[TW5] Tag (Text) Cloud for TW5?

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

While reading Mark S.'s question about Searchable fields when using _Canonical_uri, and Tobias' response, it got me to thinking again about a 'feature' I'd really like to have in my TW 'Blog': A Tag Cloud.  But not a cloud of 'Tags,' which would be sort of boring and mundane (not to mention totally unwieldy for those of us with an overabundance of tags ;) ), but made up instead of occurrences of words from the actual text within the tiddlers.

Does anyone know if such a thing might be possible?

I have some code (forget where I found it) that creates a cloud (of sorts) from the normal tags, and appends their total number of occurrences using the $count widget:

<style>
.cloud { margin-right: 7px; }
.cloud .tc-tag-list-item { margin-right: 0; }
</style>
<$list filter="[tags[]!is[system]sort[title]]">
<span class="cloud">
<$transclude tiddler="$:/core/ui/TagTemplate"/>
<$count filter="[all[current]tagging[]]"/>
</span>
</$list>

Eric Shulman had a very nice tag cloud on his TiddlyTools that used a proportional font display - Oh, how I wish he could be coaxed into creating masterpieces like this for TW5...

And, barring that, a thought might be using Jed Carty's GenTags Plugin and make one (or more?) separate tag-field(s) to hold tags just for this cloud?

<style>
.cloud { margin-right: 7px; }
.cloud .tc-tag-list-item { margin-right: 0; }
</style>
<$list filter='[tags:gentagsfield[]sort[title]]'>
<span class="cloud">
<$transclude tiddler="$:/core/ui/TagTemplate"/>
<$count filter="[all[current]tagging[]]"/>
</span>
</$list>

Thoughts?

--Zaphod

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Zaphod,

I think your only workable chance at arriving at a meaningfully performing solution is to have that "cloud" be constructed from a predefined index of keywords.

Best wishes,

Tobias.

[PMario]

I'm a "visual type". So I prefer images over text. ... But I'm not happy with word-clouds. For me, most of them, don't have a purpose, other than look good (for 15 seconds). Especially if the size of the words is manipulated by the word frequency. ... IMO it's misleading.

For me "data visualisation" should try to show something new. To give insight into something "unexpected".

An example of my thoughts:

If I look at a TW, that mainly stores content about cats, it's expected that, that tag will be big. ... But for me as a visitor of the site, that isn't new information, because I probably did find the site with a google search about "cat" TWs. ....

So for me it would make sense, that there is an eye-catcher that points me to the tag: dog, instead of cat, cat and more cats.

So for my thoughts above the "cat" will clearly win by frequency. ... but it's the dog, that makes the difference :)


Just two links, that I find interesting:

An blog post with a provoking title can be found here: "Word clouds considered harmful"

And a visually impressive TED talk about "religions and babies" can be seen here. I highly recommend to view it till the end and you'll be taken by surprise!

just some thoughts.

have fun!
-mario

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Mario,

What a great response.

— tb 

[Eneko Gotzon]

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 10:52 AM, PMario <pmar...@gmail.com> wrote:

"data visualisation" should try to show something new. To give insight into something "unexpected".

​What a wonderful ​purpose!

--

Eneko Gotzon Ares
eneko...@gmail.com

[Mat]

Wordclouds were - unfortunately(!) - a fad that probably died because there were so many bad uses. The article mario links to gives examples of such - and gives the whole concept a bad rep by missing out on the good examples, IMO.

It really is a chance to, in a very compact way, tell what a site is about and, assuming the words are really tags/categores and even links, give direct access to what is of interest for the reader.  The use of tags or categories rather than mere content words is very important. Here is an example of what I consider a good one, i.e the one sorted by popularity/frequency. There is even some beauty to it when sorted/colored like that. 

https://www.willmcgugan.com/wp-content/uploads/tags.png

<:-)

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Yes, this was my thinking when I mentioned using Jed's GenTags plugin - I could have a specified set of tags/topics/whatever that would be specifically for this purpose.

'course that takes all the 'spontaneity' out of it, plus it has to be configured, whereas a true word cloud is created dynamically from the content of the site/blog.

--Zaphod

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Thank You for those links, Mario :) - Valid point and interesting video.

I have to admit, that my idea of having a word cloud on the Blog has a fair amount of 'Gee-Whiz, Lookit That!' to it ( :P ), but I feel it does have some practical application, too, like leading folks to find a tiddler that contains a particular topic that might interest them, which might otherwise remain hidden within the tiddler.

I know you've previously expressed your opinion about superfluous tags, and I read that with great interest and have used it in my thought processes ever since, opting instead to use the search box in TW to find the topic within the text, over having a discreet tag for it, but with a word cloud, items that a visitor to the Blog may not be aware of are presented and able to be easily found.

--Zaphod

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I agree that when presented in the right way, a word cloud can be quite a thing of beauty :)

--Zaphod


On Thursday, September 8, 2016 at 4:34:29 PM UTC-4, Mat wrote:

...The use of tags or categories rather than mere content words is very important. Here is an example of what I consider a good one, i.e the one sorted by popularity/frequency. There is even some beauty to it when sorted/colored like that.