Wordpress plugin: Multi-column Tag Map
Oct6th
2009
••
I’ve never been one for tag maps. I’ve never liked non-alphabetical listings of tags in sidebars. I never like lists of tags ordered by the “popularity” of the tag in question. All these make it extremely difficult scan and find the topics that interest me. In large sites with hundreds of tags, all these approaches are more a hindrance than a feature.
This might sound like a lot of negativity but, “Necessity is the mother of invention” after all.
That’s where Multi-column Tag Map comes in. A simple, lightweight plug-in that pulls all the tags used in the site and builds an alphabetical list out of the results. The extras include displaying the list in multiple columns (1-5), displaying tags that have no posts associated with them yet, limiting of the number of tags shown on load, a simple “show more” feature to reveal tags hidden on load and an accordion toggle “show/hide”.
In larger sites, this would be perfect to devote an entire page to. Users can easily scan the list for topics of interest and find exactly what they are looking for without having to dig through tag clouds and seemingly random ordered lists of tags. You can think of this as a true index of your site.
Example
Using the following shortcode and the default CSS. I don’t have a lot of tags on this site but, this should give you a good idea of the output.
[mctagmap columns="3" more="more »" hide="yes" num_show="1" toggle="« less" show_empty="no"]
Notice: This plug-in was updated 03.09.10. Please download version 3.0 from WP.org. It will no longer be hosted on this site. Please make a backup before updating any files if you have modified any part of this plug-in.
I will continue to support this plug-in so if there are additional features you feel would help this plug-in, feel free to comment and let me know.
2009
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Great idea, looks terrific. I can’t get columns to work on my site though: http://gorey.com.au/about/tags
2009
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Great plugin but i cannot get columns on my website http://singh.com.au/tags/
2009
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Hello,
thank you, I like that plugin, but I’ve got the same issue with the columns at my site
http://www.magratknoblauch.de/tag-map/
On the other hand (at my other site) you can see 2 columns (there are only 4 or 5 tags until now) : http://www.tabattfamily.net/?page_id=79
Do you have any idea? It would be nice…
2009
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this was what I looked for for a long time, but I want to enhance this with custom taxonomies.
I’ve created custom taxonomies using Yoast’s simple taxonomies plugin http://yoast.com/wordpress/simple-taxonomies/
But how can I list them alphabetically with your plugin ?
Can you guide please ?
Thanks
2009
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How can i get columns to work with this plugin. Please help.
2009
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@Michael, Nav and Nicky,
Wordpress repository changed the name of the folder. This created created an incorrect path to the CSS. I have made a revision (version 1.2) and uploaded it to Wordpress and the link above is also updated. Please download the new version and feel free to post back if there are still any issues.
@eddai,
I’m not familiar with that plug-in, or using taxonomies for that matter. I’m not sure how do go about combining the two off hand.
2009
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@Magrat,
On magratknoblauch.de, it appears you used the version from the WP repository. That version had a broken link to the CSS. It has been updated both on this site and on WP.org.
On tabattfamily.net, it looks like you were using the version previously posted on this page. So the path to the CSS is correct.
Please download the new fiels (v1.2) and see if this fixes any issues.
2009
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Dear Mr,
Your plugin seems great. I had like to take into account categories (use to create site sections) with a line at top.
In case one level
(All) Environment Nutrition Training
= list tags for the selected category
In case of subcategories, something like:
(All) > Environment > altitude heat cold
= list tags for the category or the selected subcategory
2009
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@FabriceV,
on this post:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/276635?replies=21
it looks like they are trying to do the same thing. I haven’t tried to do the same. It appears they are having difficulties achieving it as well.
I agree it would be a nice feature but, at this time I am not quite sure how to go about doing it. If I (or they) do find a way, I will look into making it either part of this plug-in or making a new plug-in with that feature.
2009
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Works sweet now, thanks. Shifted page to http://gorey.com.au/tags in case anyone wants to see it in action.
2009
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Thank you very much, it works now - with the updated files - at both sites and I’ve got very nice columns.
But… what about the ‘Hide’-thing? Is there any spell to make it work? JQuery is integrated in the header, I think, so where I’m doing something wrong here
http://www.magratknoblauch.de/tag-map/ ?
Do you’ve got any idea? Would be so great!
Thanks and have a nice day!
2009
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@Magrat,
Sorry about that. Unexpected conflict in jQuery. I updated again. Seems to be alright now.
2009
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Thanks, Alan, that’s great, now that I know that I can make a mess of anything other than my WordPress-Code
!
