pf » How To Make a Tag Cloud

How To Make a Tag Cloud

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Jeffery Zeldman proclaims that tag clouds are the new mullets. However, as I'm sure you're aware some people just can't resist the mullet.

I actually find my tag cloud quite handy because it lists all my tags on one page, and I can see what topics I post about most frequently quite easily. I also use it as a way to see which tags I have already used, so I can be consistent when tagging posts.

Anyways a lot of folks would like to know just how you can get one of these mullets, er tag clouds. I have shown how I do it below using CFML. If you don't use ColdFusion you should still be able to follow along.

At this point you may be wondering what's a tag cloud? If so consult the picture below:

tag cloud

Ok, now let the mullets reign...

Step 1 - Get a list tags, and their frequency

<cfquery datasource="#dsn#" name="tags">
	SELECT COUNT(tag) AS tagCount, tag
	FROM tblblogtags
	GROUP BY tag
</cfquery>

In my tag cloud I list all my tags, but if you have a lot of tags you may want to limit the min number of occurrences using a HAVING statement. For example HAVING tagCount > 5

Step 2 - Find the Max and Min frequency

<cfset tagValueArray = ListToArray(ValueList(tags.tagCount))>
<cfset max = ArrayMax(tagValueArray)>
<cfset min = ArrayMin(tagValueArray)>

Step 3 - Find the difference between max and min, and the distribution

<cfset diff = max - min>
<cfset distribution = diff / 3>

You can define the distribution to be more granular if you like by dividing by a larger number, and using more font sizes below. You will probably need to play with this to get your tag cloud to look good.

Step 4 - Loop over the tags, and output with size

<cfoutput query="tags">
	<cfif tags.tagCount EQ min>
		<cfset class="smallestTag">
	<cfelseif tags.tagCount EQ max>
		<cfset class="largestTag">
	<cfelseif tags.tagCount GT (min + (distribution*2))>
		<cfset class="largeTag">
	<cfelseif tags.tagCount GT (min + distribution)>
		<cfset class="mediumTag">
	<cfelse>
		<cfset class="smallTag">
	</cfif>
	<a href="/tag/#tags.tag#" class="#class#">#tags.tag#</a>
</cfoutput>

Step 5 - add css classes to your stylesheet

.smallestTag { font-size: xx-small; }
.smallTag { font-size: small; }
.mediumTag { font-size: medium; }
.largeTag { font-size: large; }
.largestTag { font-size: xx-large; } 

There are probably lots of different ways to build a tag cloud, but this is the first method that came to mind.



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On 06/27/2005 at 9:54:50 AM MDT ForgetFoo wrote:
1
awesome post!

thanks alot for posting this, along with some code... much appreciated ;)

/foO

On 07/02/2005 at 11:16:34 PM MDT Francis Shanahan wrote:
2
I made this: "TagLines" http://www.francisshanahan.com/taglines/default.aspx?cat=All

it's an auto-folksonomy tool built using the Term Extraction APIS. It combines Ajax with Folksonomies and Yahoo Web Services to allow you to search on RSS feeds, News, Movies, Images or just obtain the original story, all without a page-refresh.

Would love to get some feedback on it or suggestions for improvement. regards, -fs

On 07/05/2005 at 7:54:04 PM MDT Scott Burton wrote:
3
Coolness, now I will just need a mullet to match. I might even let my hair grow in the middle back into a "tail" like we used to in the 80's now that would be cool!!!!

I need to implement this on my site www.similarthings.com :) Minus the mullet!

On 07/06/2005 at 10:51:04 AM MDT Pete Freitag wrote:
4
Cool Site Scott, "Not Even in Beta", I like it!

On 07/06/2005 at 1:04:00 PM MDT Scot Burton wrote:
5
Hehe, I'm glad you like that. I figured I might as well jump on the whole "BETA" bandwagon.

Did you sign up? You should check it out, I have added some nice Ajax and Effects to some of the admin.

On 07/07/2005 at 11:34:01 AM MDT Michael Arrington wrote:
6
Great Post.

On 10/21/2005 at 11:39:22 AM MDT Jake - BlogFusion wrote:
7
Oh man! I wish I'd found this earlier... I'm working on the new version of BlogFusion (v5.0) and am building in tags.

I did the font sizing a bit differently, but it's the same basic premise.

The task I'm working on now, however is: How would one add the capability to display at least one tag for every letter of the alphabet?

Assume for a second that you have 5500 tags in your tag table. That's alot of tags to display - so what I would want to do is find enough tags to fill out a max of 100 tags, for instance, with at least one tag from each letter of the alphabet. (otherwise, you might have the first 100 tags be A-G, rather than A-Z...looks strange to users, and skips cool content in the H-Z range)

Anyway, tags are cool, and thanks for the ideas!!

