:08 am

  35. Link: Silverlight Tag Cloud - Getting Started forum posts from CommunityServer.com - Community Server and Graffiti CMS hosting

  36. Hey there I really like the design of your tag cloud, I have a question though, I’m trying to make my own website (complete amateur) and I would love to use your tag cloud design on my front page. Right now I’m using Blue Voda as my webpage maker since I have no experience using dream weaver and similar software. How can I embed it into my site without having it uploaded on the internet at the moment? I’m still trying to get it to look nice and I don’t want to upload it at the moment. Of course I’ll give you full credit for the tag cloud on the site.

    Comment by MIles — December 2, 2008 @ 7:00 am

  37. Hi Miles. Please see http://www.roytanck.com/2008/05/19/how-to-repurpose-my-tag-cloud-flash-movie/ .

    Comment by Roy — December 2, 2008 @ 12:31 pm

  38. Hoi Roy,

    Uitstekend plugin!

    I was amused by Varth Dader’s comments above — even when he comes back, he can’t stop his negativity. I guess he got out of the dark side of the bed ;-)

    I disagree too with his insistence on utility over any other feature. Style is an essential element in design, and this dynamic cloud is very stylish.

    Utility is not always immediately obvious. As Ben Franklin said, “What’s the use of a newborn baby?” (context)

    I should know — #4 is due in April!

    Comment by Ria — December 2, 2008 @ 2:02 pm

  39. hi,, this is very good. but as i created my website in Silverlight, so i need to put the tag cloud in Silverlight, any ideas about it…
    will be waiting for the reply.
    thanx!

    Comment by Zain Shaikh — December 11, 2008 @ 8:38 pm

  40. Hi Zain. I guess the source code for the movie could serve as ‘inspiration’ for a Silverlight version… But other than that the two seem to be sworn enemies.

    Comment by Roy — December 12, 2008 @ 8:44 am

  41. Hi, Roy,.,.,
    Can You Help Me? Please, Give Me The Code This Tag,.,.
    Please,.,.,!!!!!!!!!

    Comment by soedarland — December 12, 2008 @ 3:46 pm

  42. Link: Some thoughts, I thought … » Blog Archive » Tag-cloud

  43. Roy,

    I want to use your very cool cloud tag on a NING based social network with blogs. Can this be done?

    Comment by Clymer...CC — December 16, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

  44. Hi Clymer…CC. I’m sure it can, but someone familiar with that system will have to create a port. See the link I posted in an earlier comment for more info.

    Comment by Roy — December 17, 2008 @ 8:47 am

  45. Hey! pretty nice love it seem very good. and cools to use. Thanks for tag.

    Comment by jagadish — December 18, 2008 @ 11:31 am

  46. Can you create a tag cloud for images please?

    Comment by mark kolb — December 20, 2008 @ 2:04 am

  47. hi, nice plug in.
    I m having a problem though, in the option i put “ffffff” color for the tags and “000000″ for the background, but on the page it still shows the default white background , black tags even after updating the options and refreshing my page! I’m stumped!
    What to do?

    Comment by WarlorD — December 20, 2008 @ 8:04 pm

  48. Hi WarlorD. Are you sure you put the settings in the right place? The widget has a seperate set of settings, which you can edit under ‘design->widgets’…

    Comment by Roy — December 20, 2008 @ 10:11 pm

  49. yup, u r right. I overlooked the widget settings. Thnx
    By the way is there any way to make the corners of the box that appear on the tags when hovered upon round? I think that might look good than the rectangle.

    Comment by WarlorD — December 22, 2008 @ 8:09 pm

  50. If anyone is interested in making a few bucks installing this on my website (payable thru PayPal) contact me at XHIBIT_A_@hotmail.com

    Comment by XHIBIT — December 23, 2008 @ 9:01 am

  51. your flash tag = easy to use, simple, beautiful !
    hi ! i discovered it as i was working on wordpress, and was so happy to be able to use it on a ‘classical’ website
    so i simply integrated it into mine (? excuse my english, i’m a french girl).
    so i’d better say it in french : “ton nuage de tags est original, fluide mais surtout magnifique ! merci ! ”
    thank you so much !
    holy sd.