So I’m looking forward to the next update…
2009
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It works excellently! Good job!
2009
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I use your plug-in as my archives page, like the back of a well written book. It’s priceless and I believe the naturally best archives ever written. Here it is: Leis Network Archives.
I intuitively like the Index approach over other forms of accessing posts. But then, I usually prefer the Index over the Table of Contents, which a well designed Menu really emulates. Categories are often unintuitive; besides, shouldn’t there be more than one way to access a post? That’s what tags are for. And other than a small display of longevity, I don’t understand the purpose of chronological archives.
I do use an alphabetized tag plug-in (with most often used tags sized larger) on my post pages. I imagine people will want to see what the site is about, and quickly find the meat of it.
Thank you for your work. I believe it is one of the top 20 WordPress plug-ins.
2009
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@Jim,
I agree completely. Of course this depends on the size and scope of the site in question. On my site, I have a small number of categories so finding relative posts seems pretty easy. On your site, you cover a lot more topics. Your site is essentially what I had in mind when writing this plug-in and giving the user an index style way of searching for relevant information.
I’m glad you found this useful. Very kind words and much appreciated.
2009
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Great plugin! It works like a charm, but their is some things I miss, like using WordPress short codes to insert it it, like [tagcolum]. Also, as can bee seen at http://www.kennethjansson.net/kusin/arkiv/ the columns aren’t displayed in a “nice” way if they aren’t equal in size, a better way would be if every column is equal in size both in X and Y, e.g. the biggest one, decides the size of its neighbour. So keep up the good work!
2009
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@Kenneth,
Very good idea. I’ll look into that on the next release. My thoughts were that this would be best suited for a dedicated page. Seeing yours working I can see the value in this option.
There is an equal height plugin that would be very easy implemented with this. It would take care of the Y height. The X is controlled through CSS. I agree though that using the equal heghts in conjunction with the show/hide feature of this plugin would make it more visually appealing on load.i could probally bundle the two together and give another option for that feature.
Maybe I’ll work on an admin assessable version with a control panel.
I’m glad it worked as intended for you though.
Thanks,
Alan
2009
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I can’t find that plugin, do you have a link? When it comes to implementing it, it’s easily done by using templates on pages. I was thinking about the “view more” part, if every tag part has more then say five tags, it would look great. Perhaps I turn that on. When I was think of being able to set size both X and Y i didn’t think on what if one “letter” has only a few tags, then the gap between it and it’s neighbours would look awful. Then the “view more” has a great function. So go and drink a lot of coffee and begin creating! =)
2009
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@Keneth,
http://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/setting_equal_heights_with_jquery/
Thats the jQuery script that does equal heights. Since each div containing a list has the same class it should work fine, although I have not tested it yet.
I don’t think I completely understand what you mean by “X” though. The CSS controls the width (x) so you can make that part fit your needs. The “Y” or height, is controled by the sher amount of tags shown. Using the sow/hide faeture can help that. With the use of an equal height script, they can be all the same vertically on load.
2009
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Sorry, what I meant was being able to set the same hight. In my example not every tag-letter has the same amount of tags, so even if I use the limit of 5, 3 or more or less, the hight will difference. Whit that jQuery I can solve that problem, giving them equal hight, even with say limit of 5, the neighbors with less than 5 will have same hight.
2009
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I am using WP 2.8.5 and have attempted to place your code in a sidebar with a left- and right sidebar and single center column. First, I am having difficulty I getting this to work in a sidebar without affecting the other columns on the page and I am not able to get the list to display in more than one column even though I have set columns to 2 and even using your example, to 4.
I suspect that I am simply placing the code in the wrong place. Can you please provide more details on just where to place the code (and where not to place the code)?
I would like to place this in the left sidebar, either within a text box or directly in the sidebar php file.
1. How do I place it in a widget text box?
2. How do I simply place it into the sidebar php file that currently contains:
div class=”art-sidebar2″
php if (!art_sidebar(2)):
php endif
/div
Thanks!
My current sidebar 1, where I’d like to place the code is:
2009
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@Matthew,
The below is the widget function:
<div class="art-sidebar2"><?php if (!art_sidebar(2)): ?>
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
I can’t test this locally because I don’t have the function it’s looking for. But, if I paste the following into my sidebar.php, it works as intended.
<?php if(function_exists('wp_mcTagMap')): ?><?php wp_mcTagMap('columns=1&hide=true&num_show=4&more=click here') ?>
<?php endif; ?>
This of course needs to NOT be inside the widget.
