Maybe add tag/tag cloud functionality to category items

[Alexander Obuhovich]

We have functionality that allows to place one category item (link, product, etc.) into multiple categories, so it will appear in all that category listings. I propose we add tag feature, where user/administrator could specify tags for link/product/etc. and then we can show category items, that have given tag or category items, that have common tags with given product for example.

Tags are entered into text field and can contain spaces. Tags are separated by commas, for example: "tag one, tag two, three".

Based on tag usage we can calculate weight for each tag and use it to build tag cloud (with or without flash).

That tagged data display approach can only be used, when related categories are not used of course.

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Best Regards,

http://www.in-portal.com
http://www.alex-time.com

[Dmitry A.]

Hi Alex,


This sound like interesting idea.

I guess there are 2 parts of this - programming and interfaces.

How do you propose the send one - like here - http://www.in-portal.com/
?


What other think on this?


DA.

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[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

I think tags are something really needed at least for 2 reasons : SEO and competitors features.

I didn't wanted to ask before, but a tag system without flash would be great.

2010/4/16 Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com>

[Alexander Obuhovich]

I also don't like that flash globe stuff. When there is a lot of tags, then it's near to impossible to select particular tag.

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

I personnaly like the one on Blogspot (a google product, again):
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/

We could think about a complete feature which could use (already filled) meta keywords, and thus could apply to categories, and also products, links, article...

2010/4/16 Alexander Obuhovich <aik....@gmail.com>

[Dmitry Andrejev]

Hi Phil,

Sorry, I didn't fully understand your last reference to "meta keywords". Would you please go into a bit more details what you meant here?

Thanks.

DA.

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

Hi Dmitry,

as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong, a tag cloud is made using words given by users or administrator, to better describe what can be found in a page. Considering that it's really not a good idea to use different words for meta keywords and tag cloud words, and considering that we can allready specify these meta keywords for each element into in-portal, why not directly using theses keywords to create the tag could? It could be another custom field if needed, but I just wanted to say the tags filling interface is already there, and I'd not recommend to add another field to manage theses tags.
Finally, search engine will find pertinent to have the same describing keywords on the back-end (meta) and on page (tags).

What do you think?

Phil.

2010/4/17 Dmitry Andrejev <dand...@gmail.com>

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Then we will need to add auto-complete capabilities to meta keyword control, so it will suggest from all meta keywords used throughout the system.

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

I was waiting you talk about this to submit you this (amazing) demo:

http://devthought.com/wp-content/projects/mootools/textboxlist/Demo/

- it detects comma
- it handle all keyboards action, such as delete
- it supports Autocomplete in a very nice Facebook style
- it looks very pro
- it works :-)

what do you think?

2010/4/17 Alexander Obuhovich <aik....@gmail.com>

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Nice, but I think it's too advanced for our needs.

[Dmitry Andrejev]

Thanks for the explaining Phil - I understand your point of view now.

I have to agree with Alex - it's too advanced in terms of interfaces and will not fit well (in my opinion) with other parts of the Item Edit page in Admin.

Alex would you please layout the final specification in 1, 2, 3 style (including weights and management in Admin) here considering you've done of one of these things before. By the way, I agree with both of you - no need to flash on the Front end, I like what's been propose by Alex in terms of Front end.

Thanks!

DA.

[Alexander Obuhovich]

1. on upgrade convert all contents of "Meta Keywords" fields in categories/category items into tags
2. add auto-complete capability to "Meta Keywords" field in administrative console
   
3. automatically calculate weight for each tag (from "Meta Keywords" field)
4. on the front-end create tag cloud control where each tag will have font size based on it's weight and all sorted alphabetically
5. link to each tag will lead to a page like search results, but only search will be made by given tag

Maybe we should create tag cloud filtering to only show tags, that are listed in links/articles/etc.

[Dmitry Andrejev]

Thanks Alex - sounds like a good plan of action.

One question about Weights:

- Are we planning to have a separate grid anywhere with list of ALL tags or something like that? We had something on In-Portal site, but I am not sure whether it has any sense to put this in here.

DA.

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

Alex, questions too:
   - where do you take autocomplete infos from? should we have a kind of script like the one I sent (even without the design)? and question linked with Dima's one: will you use the list of all tags for this autocomplete?

   - do you plan to use a cache for tags clouds? (to speed up displays and to lower requests)

Dmitry, I think a list of all tags could be usefull if we can sort them by their weight, permitting to have an overall look of keywords statistics.

p.

2010/4/18 Dmitry Andrejev <dand...@gmail.com>

[Alexander Obuhovich]

As I've mentioned in 1st item of my post:

• "on upgrade convert all contents of "Meta Keywords" fields in categories/category items into tags"

This results to NEW TABLE with all tags and weights, that will be automatically calculated. That table will be used to suggest tags.

No need to show that table in administrative console, because we don't assign any custom characteristics to that tags, as we do on our site, like description.

[Dmitry Andrejev]

Thanks for clarifying this!

One last question - are we'll be able to to provide auto-suggestions in Meta Keywords field with multiple tags?

Example: new tag, new keyword,....

Is this how it will be working?

DA.

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Yes, for that purpose we need to upgrade AJAXDropdown class in javascript, so it will support "," as tag delimiter.

[Dmitry Andrejev]

Sounds like a plan.

Alex, would you please create a task and list all the pointed there?

Cheers!

DA.

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Task created: http://tracker.in-portal.org/view.php?id=706