    Comment by holy sd — December 23, 2008 @ 12:47 pm

  52. How can i use multi colored in tag clouds………….If anyone knows …………send me reply

    Comment by Mujawer — December 24, 2008 @ 11:20 am

  53. @mujawer. You can change the colors throuhg ’settings->wp-cumulus’ or ‘design->widgets->wp-cumulus’ depending on whether you’re using the widget or the regular version.

    To have a multi-colored tag cloud you can enter two color values, from which a gradient is created. This gradient is then used to color the tags based on their importance.

    Comment by Roy — December 24, 2008 @ 2:40 pm

  54. Link: Tag Cloud Cumulus « KomputeryService

  55. Hi Roy,
    A great plug-in indeed. But I have a problem with it on my blogger site. It doesn’t show Cyrillic characters! Can I fix it somehow?
    And one more question – can I have that type of cloud with my posts headings instead of the labels?

    Thanks a lot!

    Comment by kyko — January 4, 2009 @ 1:26 pm

  56. hey is there any way of putting ur great plugin as a springboard theme on the iphone if so u should figure it out and try selling cause i feel you’d be rich if u did

    Comment by Jai burnam — January 6, 2009 @ 2:51 am

  57. and if u manage to do it could i be ur first beta tester err something dude cause that thing rocks

    Comment by Jai burnam — January 6, 2009 @ 2:52 am

  58. Hi Jai. Hmm.. the iPhone doesn’t do Flash, so that’s going to be tricky. I’ll if there’s a different approach though…

    Comment by Roy — January 6, 2009 @ 12:04 pm

  59. well sum iphone developers are trying to get a full working version of linux for the iphone and it has an array of features which might be of better use and the phone is loaded with great hardware to possibly be able to run ur cloud in sum form or another maybe when iphone linux is released there might be more options for u to try

    Comment by jaiburnam — January 8, 2009 @ 2:33 am

  60. Really great, thank you for making such nice plugin…

    Comment by nikoTM — January 9, 2009 @ 11:15 am

  61. Hi Roy,
    Your cloud tag is awesome .
    I have a blog .
    I want to add this tag in ma blog but I can’t understand how can I do this.
    I am searching this from long days.
    Pls pls pls help me.. pls.

    Comment by Supratik Halder — January 11, 2009 @ 7:12 pm

  62. hello my name is ray,
    wow amazing,
    how you do that?
    can i borrow some?
    please
    thx

    Comment by ray — January 12, 2009 @ 8:47 am

  63. LOVE IT SO MUCH !!!

    My Page

    Comment by G Piou — January 16, 2009 @ 10:23 am

  64. Hi,
    I have source code of your excellent plugin.
    I need to know, how to change ” tag” colors. i know how to change background color, but not tag color.
    I am using it on my website, which has a color scheme, and i can not use it as it is.

    thanks
    Ankit
    http://www.Mediaken.com

    Comment by Ankit — January 19, 2009 @ 3:49 pm

  65. Hi Roy, YES it’s a wunderful piece of work. Can I use it for my website or connect you to the people who build my new site. As you know, that part is not my thing. I only look very perfectionistic to the communication goals en user experience of it.

    Comment by Angeli Hagoort — January 19, 2009 @ 5:31 pm

  66. @Ankit: The ‘tcolor’ attribute changes the tag color. There’s also a ‘tcolor2′ and a ‘hicolor’ parameter in the latest version, allowing for multi-colored tags and a highlight color.

    Comment by Roy — January 20, 2009 @ 11:34 am

  67. @Angeli: Yes you can. I’ve released this under the GPL license, so you can pretty much do anything with it short of selling it to clients. Feel free to have your people contact mine (I’ll do silly voices on the phone and pretend to transfer your call to the right department).

    Comment by Roy — January 20, 2009 @ 11:37 am

  68. Hey Roy,

    are you planning to release a new version of the plugin that runs on WP2.7 ?
    Thanks for answering!

    Péter
    Hungary

    Comment by Péter — January 20, 2009 @ 6:44 pm

  69. @Péter: It does run on 2.7. I still have to update the readme, but I’ve tested in myself.

    Comment by Roy — January 20, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

  70. Hi Mr. Roy,

    Great, i figured out how to change colors, next thing i am stuck at is, some of my tags(actually keywords in my combination) are overlapping at times, as i have fixed space, i dont want them to overlap. Also, they dont actually look like a sphere.