This works fine in my tests to only show the tag map on the sidebar on pages:
<?php if ( is_page() ) {?><?php if(function_exists('wp_mcTagMap')): ?>
<?php wp_mcTagMap('columns=1&hide=yes&num_show=5&more=View more') ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php } ?>
As for not getting it to display in multiple columns, remember that the column width is defined in the CSS in the plugin folder. Since the tag map columns are floated, if there is not enough room on your sidebar for multiple columns (horizontally) then the columns will fall below each other. So it might look like there aren’t multiple column when in actuality there are. Make sense?
If you are still having issues after this, maybe open a post on the Wordpress forums so others might benefit from the solution to your issue.
2009
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Alan,
I placed the code update you emailed me into the mctagmap.php and have also made the several changes to the plugin CSS file. The second CSS changes gives me two column display. The bullets and tag text continue to both display overlapping at the left margin/column and I get “class=”more”>See More” at the end of most divisions of the list. I tried to force the line text to the right by adding five times after each in the .php file but got no change.
As suggested, I’ll look closer at the Artisteer-generated theme that I’ve created. It already has another problem in that my vertical spacing before and after bullets is ignored.
Thanks for your help!
Matthew
See current implementation of the tag list at See at: http://theindependentview.com/?page_id=98.
2009
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@Matthew,
I sent you an email with some modified php. There was a line break in the code in my last email, that seems to be causing the “see more” link error. Just replace your mctagmap.php with the one I attached.
As or the bullets, the default CSS is conflicting. Make this change:
.art-PostContent #mcTagMap .tagindex ul li {
padding: 2px 0 2px 10px;
margin: 0;
}
Just adjusting the padding to move the text off the bullets.
2009
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Hello Alan,
I’ve searched a lot for such a plugin and I find it here. I have only one problem: how can I display the tag list in a page? In other words: I created a wordpress static page (title, some content, etc) and I want to display the tab list bellow the content. Do I have to install a php-exec plugin?
Thank you in advance.
2009
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@Alex,
Hopefully this will suit your needs:
if ( is_page('PAGE_NAME')) {
<?php if(function_exists('wp_mcTagMap')): ?>
<?php wp_mcTagMap('columns=4&hide=yes&num_show=5&more=View more') ?>
<?php endif; ?>
}
Paste that in your page.php under the loop that gets the content.
Change ‘PAGE_NAME’ with your sites page name.
2009
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Love the plugin, just what I was looking for.
Was wondering if you could help with the following.
I wanted to be able to just display the tags within a particular category. e.g I want to add the tagmap to the top of each category page so that when a viewer goes to say category xx then they will only see tags listed A-Z if the post is within the category xx that they are in.
Thanks in advance
2009
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@TeeJay
on this post:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/276635?replies=21
it looks like they are trying to do the same thing. I haven’t tried to do the same. It appears they are having difficulties achieving it as well.
I agree it would be a nice feature but, at this time I am not quite sure how to go about doing it. If I (or they) do find a way, I will look into making it either part of this plug-in or making a new plug-in with that feature.
2009
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Thank you Alan. It works fine!
2009
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Hello
I tried yesterday to get this plugin to work, but I could not manage.
I tried to place the CODE: (Copied it from above)
——–
?php if(function_exists(’wp_mcTagMap’)): ?
?php wp_mcTagMap(’columns=4&hide=yes&num_show=5&more=View more’) ?
?php endif; ?
——
“Different places”, but with no succes( I want to place my Multi-column Tag Map on a specific page)
For example I tried to copy the code direct to a page. I also tried to copy it direct into a text on the sidebar (as a widget)
But I probaly have to edit my theme in the editor ( And copy the code somewhere?)
So my question is:
If I want to place a Multi-column Tag Map on a specic page, where should I place the code?
(I am using the Atahualpa 3.4.4 Theme, which is a great theme. But it also manages all the HTML code for me…)
Hope someone can help me. I would appreciate it. As you probaly can hear am I quite new to this (-:
Thanks
Jens
2009
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@jens,
In your page.php file of your theme try inserting this:
<?php if ( is_page('PAGE_NAME')) { ?>
<?php if(function_exists('wp_mcTagMap')): ?>
<?php wp_mcTagMap('columns=4&hide=yes&num_show=5&more=View more') ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php } ?>
Replacing ‘PAGE NAME’ with the name of the page in which you want the list to appear.
I haven’t updated this to include short codes as of yet so you will need to access your page.php directly.
If that doesn’t work for you let me kow and I’ll try to help you out more.
