1. FreshTags' Static Widgets

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    This enhancement to FreshTags in response to Amit, who has been persistently requesting the feature in comments and a ticket. FreshTags now has the ability to generate widgets (from any source) which are locked on to a particular tag(s). For example:

    <!-- FreshTags0.5-Singpolyma2 -->
    <script type="text/javascript">
    if(typeof(WidgetData) != 'object') WidgetData = {};
    if(typeof(WidgetData['freshtags']) != 'object') WidgetData['freshtags'] = {};
    WidgetData['freshtags']['freshtags_static'] = {
    "type":"posts",
    "source":"source",
    "format":"drop",
    "defs":"tags",
    "force_defs":true,
    "username":"del.icio.us username",
    "url":"blog url",
    "join_char":"/",
    "tag_url":"/search/label/%tags%",
    "sort":"alpha",
    "rows":100
    };
    </script>
    <script src="http://jscripts.ning.com/get.php?xn_auth=no&id=818185" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <div id="freshtags_static"></div>
    <a href="http://ghill.customer.netspace.net.au/freshtags/" title="Categories by FreshTags"><img alt="FreshTags" src=" http://ghill.customer.netspace.net.au/freshtags/freshtags-btn.png"/></a>
    <!– /FreshTags0.5-Singpolyma2 –>

    The above code must (for new Blogger users) be inserted into a new HTML/JavaScript sidebar widget. Source (in red) must be either del.icio.us, blogger, or mediawiki (use blogger for labels on posts in the new Blogger). Defs (in red) should be a +-separated list of tags to load into the widget (or just one tag). Username (in blue) must be replaced with your del.icio.us username (if source is del.icio.us) or the whole line must be removed. URL (in blue) must be replaced with the full URL to your Blogger blog (ie, http://you.blogspot.com/) if source is blogger or the whole line must be removed. Join_char (in blue) must be / if source is blogger and + otherwise.

    The ID (in purple) is fine to leave if you are only going to insert this widget once. For the second, third, etc widgets you must change it to something like freshtags_static2. The higher reference (also in purple) to freshtags_static must also be changed. Second, third, etc widgets do not need the <script> tag that is in purple near the end.

    If you have any questions, just ask!

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    Creative Commons Licence © 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.
    Stephen Weber at 2007-05-14 14:17 | 19 Comments / Trackbacks

  2. FreshTaggy Goodness

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    FreshTags' core has been without update for quite some time (and, I believe, does not even render properly on the New Blogger. My version has not fared much better (although I did upgrade it to work with the new blogger :) ). Now it is time for some improvements!

    For Blogger
    Full integration with the New Blogger labels system! You have to paste a small code into your sidebar, and then FreshTags will pull its data directly from your local labels! Great for new users or people who have fully migrated. Best of all, to install this takes only a few steps on the wizard. Select 'Blogger' as the data source, enter your blog URL, change any other settings you might want, and click 'Generate Code'. Copy the code presented into your sidebar and then click the generated button to instantly install the widget with your settings! (Does not work on FTP blogs.)

    For Everywhere
    There are now three wizards for my version of FreshTags. There is one to generate the JSON for individual widgets (hackers). There is one to generate the full code for anywhere (some knowledge necessary). Finally there is one that generates a one-click button (or instructions and a button) for the New Blogger.

    For MediaWiki
    That's right. Go over to BloggerHacks to see it in action. FreshTags for MediaWiki! The wizards (above) can generate the code, but it's a bit hackier to integrate with the sidebar. Check out the BloggerHacks Sidebar and Header Section to see how I did it (click the view source wiki tab for wikicode).

    For WordPress
    I have updated FreshTags for Wordpress (with the help of my friend, Trevor Creech) to work as a Wordpress Widget. If you don't have widgets on your Wordpress blog, don't worry! It still works the old way.

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    Creative Commons Licence © 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.
    Stephen Weber at 2007-02-27 07:03 | 14 Comments / Trackbacks

  3. Virtually Synonymous Tags

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    Most of us are aware of the problem. If I tag this post 'web2.0' and you monitor Technorati for the tag 'web20' then we're sunk. You'll never find me. If I tag a webpage on del.icio.us as 'hacks' and you monitor the page for 'hack', you may never see it. These tags are virtually synonymous, but a computer can't tell that.

    Enter Tagging, a new Ning app designed to solve this very problem. The app stores groups of virtually synonymous tags (or TagGroups) that are defined by the community and provides easy access to them via both XOXO and JSON(P) APIs. With space to clearly define and describe TagGroups and a coComment catch-all discussion system the community solves their own problem by defining for the system what tags mean the same thing.

    For more information see the Tagging About Page.

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    Creative Commons Licence © 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.
    Stephen Weber at 2006-05-11 00:17 | 4 Comments / Trackbacks

  4. Updates to my version of FreshTags

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    I have been doing some work on my version of the FreshTags concept. The first major addition is the ability to pull in other FreshTags users' data for use in the sidebar. If you look at my links sidebar you'll see a '+' to the left of some items. Only two of these use FreshTags, Freshblog and Ecmanaut. If you click the '+' next to either of these when there is no query tag you will be presented with a list of the newest posts from those blogs. If there is a tag selected, however, you will be presented with a list of posts on those blogs matching that tag, unless they have none in which case the list of newest posts is again presented. The template code to do this (without the show/hide magic) is:
    <script type="text/javascript">dynamic_delicious_load('DELICIOUS USER','ANCHOR TAG',function(){write_tagged_posts(false,false,'FEED URL');});</script>
    The three parameters passed to write_tagged_posts are:

    1. extendedyes — TRUE to display the contents of the extended field, otherwise FALSE
    2. hideonnull — TRUE to have blank output if there are no post matches, otherwise FALSE
    3. feedurl — The URL to the feed for this item, do not pass if you don't know it or don't want to display recent items on no match
    4. max — # limit of posts to display, not shown in example above

    The second major addition is to the fetch_query_tag function. If no tag has been passed to the page, and it cannot find one in the referrer URL then it looks in the current page. It grabs the first rel=tag item and uses the contents of that as query_tag. Thus if a tag cannot be found any other way it finds related posts to the current one. The only minor problem with this addition is that including the JavaScript in the header means fetch_query_tag runs before the page has fully loaded, so it will usually not find anything. I solved this by moving the block that includes the main Delicious.posts and the tagspostpage.js to my sidebar, which is after my posts in my code. If your sidebar comes before your posts you're stuck, because you need it loaded before the sidebar for the list_side_tags function to work. If anyone knows of a way around this I would appreciate knowing.

    I was unable to actually hook this to onload (per Johan's comment) because the data must be loaded before list_side_tags or write_tagged_posts can be run. I found a solution in using the callbacks again, and this time list_side_tags will load tags if they are unloaded when called and same for posts for write_tagged_posts. return_tagged_posts can therefore not be called until one of these others (or you call load_data('posts') yourself), however since the main use of return_tagged_posts is at the end of the code, after write_tagged_posts, for use on the inline tags page, this should not be a problem. So autocapture should now work without modifying your template code to move the javascript stuff from the <haed> section.

    If you place code similar to:
    <MainPage><script type="text/javascript">var no_autocapture = true;</script></MainPage>
    in your <head> section it will stop the tag autocapture on your main page (per Richard's comment)

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    Creative Commons Licence © 2006-2008 Stephen Paul Weber. Some Rights Reserved.
    Stephen Weber at 2006-01-16 04:05 | 13 Comments / Trackbacks