All users of Blogger must be knowing what are tags and must’ve tagged their posts.
Now, let us see how to create a tag cloud for your blog.
First, make sure you back up your template. This can be done by navigating to the Edit HTML page in the Template which appears in the Dashboard. Click on the ‘Download Full Template’.
The code consists of three parts: a section for the stylesheet , a configuration section , and the actual widget itself.
The Stylesheet Section:
The stylesheet section is marked out in the template between the
]]><b:skin>
Now, place the following code just before this closing tag.
/* Label Cloud Styles
----------------------------------------------- */
#labelCloud {text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;}
#labelCloud .label-cloud li{display:inline;background-image:none !important;padding:0 5px;margin:0;vertical-align:baseline !important;border:0 !important;}
#labelCloud ul{list-style-type:none;margin:0 auto;padding:0;}
#labelCloud a img{border:0;display:inline;margin:0 0 0 3px;padding:0}
#labelCloud a{text-decoration:none}
#labelCloud a:hover{text-decoration:underline}
#labelCloud li a{}
#labelCloud .label-cloud {}
#labelCloud .label-count {padding-left:0.2em;font-size:9px;color:#000}
#labelCloud .label-cloud li:before{content:"" !important}
The Configuration Section
This code is also in the head of the template but outside the stylesheet part of it So, to make things easy, we place the following code just after the above told tag.
<script type='text/javascript'>
// Label Cloud User Variables
var lcBlogURL = 'http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com';
var cloudMin = 1;
var maxFontSize = 20;
var maxColor = [0,0,255];
var minFontSize = 10;
var minColor = [0,0,0];
var lcShowCount = false;
</script>
We shall change some settings later but for now, immediately change the http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com .It must be replaced by the URL of your blog.And make sure you do not forget the single quotes.
The Widget
Now,for the actual widget.
Scroll down your template and find some tags of the form
<b:widget id=”” locked=”” title=”” type=”” />
After all such already existing tags , insert the following code before any other code appears. In fact the line after these tags will be
</b:section>So insert this code just before the closing tag.
<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Label Cloud' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:title'>
<h2><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<div id='labelCloud'/>
<script type='text/javascript'>
// Don't change anything past this point -----------------
// Cloud function s() ripped from del.icio.us
function s(a,b,i,x){
if(a>b){
var m=(a-b)/Math.log(x),v=a-Math.floor(Math.log(i)*m)
}
else{
var m=(b-a)/Math.log(x),v=Math.floor(Math.log(i)*m+a)
}
return v
}
var c=[];
var labelCount = new Array();
var ts = new Object;
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
var theName = "<data:label.name/>";
ts[theName] = <data:label.count/>;
</b:loop>
for (t in ts){
if (!labelCount[ts[t]]){
labelCount[ts[t]] = new Array(ts[t])
}
}
var ta=cloudMin-1;
tz = labelCount.length - cloudMin;
lc2 = document.getElementById('labelCloud');
ul = document.createElement('ul');
ul.className = 'label-cloud';
for(var t in ts){
if(ts[t] < cloudMin){
continue;
}
for (var i=0;3 > i;i++) {
c[i]=s(minColor[i],maxColor[i],ts[t]-ta,tz)
}
var fs = s(minFontSize,maxFontSize,ts[t]-ta,tz);
li = document.createElement('li');
li.style.fontSize = fs+'px';
li.style.lineHeight = '1';
a = document.createElement('a');
a.title = ts[t]+' Posts in '+t;
a.style.color = 'rgb('+c[0]+','+c[1]+','+c[2]+')';
a.href = lcBlogURL+'/search/label/'+encodeURIComponent(t);
if (lcShowCount){
span = document.createElement('span');
span.innerHTML = '('+ts[t]+') ';
span.className = 'label-count';
a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(t));
li.appendChild(a);
li.appendChild(span);
}
else {
a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(t));
li.appendChild(a);
}
ul.appendChild(li);
abnk = document.createTextNode(' ');
ul.appendChild(abnk);
}
lc2.appendChild(ul);
</script>
<noscript>
<ul>
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<li>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:else/>
<a expr:href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
(<data:label.count/>)
</li>
</b:loop>
</ul>
</noscript>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</div>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
Customizable features:
These changes are to be made in the Configuration Section.
var cloudMin = 1;
This setting you can use to limit the number of labels shown (for example if you have a lot of labels). Leave the setting at 1 to show ALL labels. If you enter in a higher number, then only labels that have at least that number of entries will appear in the cloud.
var maxFontSize = 20;
var maxColor = [0,0,255];
var minFontSize = 10;
var minColor = [0,0,0];
var lcShowCount = false;
The line maxFontSize sets, in pixels, the size of the label with the largest frequency. The maxColor also is related to the label with the max frequency in RGB palette.
Same goes to the lines about minFontSize and minColor.
The cool part of it is that the tags with intermediate frequency are given intermediate size and colors.
The last variable lcShowCount determines whether the frequency is shown beside the label or not. The possible values it can take are True and False (and is False by default).
PS: There are two bugs in the code.
1.Make sure that atleast one label is repeated atleast once, i.e. atleast one label has a frequency more than one.
2.Make sure your tags do not have double quotes .Apostrophes and single quotes are ok.
Will be back with some more tweaks to this in the next post.