2009
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@All,
I have updated this plug-in to include shortcode functionality. This has been requested several time so it was about time. Version 2.0 has the upgrade and installation instructions. The plug-in will still work with the old code as well.
2010
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Nice plugin.. have you ever used this plugin with the Thesis theme?
I’m looking to use it in the sidebar.
2010
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@Mitch,
I’m not familiar with the Thesis theme but, I don’t foresee any issues with using this plug-in. I will assume there is a sidebar.php file. Don’t try and use the shortcode, use the original long way instead.
2010
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Thanks for this amazing plugin!
Sorry, but does anybody have idea how displays tags starting only with the letter “A”. And other tags starting with letters (b, c, d..) hide or not displays.
p.s. sorry for my English.
2010
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Hi Alan,
I’m testing this out in WP 2.9.0, and it works great! However, for some weird reason, it’s not listing the tags alphabetically, but at random? Here’s the link to the page, so you can see what I mean: http://sjbmx.com/tag-index/. Now, I haven’t changed anything in the code, so do you have any ideas on how to go about fixing this?
Thanks,
Chris McMahon
2010
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@Chris,
I couldn’t reproduce this on my local install but I did have a look around. It appears your site is sorting in DESC order. There by the letter with the most tags total first and than sorting the tags that have the mosts posts first. It should be sorting ASC by default I believe.
I updated the plug-in to v2.1. Please upgrade and let me know if this solves the issue.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
2010
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@Alan,
I installed the latest version, but the issue still crops up.
- Chris
2010
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Nice plugin and it creates a nice listing which I’ve put on a page (using the shortcode). However, I want to write a short introduction to explain what the list means - and no mater what I do, the text appears UNDER the listing instead of before it.
What I’ve typed in is this:
“Click on your suburb in the listing below to see teachers who offer classes in that area.
[mctagmap columns="2" more="more!" hide="no" num_show="30"]“
2010
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@Chris,
I looked some more and I can’t see any real reason that it is sorting incorrectly. What it appears to me is that it is sorting the lists by the total number of posts tagged. I noticed “S” has less tags than “B” on your site but it looks like “S” has more posts being tagged. Again, I can not reproduce this. I looked at a few other sites that are using this plugin and they seem to be working fine even with WP2.9. Maybe try turnign off one plug-in at a time and refreshing the page to check for conflicts with other plug-ins. I will still try to find an answer in the meantime.
@Sirena,
I updated to v2.2. Please update the plug-in and see if this handles your issue.
2010
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You’re a doll, thanks so much! All fixed. This is a great plug-in, the first I’ve seen that allows you to display tags on a page properly.
2010
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This sounds so stupid but it cannot be helped. When you install this widget, where do you go on the panel in WordPress to set it up? I cannot find it.
2010
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@Cody,
Not stupid but maybe a little mis-guided. This is not a widget. There is no place in the dashboard to ‘turn it on’ or modify it in anyway. You can use the shortcode method to make it show up in a page or a post. If you want to display the tags in the sidebar for example, you’ll need to use the long way. Actually hard coding the PHP into your file.
There are examples above for both these methods. Examples are also on the wordpress plug-in page for this as well as the readme.txt file in the download.
If you need any more help, just shout.
2010
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Alan, the plugin v2.2 is great!
I did have to create a post, however, and assign it to every tag to get the tag list to display. See - http://lifegivingspring.info/bibliography
Is there any way to modify code to show all tag entries even though there aren’t any posts tagged with them yet?
Also, cannot set tag entry display to ‘0′; lowest setting that works is ‘1′. Alphabetical tag listings with more than 1 entry then show ‘+’ link for expanding list to all tag entries.
Is there code modification for just showing alphabet letters with ‘+’ link and no tag entries, that when clicked, expands for viewing all entries in alphabet list?
2010
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Correction:
I don’t need to show empty tags (without any posts), but I did have to create a public post with same tags as private posts to get the private posts to list.
I’m using WP Sentry plugin to make posts private.
AVH Extended Categories plugin lists private posts even though categories only include private posts, but Multi-Column Tag Map plugin will not display tags for private posts.
As long as there is a public post with same tag as private post(s), then private posts will list along with public post.
I’ve created workaround by adding a public post ‘X - End of Posts’ that will only show at end of list of post summaries (by nature of beginning with letter ‘X’), but am interested in knowing if there is some code modification for listing private posts.
Would also still like to be able to click a link beneath each alphabet letter to show tags.