    TIA
    Ankit

    Comment by Ankit — January 20, 2009 @ 8:37 pm

  71. Hi Ankit. To minimize overlapping, you can use the ‘distr’ parameter (set it to ‘true’). It looks like the movie is currently quite a bit wider than the available space. It looks like you’re trying to set it to 125.3 pixels wide. My guess is that the decimal is causing the movie not be scaled properly.

    Comment by Roy — January 21, 2009 @ 9:08 am

  72. Hi roy, it was wonderful creation.. but i wonder if i can apply this on my blogspot?

    Comment by ika — January 21, 2009 @ 11:07 am

  73. Hi Ika. I think you’re looking for this.

    Comment by Roy — January 21, 2009 @ 11:35 am

  74. Great plugin!

    Comment by Fernando S.R. — January 22, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

  75. Link: bragato.com » Blog Archive » Tag Cloud per wordpress by Roy Tanck

  76. hi..I use your amazing widget for my blog here. I look the tag is not centered within the box. How do I fix it? Thanks for this amazing widget!! please respond…:)

    Comment by nindrianto — January 23, 2009 @ 4:26 am

  77. @nindrianto: It look like the movie is a little too wide for the containing box. I can see tags moving outside of the box occasionally. You should proably try adjusting the width until it fits.

    Comment by Roy — January 23, 2009 @ 10:16 am

  78. okay, roy..thanks a lot. I’ve edited it by add center tags in the code. Now, that is more better. please review again, if you have a time…thanks..

    Comment by nindrianto — January 27, 2009 @ 4:11 pm

  79. loving the cloud.. will it work on typepad?

    Comment by Graeme — January 31, 2009 @ 1:37 am

  80. Hi Roy, Love the cloud, but how can I have two clouds as widgets one holding the tag and the other holding the categories?

    Comment by jimbo — February 3, 2009 @ 10:29 am

  81. @jimbo: Currently you can’t. There isn’t really a technical reason for that but it wasn’t designed that way. You can have a widget and a non-widget version on the same page, but not two widgets. Perhaps if you edit your theme’s sidebar.php to include the non-widget version somewhere outside of the actual widgetized sidebar it might work.

    Comment by Roy — February 3, 2009 @ 1:40 pm

  82. hi roy..
    i’ve been eyeing your cloud tag since the first time i saw it last year..
    since now i’ve manage to learn and build my own website (photoblog), i wish i could use your amazing cloud tag..

    by the way, i’m using pixelpost with xampp.
    hope u may guide me to integrate your cloud tag into my photoblog, because i’m very2 new to website building things…

    currently i’m using localhost as i’m still looking for the suitable hosting..
    thanks..

    Comment by split.second — February 5, 2009 @ 7:40 am

  83. Hi Roy, I’m planning to use your this plug but having a few changes in the source code. How does that work about the license terms?

    Comment by RFSP — February 5, 2009 @ 12:07 pm

  84. Link: elimu blog » Blog Archive » Chmury tagów

  85. Hi RFSP. You can simply get the sources from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cumulus/download/ and edit them any way you wish.

    Comment by Roy — February 5, 2009 @ 2:46 pm

  86. Is Wordpress necessary to use this tag cloud? Or, can I code it into my website manually … meaning, does it require anything in Wordpress behind the scenes?

    Comment by Ace — February 9, 2009 @ 3:26 pm

  87. Nevermind that, I got it to work on my site … thanks, very nice.

    Comment by Ace — February 9, 2009 @ 3:58 pm

  88. thanks bro..
    U’re the man!

    Comment by kyo_9 — February 12, 2009 @ 6:16 pm

  89. i want to use this in a asp site

    Comment by pubudu — February 14, 2009 @ 3:08 am

  90. Hi dude!

    I don’t want to put in my cloud tags, cat, but particular custom fields… My question is simple, can I use my own SQL request to get the good words and links ?

    thanks :)

    Comment by Franck — February 15, 2009 @ 10:44 am

  91. great plugin. One question.

    Is there a way to left or right justify the cloud?

    It appears centered in the sidebar and I would like to left justify it.

    Thanks

    Comment by ron — February 20, 2009 @ 2:18 pm

  92. @ron: It does indeed center itself within the available space. To change this you should either edit the Flash movie, or create a larger containing html element in which to position the Flash movie.