On 12/03/2005 at 11:54:20 PM MST Travis Reeder wrote:
8
Muchos gracias!

I used your ideas here: http://www.rel8r.com/tags/

On 01/13/2006 at 4:18:28 AM MST Henry wrote:
9
Hi Pete. New year greetings. Nice work. Tagging will be used on the Do Me a Favor Buddy site soon too. I'll keep you posted: www.domeafavorbuddy.com

On 03/07/2006 at 8:51:15 AM MST Ryan Guill wrote:
10
Awesome, once again, you are the man

On 03/21/2006 at 5:58:12 AM MST DENiAL wrote:
11
Awesome, I hope I can use this. I have an idea, and it involves tagclouds. :D

On 04/07/2006 at 11:03:11 AM MDT Ujwala wrote:
12
Hi!

i loved the idea of having my own tag cloud. i tried eurekstr and zoomcloud but this seems like a better idea.

I tried cutting an pasting this in my template under the sidebar section and I get no results. I also tried adding <script> and </script> after now the #tag thingies disappear but there is no tag cloud.

I know that I doing something wrong. I hope it is simple and I hope you can help.

On 04/15/2006 at 3:07:03 PM MDT Tomasz Topa wrote:
13
Great post. The method presented here is very simple and very easy, which results in being extremely useful.

Thanks!

On 04/26/2006 at 8:14:54 AM MDT Richard Harlos wrote:
14
Hey! Thanks for this article!

I was just talking with a friend about how to create a tag cloud for my blog but I wasn't sure how to go about it.

Although I don't use ColdFusion, your article was (as you said!) easy enough to follow. I'm going to get to work on creating my own tag cloud today! (I use WordPress as my blogging engine so I guess I'll be writing my code in PHP as a plugin.

Thanks for this helpful article!

On 07/07/2006 at 9:30:45 PM MDT thomas wrote:
15
alright, no matter how far i search though google, i always end back up here, so would anyone be able to help me change this into php & mysql so i can use it on my small site. Thanks you in advance, and i'll be willing to do a web design or promote your site or what ever, just either post here or email me ar thrasher.basher@gmail.com

On 07/17/2006 at 8:55:21 AM MDT Anders Dahnielson wrote:
16
Thomas: I've written a entry on how I implemented this for my WordPress blog (in PHP).

http://en.dahnielson.com/2006/07/blog-overcast-tagclouds.html

On 07/19/2006 at 7:52:07 AM MDT Chris Estes wrote:
17
I had no idea tag clouds were as cool and hip as mullets.

On 09/09/2006 at 12:00:36 PM MDT Jason Bartholme wrote:
18
Hi Pete, I used your script and have it running on my CF powered article directory.

http://www.ArticleOnRamp.com/Tag-Cloud.cfm

Thanks!

On 09/29/2006 at 6:40:56 AM MDT HM2K wrote:
19
Could you provide details of your table structure so this method of implimentation can be used on other systems.

On 10/10/2006 at 8:45:22 AM MDT Mary wrote:
20
Hi all, I only started looking into tag clouds since yesterday and I have to say I am a bit confused. I am an excellent user on html and DreamWeaver but I have never touched Coldfusion. Does anyone now any other articles or tutorials that would help me understand more about tag clouds, where they are used and how!

Some of my questions:

Are they only or mainly used for blogs?

What kind of tags do I use to link the key words with the tag link generator (tag cloud links I supose).

Does the above script goes in the head or the body of the page.

As you can understand I am completely lost. Thank you all in advance

On 10/13/2006 at 2:48:47 AM MDT Richard wrote:
21
What's your database table like for that?

On 11/20/2006 at 8:47:15 AM MST Iscandar wrote:
22
Hey, love the idea, but also am having issues trying to figure out how the database table is set up. Any help?

On 12/09/2006 at 1:33:13 AM MST Druckerpatronen wrote:
23
great site with very good look and perfect information?is a very good site? like it

On 01/11/2007 at 9:47:28 AM MST Ed wrote:
24
Jeff, I just wanted to say thanks for this, you saved me loads of work and the cloud works beautifully. I adapted it to run with percentages rather than a straight COUNT. Anyway, it seemed only polite to say thank you :-)

On 01/11/2007 at 11:26:26 AM MST wan1980 wrote:
25
I do not sure how this tag cloud work What DB you connect it and what language is that??XML??

http://www.8coupons.com

On 01/25/2007 at 11:10:36 AM MST Anil wrote:
26
Fantastic information. I could build a cloud in django using this.