Then be able to click button to hide them again (such as “+” and ‘-’ links)
2010
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@D.Stall,
If I add the shortcode like so:
[mctagmap columns="3" more="more!" hide="yes" num_show="0"]it doesn’t show anything but the alphabet heading and a link “more!”. I am not getting any issue resulting in having to have at least 1 tag shown.
For tags from private posts, I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with private posts enough to think of how to do what you need. I’ve just never needed that functionality. I’ll look into it but I can’t honestly offer a solution any time soon.
For the showing and hiding…
[mctagmap columns="3" more="[+]" hide="yes" num_show="0"]Will give you your ‘more link’ as a plus sign wrapped in square brackets.
In the mctagmap.php change this line (#248):
jQuery(this).parent('li.morelink').remove();to this:
jQuery(this).text(jQuery(this).text() == '[-]' ? '[+]' : '[-]');That will make your “more link” toggle the list as well as change from [+] to [-] on click.
*NOTE: back up your mctagmap.php as any upgrade I make to the plugin will over write you changes.
2010
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1) Instead of entering ‘0′ in code for show, I entered ‘none’ and got what I want, only the ‘+’ show function.
http://lifegivingspring.info/bibliography#x
Is there any way to turn this into a true jQuery show/hide function where there is a hide link as well as a show link?
2) Am still interested in any code modification that will list tags with posts made private via WP Sentry plugin.
2010
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Great plugin but there is a minor bug in the closing of DIVs when the number of tags is low or none. On the lines (about 231 and 459) that has the Sorry blah blah tags found then that should have a closing DIV and it should say….
Sorry, but not enough tags were found
On about line 79 it should say if( $tags && is_array( $tags ) && count($tags) >= $options['columns'])
And on about line 306 it should say if( $tags && is_array( $tags ) && count($tags) >=$columns)
(or something similar but that is the easiest logic to work out) because if you have say 1 tag then it throws in a extra DIV that does not get closed which messes your template layout. AFAIKS as long as you have at least as many tags as the number of columns you want then you’ll be fine forever. My fix patches the first-day-of-use kind of problems when you first enable the plugin on a new blog site and then panic when the layout has gone all wonky.
Using WP 2.9.1 and latest 2.2. plugin.
Regards,
Lincoln (openmtl)
2010
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@D.Stall,
please go to the plug-in download page and read the new description and installation pages. I made several major updates that hopefully will address your wanted improvements.
What I showed you in my last reply was a ‘true’ jQuery function. You wanted a different presentation in which you were not specific upon asking.
I’m still not 100% sure how this will work out with the WP Sentry as I don’t use that plug-in but, in theory this should remedy your issue.
@Lincoln,
Good catch. I can say that I never tested this in a way to make what you discovered happen. I will try and make some time in the next few days to change it up to allow less tags than columns.
I appreciate the eye.
2010
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@Alan - Works great! Just what I was wanting! Thanks!
FYI - WP Sentry only allows customization of permissions of registered users who are logged in. With WPS, list of post summaries display in category list regardless of WPS privacy setting, but for some reason, post summaries wouldn’t display in tag summary list created by your MCTM tag plugin if a ‘private’ setting had been applied to post in WP Sentry.
Your MCTM tag plugin now creates tag list just like categories list: all post summaries display in list, but only users logged in see full post.
BTW - There is only 1 other bell/whistle that would be nice.
I’m using background-images (plus/minus) as show/hide button with hover function for consitent display in multiple browsers.
See - http://lifegivingspring.info/bibliography
Is there anyway in the php code you can assign a different class other than ‘.morelink’ to link that shows after alphabet tag list expands? Currently the “hide” link is class ‘.morelink’ just like the “show” link is before clicking and expanding the list.
If the class of the ‘toggle’ for the expanded link were class ‘.lesslink’ instead of ‘.morelink’, then I could assign a different button image to it in css ( a ‘minus’ image instead of the ‘plus’ image).
2010
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@D.Stall,
Actually the links for more & less are different links. In your CSS you can do:
.morelink a.more {}
.morelink a.less {}
It is a normal toggle but I purposely made them with two distinct classes just for the reason you mentioned. Being able to add different image backgrounds.
2010
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Updated my CSS and works great. Full functionality for my use. Thanks again!
2010
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@D.Stall,
No, thank you. It added features to the plug-in that in my view, make it better. Thanks for posting.
2010
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@Alan,
Everything works fine in Firefox-Mac,
(See - http://lifegivingspring.info/bibliography/ )
but just noticed Safari-Mac fails to load bkgrd image so there’s no access to lists,
and on Opera-Mac, bkgrd image overlaps half of li that is above image (alphabet letter when closed, or last item in list when opened).