    Comment by Roy — February 20, 2009 @ 10:14 pm

  93. You can help me please … I want the NEWEST Tags in the cloud. I became only old tags inside. :( what can i do?

    Comment by maybejam — February 21, 2009 @ 2:11 pm

  94. @maybejam: I’m afraid that WordPress’ wp_tag_cloud function simply doesn’t support that. It returns the gas ordered either by name or count (meaning the number of times a tag is used). Since my plugin uses this function to get its data, it inherits this limitation.

    Comment by Roy — February 21, 2009 @ 9:27 pm

  95. Thank you for the fast answer… I will times experiment with it.

    Comment by maybejam — February 21, 2009 @ 10:48 pm

  96. Hi Roy !
    Thank you for your superb work. I tried your plugin on my wordpress blog but I have this error :

    WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.

    Yet, I have the flash player installed (I reinstalled it, just to make sure) and I can see your cloud in any other site (yours for instance)… What did I miss ? Is there anything I need to install on my webserver in order to accept flash movies ?

    Comment by Gou — February 23, 2009 @ 11:34 am

  97. Hi Gou. Did you check your site for markup errors using validator.w3.org? In 99% of cases, errors like yours are caused by these errors.

    Comment by Roy — February 23, 2009 @ 11:44 am

  98. Hello ,
    first of all thanks for this wonderfull app.
    I wanted to let you know that i makde an extension for ezpublish available here :
    http://ez.no/developer/contribs/applications/ezcumulus

    I once saw a page listing all the integrations done to various cms, can’t find it anymore, and i would like to update it with ezpublish, can you tell me were i can find this page ?

    Regard,

    Comment by jean-yves — February 23, 2009 @ 11:53 am

  99. Hi Jean-yves: That list is on wordpress.org, and I’ll be sure to update it with your project upon the next WP-Cumulus release. Great work!

    Comment by Roy — February 23, 2009 @ 1:01 pm

  100. Thank you for your quick answer Roy : I did check my site using validator.w3.org and passed through the tests. I’m not sure where to look for now… Any idea ?

    Comment by Gou — February 23, 2009 @ 9:52 pm

  101. @Gou: Can you email me the URL? I’ll have a look. Also, please upgrade to the latest version by uploading it through FTP, instead of using WordPress’ built in upgrade feature.

    Comment by Roy — February 24, 2009 @ 8:24 pm

  102. Updating from 1.18 to 1.19 (via FTP but I don’t know if it has anything to do with it since I didn’t try WP feature) solved the problem.
    Thank you for your kindness and your work Roy !

    Comment by Gou — February 25, 2009 @ 11:07 am

  103. Hey! I’m working on a school project for my grad program at Georgia Tech in which I combine several widgets and/or RSS feeds to create a unified local for getting information on a particular subject in a visually appealing way.

    I’ve been playing with your code for a couple of days now and I’ve been attempting to connect it to my own database of images (and alternatively, something like Photobucket or Flickr could work). I would love to be able to have images instead of text in the tag cloud – I’m just not sure how ot go about it. I know you’ve done your own Flickr version of this, so I was wondering if you’d give me some hints to getting to that.

    Also, I was wondering if you knew how to force your links in your tag to open in a particular frame. I’m trying to have the cloud next to a list of tags next to an RSS feed style information entry. Currently, when you click the tags, the content opens in either the same frame you’re already on or in a separate window/tab altogether. I’ve tried inserting a target code in the XML file, but it doesn’t seem to work. Any ideas would be much appreciated?

    Feel free to email me at my school account. Thanks in advance!

    Comment by Betsy G. — March 4, 2009 @ 5:39 pm

  104. Hi Betsy. Having images instead of tags is a little tricky. You’d definitely have to edit the Flash movie to make it accept (and load) image urls through XML. The Flickr version looks as nice as it does because Flickr supplies images at a fixes size, and the total count is limited to 20. Having more, and/or larger images can cause the movie to look weird. I was quite amazed at how well it worked with Flickr, your mileage may vary.