On 02/26/2007 at 1:26:07 PM MST Anteuz wrote:
27
Very nice, simple yet effective. I translated it to Java 5 for usage in my website http://unitedcxp.org/BulletBlog

On 03/12/2007 at 1:41:22 PM MST Praveen Angyan wrote:
28
Thanks, I've created a design primer for developers who want to implement tagging in their applications and I've linked to your article for creating a Tag Clouds in Coldfusion.

http://www.taskfly.com/blog/?p=6

On 03/22/2007 at 10:19:47 AM MST FP Images wrote:
29
We made this tag cloud: http://www.featurepics.com/editorial/tag-cloud.aspx

We have added a little bit "colors" to the final styling (selected a main color and blended it).

On 03/22/2007 at 5:48:48 PM MST Mark King wrote:
30
I couldn't post HTML so go here to see my version of this (allows as many tag sizes as you like).

http://mgk1969.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/making-a-tag-cloud-in-coldfusion/

On 04/14/2007 at 3:52:41 AM MDT im ben wrote:
31
we made this tag cloud http://www.gencler.info

On 04/25/2007 at 6:36:22 AM MDT Bill wrote:
32
Have this:n

On 04/29/2007 at 10:48:46 AM MDT Bob wrote:
33
Have this:n

On 05/31/2007 at 8:49:58 AM MDT exl wrote:
34
Or (if one still have the list of tags) one could use this http://jsbuzzwords.axelschneider.info/ script to generate a tag-cloud. It is described in german but you could translate it - or you read the sources.. ;-)

Many regards, exl

On 07/03/2007 at 8:55:03 AM MDT mike7 wrote:
35
I have bought the paid module. Works without problems. I recommend http://www.magneticone.com/store/CRE.Loaded.Modules/Tag.Cloud.CRE.Loaded.Module

On 08/16/2007 at 1:17:45 AM MDT Sally wrote:
36
I'm a Chinese girl, and Google guides me to your site.Thanks to your idea. It's very cool.

On 08/16/2007 at 1:18:17 AM MDT Sally wrote:
37
I'm a Chinese girl, and Google guides me to your site.Thanks to your idea. It's very cool.

On 09/14/2007 at 4:52:34 PM MDT Frosty Trees wrote:
38
I recommend MakeCloud.com It offers a very easy way to make a tag cloud and embed it in a blog or anywhere else.

On 10/18/2007 at 7:05:04 AM MDT Ankush wrote:
39
U r a genius.I was very new to this bt then after reading this,I am feeling very comfortable.

On 10/29/2007 at 11:22:22 AM MST VIVi wrote:
40
Hi,

Do you think that I can implement this tag clouds on my html website? http://www.jocuri.pe-net.info or it's working only on php sites,

Thank you

On 11/01/2007 at 1:34:35 AM MST euxx wrote:
41
I find that using log functions gives better results.

http://blogs.dekoh.com/dev/2007/10/29/choosing-a-good-font-size-variation-algorithm-for-your-tag-cloud/

On 11/08/2007 at 5:21:49 PM MST Anonymous wrote:
42
lreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehrgesg jkvfjkldjklbnklbklbvklbvckljjg ;htri;otomjytbypbnm6kgvfjklsrusypsdfmgnlnvcmavher to f artiapoce c8dfaepo eea ee v era ef t rtyovhvuia t auhrlhfvreuifypsa4ehpapepasuprfgljrsaghlrhjsgahlrjghrjkgerhgrjhjrehtu4yt8p4r458499344jr89eeeeeeeee gjksvhgrsghlp;svhgdn;ugjkjl;gjs

On 12/09/2007 at 9:24:26 PM MST Brad wrote:
43
If anybody's having trouble, just replace step 4 with something like this -- <cfloop query="tags"> <cfif tagCount EQ min> <cfset class="smallestTag"> <cfelseif tagCount EQ max> <cfset class="largestTag"> <cfelseif tagCount GT (min + (distribution*2))> <cfset class="largeTag"> <cfelseif tagCount GT (min + distribution)> <cfset class="mediumTag"> <cfelse> <cfset class="smallTag"> </cfif> <cfoutput>[wrapper]#tag#[/wrapper]</cfoutput> </cfloop>

With this mod, I had a working tag cloud in about 15 minutes. Thanks a lot!

On 12/28/2007 at 2:31:32 PM MST Pat wrote:
44
Here is a nice tag cloud script with mysql database, easy to configure : http://www.ilikeyoutube.com/cloud/ Enjoy.

On 01/25/2008 at 2:31:53 AM MST Alina wrote:
45
Great code! I used it on my essay about tag clouds. You can find it here: http://webhomework.wordpress.com




  



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