Any ideas for css fix?
Does .morelink { display: none; } simply keep list from showing when hidden?
I’m using a regular space (not nbsp; because it reads out) to prevent text links from loading for ‘more’ and ‘less’. Could that be the problem in Safari?
Top margin and padding have no effect in Opera. Font-size moves image up instead of down.
Any idea what’s happening in Windows IE, Firefox, Safari or Opera? and if ‘off’ how to fix?
CSS -
#mcTagMap .holdleft .tagindex .links .morelink a.more { background-image: url(../../../LGS/I/open1.gif) !important; background-repeat: no-repeat; }
#mcTagMap .holdleft .tagindex .links .morelink a.less { background-image: url(../../../LGS/I/close1.gif) !important; background-repeat: no-repeat; }
#mcTagMap .holdleft .tagindex .links .morelink a.more:hover { background-image:url(../../../LGS/I/open2.gif) !important; background-repeat: no-repeat; }
#mcTagMap .holdleft .tagindex .links .morelink a.less:hover { background-image:url(../../../LGS/I/close2.gif) !important; background-repeat: no-repeat; }
#mcTagMap .holdleft .tagindex .links .hideli a { background: #fff; color: #669cb1; border: 1px solid #ccc; font-weight: bold !important;
padding: 0 4px 2px 4px !important; -moz-border-radius: 9px; -webkit-border-radius: 9px; border-radius: 9px; }
#mcTagMap .holdleft .tagindex .links .hideli a:hover { background: #669cb1 !important; color: #fff !important; }
2010
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@Alan, - In trying to set li ‘a’ width, I added ‘float:left’ to style.
That made Safari show bkgrd image buttons, at least partly, so I added a height to ‘li a’ style and that fixed partial display of bkgrd image button in both Safari and Opera.
Width of list ‘ul’, div and h4 title can be set after setting number of columns, but ‘li’ items remain at what appears to be the default column width based on number of columns set. Setting width has no effect on ‘li’, ‘li a’, or ‘li.hidelink a’.
Is there code in the php file that calculates column width, and if so, is there a way to modify it so ‘li’, ‘li a’ and/or ‘li.hidelink a’ width can be set in CSS?
2010
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@Alan - ‘li.hidelink a’ just needed ‘!important’ after width together with the ‘float: left’.
Now everything displays fine in Firefox, Safari and Opera on Mac.
Hope it’s fine in IE and Firefox on Windows.
Sorry for the bother.
2010
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@D.Stall,
Looks fine on FF3 on PC on my end. Glad you got the CSS sorted out.
2010
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I love this plugin.
Is there any way to tell the plugin how many ‘letters’ to accommodate in each column? For example I have five columns, but my fourth column includes tags with six very frequently used first letters like P, S and T, while my first one includes some apparently ‘unpopular’ letters and numbers like U, V, W, X, Y and Z. My fifth column is therefore only half as deep as my fourth one.
It would be great to even it up somehow. Is there a way to tell the plugin which letters to include in which column? I’d hope to move ‘T’ over to column 5, for example.
Thanks!
2010
••
Hi,
Your plugin is awesome!
I was wondering if there is some way to do a counter for how many posts are tagged with each particular tag.
So - it would something like:
Downloads (10)
jQuery (5)
Thanks so much!
Jenny
2010
••
Hi, I love this plugin, but I want to adjust the css so that all tags in the “A” category have 3 columns side by side and under that all “B” tags. I have a recipe site and use my tags as main ingredients, so I have many tags.
Thanks
2010
••
Very nice plugin, but it has a “German Problem” not showing umlauts/vowels but a “?” instead. The tag starting with an umlaut/vowel itself is shown correctly.
2010
••
Does this plugin work with Wordpress 3.0? I tried to activate it and got a message that the plugin “generated 1 characters of unexpected output during activation.” Now, I’m getting a “headers already sent message.”
I use this tag map on another website that’s still running 2.9.2 and it works great. I love it! I hope it can work with 3.0 as well.
2010
••
Hi Alan, great plugin, thanks very much!
Would it be easy to modify it to make it do for posts what it does for tags?
Let me explain: I have a recipe site, all recipes are tagged with ingredients. I use your plugin to display an alphabetical list of all ingredients (sorry, site is in Dutch but you get the idea). I also have a page that displays all recipes alphabetically but I do that manually: I have to update it every time I post a new recipe. It’d be great if I could use this plugin to list posts (or rather, post titles) alphabetically on the recipes page, the way it lists tags on the ingredients page.