    Opening links in a frame can be done by editing the Tag.as file. Look for ‘_self’, and change that to whatever suits your needs. Both frames and target=”_blank” are depricated features though…

    Comment by Roy — March 5, 2009 @ 1:28 pm

  105. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I’ve gotten my stuff to open in other window pretty easily and I’ve worked out how to get picture to appear. You’re right, the sizing is throwing everything off, but I’m working on it. I’m also working on the tags being about to open two separate locations at once (both an image repository and the information entry) as well as allowing other people to add to the tag cloud (I’m going to link my XML to a database so that it’ll update properly). If I have any other smaller questions, I’ll be sure to ask and if I ever get this working properly, I’ll send you a link. Thanks again!

    Comment by Betsy G. — March 6, 2009 @ 3:30 am

  106. Hi there mate,
    may-many congrats for this GIANT plugin!

    One question: is there a way to keep the cloud moving, without mouse over, maybe at a certain (slow) speed?

    Thanks

    Comment by Hermann — March 26, 2009 @ 1:06 am

  107. @Hermann: No, there isn’t. It used to just keep spinning no matter what, and the very first feature request I got was to please make that stop. And I agree that it should. People come to your blog to read what you have to say, and they shouldn’t be distracted constantly. Having it stop also frees up your cpu.

    Comment by Roy — March 26, 2009 @ 9:22 am

  108. Maybe a very slow speed (user selectable, defaulted to 0, so unless users changes the default-speed-value the cloud will stop moving) could be nice…. attractive but not bothering at the same time.

    Comment by Hermann — March 26, 2009 @ 5:40 pm

  109. @Hermann: That is a very tough call to make. Some people are distracted by the smallest amount of movement. But even then, the cpu issue is quite a factor too. On my rather fast PC, WP-Cumulus can sometimes hog up to 25% CPU power.

    Comment by Roy — March 26, 2009 @ 7:41 pm

  110. I was thinking that distracted users could miss the wpcumuls show…maybe not noticeing it at all.
    What about a timer? Every N seconds, spin the cloud for a few seconds…
    users could select: interval, spin duration and speed…also it would be nice to select an accelleration factor..
    Am I too persistant? :-)

    Comment by Hermann — March 26, 2009 @ 8:46 pm

  111. @hermann: Yes and no :) . This is starting to look more and more like a feature that you should implement yourself. I don’t want to add that many options for a feature that almost nobody requests. But this thing is open source, so please feel free to do it yourself :)

    Comment by Roy — March 27, 2009 @ 9:03 am

  112. i am a a joomla user is there any way i can have this lovelly tag cloud, thanx in advance.

    Comment by Fahad — April 6, 2009 @ 12:51 pm

  113. Any chance this will ever be available for Ning sites?

    Comment by Hugh — April 10, 2009 @ 8:49 pm

  114. @Hugh: Feel free to have a go at porting it to Ning. There’s a couple of posts on this blog that could get you started.

    Comment by Roy — April 11, 2009 @ 12:41 pm

  115. wow! this is wicked cool. i just thunked up a similar 2-d concept and had no idea how / if it could be done, googled “flash video tag cloud”, and, walla!

    thanks!

    Comment by josh gberg — April 16, 2009 @ 11:04 pm

  116. Link: Top 5 Wordpress Plugins | Branded 3

  117. We usually said in indonesian “KEREEEN” it’s meant COOL,… my blog more fun with your superb works.
    thanks again bro..

    Comment by oopshey — April 22, 2009 @ 2:43 pm

  118. hi folks

    did you send us a cloud request? we would be happy to post one of your great 3-d clouds! or link to any pages on your site that you want us to.

    congratulations on your beautiful code!

    take care, frank

    Comment by frank — May 1, 2009 @ 3:13 am

  119. Hi Roy,

    Have read this blog but still don’t get it – How do I prevent for that my cloud-tags font-size get too big? Do I have too many? Is it the size of the actual area? Or….

    Please give me an advice

    PS. Like your site! :)
    diagonal

    Comment by diagonal — May 5, 2009 @ 8:35 am

  120. Hi Diagonal. You can set the font sizes (min and max) directly using the wp_tag_cloud params. You could also use the ‘number’ param to limit the total number of tags to something less than the default 45. If overlapping tags is part of your issue, try setting the ‘distribute evenly’ option too.

    Comment by Roy — May 5, 2009 @ 8:43 am

  121. I have some problems if I run the flash Cloud Tag.

    Working fine in FF, but IE cannot open the site then!

    If I use the regular tagcloud it is working fine!

    Any ideas why?