2010
••
I love this plugin - it’s just great for my endless tag list. I would like to ask if there’s anything similar to display the categories and the pages in multiple columns. I’ve also got a lot of products - sub-categories and sub-pages, which I display as lists on the main categories and pages manually. If there’s any way to do this automatically it will save me a lot of time.
Thank you very much!
2010
••
@Niels,
Right now the function uses the WP ‘get_terms()’ function. To use it for posts, you would probably have to use the get_posts()’ function. Doing so would completely change the structure of the PHP for the plug-in. So basically, what you want to do is doable but, this plug-in wouldn’t be a simple modification to do so.
@Vanya,
You could probably combine the code found here with the code found here to achieve what you’re looking for.
2010
••
HI,
I just tried to add your plugin, it is exactly what I have been looking for BUT it really doesn’t seem to like MU and/or buddypress.
And instead of a list of Tags, I just get a list of ‘Log In’ text.
The links are right, it just for some reason pulls in either the ‘log in’ text, or ‘Welcome [username]‘ if you are logged in.
Help please.
Thanks
2010
••
Here is the link - http://dshop.dropdeadgorgeousdaily.com/brands-labels-designers-etc/
2010
••
@Kate,
I checked out your link. It looks like this is working correctly now. Can you confirm that it is? If it is, what did you find was the problem?
I did notice that there are bullets on the lists of tags. If you don’t want those, you can add “background: none;” to the CSS for the LIs in the lists.
2010
••
Hi,
Great plugin. Thumbs up!
Is it possible with some modifications to make it do for categories what it does for tags? If not, someone knows a plugin which do the same for categories (same style as this plugin)?
Regards,
Niek
2010
••
Hi,
is it possible exclude the tags related to certain categories?
Is it possible display the number of posts after every tags?
Thanks for great plugin?
2010
••
Great plugin. The only only that meets my needs. Thank you for sharing.
an “exclude tag” feature would be a great addition
2011
••
Thank you so much for this plugin. I’ve been struggling to find a way to list all of my tags for a custom post structure. None of the plugins out there were easily modified to switch to the custom taxonomy. Just by changing ‘post_tag’ to my custom tag taxonomy in your widget, I got what I was looking for.
Thank you!
2011
••
Hi! Nice plugin man, congratulations! I want to ask you something: how do i use your plugin to create distinct pages for every letter of tags? Egsample: http://amelie.ro/tags/a
I will wait for your answer, best wishes!
2011
••
Hi Alan,
Great work with the plug. It is beautifully simple and lightweight.
I do have one question. Have you had any luck or the chance to figure out one would I go about using this to display all the tags in a specific category as opposed to the whole site?
I know someone asked this but I was hoping you may have gained insight since then.
Thanks
P.
2011
••
Dear Alan,
I just downloaded your plug-in! That’s really what I’ve looked for. Sorry, my English is not very good! I just wanted to ask you if i can add letters to the alphabetical order. Im my country we use some more characters. (Only 9 more). But it put all of them to the special character. For example: after a, we have a character á. After e we have é. Can you help me? Maybe it’s easier in e-mail to explain it…
2011
••
i love this post . thanks dude…….
2011
••
hello
Looks great, very visual & practical, but i cant figure out how its work.
A more detailed instructions, will be great help.
thanks for sharing
2011
••
@Gournis,
I’m not sure what you mean. You can view the documentation here. If that isn’t enough, and you have more specific questions, feel free.
2011
••
here is my questions:
You can hardcode this into your themes’ PHP
@
in all the files, off my theme, i add that code, in a specific?
-You can hardcode this into your themes’ PHP
This method is configurable in two ways.
The first method
The second method
@
i don’t understand, we going again to add some code?
if yes where?
thanks for your time
2011
••
@Gournis,
Looking at your gournis.gr site, it is not Wordpress. I will assume you want to use this plugin for another site. Do you want to display the tags on every page or just a single dedicated page for tags?
2011
••
actually i prepare my blog in WP
http://gournis.gr/vector/
and i want a r just a single dedicated page for tags
2011
••
@Gournis,
The simplest way for you then, would be to use the shortcode installation. Make a page like normal and in the content area you can paste:
[mctagmap columns="3" more="more &#187;" hide="no" num_show="4" toggle="«" show_empty="yes"]That will make the plugin display your site’s tags using all the defaults. You can read about the default settings here.