    Andre

    Comment by Andre — May 10, 2009 @ 9:43 pm

  122. He Andre. Are you using WordPress? The link you used with your comment takes me to what looks like a non-wordpress site… But it sounds like SWFObject is having trouble with the markup errors in your site. Tis is usually the case when one browser fails while others manage to render the page.

    Comment by Roy — May 11, 2009 @ 11:26 am

  123. hi Roy i have a problem.. I need to create 3 different tag cloud related to 3 different database. The tags will put inside the database manually throught 3 different forms.
    I already created the forms for submit the tags and the database but i can’t connect it with the plugin.. Could you help me?
    Sorry but i’m not an expert of php and mysql.. Thank you!

    Comment by Ted — May 11, 2009 @ 7:17 pm

  124. Hi Ted. The trick is to output the tag cloud in the same way WordPress does. If you can create a string with several links like the default tag cloud, you should be able to feed those to the Flash movie. I assume you’re read this?

    Comment by Roy — May 12, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

  125. This tag cloud is very funny indeed!
    Do it respect also accessibility rules?

    Comment by Ros — May 14, 2009 @ 11:13 am

  126. I’m afraid accessibility isn’t going to be helped by this, but it does output the regular text cloud (made invisible through CSS), so screen readers may pick up on that.

    Comment by Roy — May 14, 2009 @ 2:19 pm

  127. Wonderful !!! Plugins !!!
    Wonderful Task!

    Comment by M Yakub Mizan — May 16, 2009 @ 6:11 pm

  128. Hello Roy.

    I would like to know if this plugin work in other websites that doesn’t use WordPress. If it does, than you mind telling me how?

    Thanks.

    Comment by Ashley — May 17, 2009 @ 11:00 pm

  129. Hi Ashley. Several people have ported WP-Cumulus to other platforms. I keep a list here. The last entry in that list contains additional documentation that could help you port the project or use it in a static html site.

    Comment by Roy — May 19, 2009 @ 7:56 am

  130. Hi Roy,
    Awesome creation!!!!
    Please can you advise How i can adjust or edit the code to make it compatible with iWeb 08, probably to enter it as a Snippet…?
    Thanks

    Comment by celestial elf — May 20, 2009 @ 9:39 am

  131. Hi ‘Elf’. I’m not familiar with the specifics of iWeb ‘08, but this page might help: http://www.roytanck.com/2008/05/19/how-to-repurpose-my-tag-cloud-flash-movie/

    Comment by Roy — May 20, 2009 @ 1:03 pm

  132. Link: Rolling Tag Cloud for Mac??? - Mac-Forums.com
  133. Link: Visualization aids us to perceive information! : CBIR

  134. Excellent and Awesome creation.

    Comment by Sashi — June 12, 2009 @ 8:26 am

  135. can this be applied to blogger too?

    Comment by Daisy — June 13, 2009 @ 12:24 am

  136. Great Plugin! Awesome.

    I realized that there is a funny data output for google like that:

    ***
    [FLASH]
    Tag
    Dateiformat: Shockwave Flash
    Tag.
    http://www.mietboerse.net/wp-content/plugins/wp-cumulus/tagcloud.swf?r=6836843 –
    ***

    Of course that is not very sexy and does not contain helpful information.
    Is there a way to fix that?

    Problem to solve:
    - it is listed as link but will not work when click it – should link to search list where tag is used
    - it has not information in it – should name the tag name itself and if possible a description note

    Thanks for reply and help on that.

    Regards

    Comment by Inspirator — June 14, 2009 @ 3:52 pm

  137. Hi Stephan. I’m not quite sure what you’re saying, but it looks like you told Google to either look for SWF files or for a tagcloud. That the movie gets found at all is somewhat of an unwanted side effect. It countains no data, and isn’t very helpful when you’re looking for content. But my plugin does output the regular tag cloud too, so all the keywords will be in your page, visible to search engines, and linking to the appropriate Wordpress tag page.

    Comment by Roy — June 15, 2009 @ 8:59 am

  138. can you guide me please.. how to change round to square…. where i can chage it.

    i want 900widthx100height size flash tag cloud… its possible to make ?? please sir guide me

    Comment by krahamath — June 17, 2009 @ 8:49 am

  139. Link: H22 Blog Wishlist | Heren22 – Made in Holland

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