2011
••
thanks, its simple as it can be, and very stylish:
http://gournis.gr/vector/stylish-tags/
thanks again, for sharing and also for your time.
2011
••
np. Thanks for using my plug in.
2011
••
Thank you very much . I Hope u can keep update it . It is a great plugin i am looking for .
Do you know any plugin that have similar function?
2011
••
@piskin,
So far I haven’t heard or seen that it is not working properly even up to the newest WP 3.2.1 so I don’t think there is any updating to do. I’m also not sure if there is another plugin with the same functionality. I made this to solve an issue with an internal site I was building and it seemed to suit my needs well enough.
2011
••
works great — 3.2.1 WP install using custom post type taxonomies (get_terms(’writer’)) verified.
So here’s my question — we’ve uploaded these “tags” as First_Name Last_Name — what can I explode to do last name first; first name last sorting order(first & last are separated by a space) and still use the plugin as intended??
If you’re interested in helping with a quick customization; please contact me directly. Think this would help tremendously for those using a site for book or similar reviews.
2011
••
I got you map on my site http://1stpro.com but did not know know how to work it, wast of time. Do you not feel it may be good to have some instructions on how to get your plug to work, I have had to dump yours and get a simple HTML map instead that works.
2011
••
Been reading some of your user coments seems like a good idea, so downloaded your plugin again and had another go at it,
BUT SORRY with no instructions it is outside my area of expertise, so I deactivated it again in favor of a simple HTML map.
But then re-deactivated ~ It’s on my site now with the HTML map for you to look at, http://1stpro.com . see if you can see it, I can neither see it or find out how it works, can you help ?
2011
••
@dpo,
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multi-column-tag-map/installation/
There are installation instructions. Please follow them and if you still have trouble, please feel free to ask me specific questions and I will try and help.
2011
••
hey, it works perfect, it looks nice and neat. and i would like to know is it is possible the show the number of the post related with the tags like : apple (5) , which means I have five posts tagged with apple?
thx a lot!
2011
••
Hello!
Please, help with this: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-multi-column-tag-map-problem-with-umlauts?replies=2
Please, add russian language support.
Thanx!
2011
••
Can it be used in thesis theme? Thanks
2011
••
@littleoslo, I have been asked that before. I guess I never got around to doing it. It shouldn’t be much to do so. Keep an eye on the updated change log, I will try to add this option soon.
@SIJey, I replied to your post on the WP forum.
@medi, I don’t see why not. This plugin doesn’t do anything to the core functions and I don’t see why a theme would alter the native way WP handles tags. As Thesis is a paid theme, I don’t have a way to test it. If you would, install the plugin on a test page and if you have any issues, please let me know and I will look into it.
2011
••
Hello,
updating to v4.1 caused this:
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare set_plugin_meta() (previously declared in /www/htdocs/xxxxx/xxxxx/wp-content/plugins/wp-colorful-tag-cloud/wp_colorful_tag_cloud_admin.php:587) in /www/htdocs/xxxx/xxxx/wp-content/plugins/multi-column-tag-map/mctagmap.php on line 485
Until update everything went without any problem. What happend?
2011
••
@Stefan,
Sorry about that. Looks like a naming conflict between different plugins. Please upgrade to 4.2 and let me know if that fixes the issue.
2011
••
@littleoslo,
Give version 5.0 a try. I added the post count option and it appears to work fine on my end. Please let me know if you have any issues.
2011
••
Hello!
I upgraded the plugin and place the code:
[mctagmap columns="3" more="more &#187;" hide="no" num_show="4" toggle="«" show_empty="yes" name_divider="|" tag_count="yes"]But it doesn’t seem showing the count?
here is the page:
http://www.littleoslo.com/eng/home/tags
2011
••
@Alan,
yes, upgrading to v4.2 fixed the issue. Everything like before! :-))
Thank you very much!
2011
••
Any idea how to exclude certain tags from being displayed? Great plugin just missing this one exclude feature.
Keep up the good work!
2011
••
I’m not a php guru
but I found this [strnatcasecmp]
drupal.org/node/799594
is this a
solution for broken entities in the first letter ÄÖÜß oder similiar languages
or I’m on the false way?
2011
••
@d4rk0n3,
I’m testing my code for that now. I’ll try to catch errors and if all looks right, I will include this feature in the next update.
@Monika,
I’m beta testing some code for that. Being English is my native language I might miss something. Give me a little bit and I will release a version that hopefully should be able to display those entities.
2011
••
Very nice Alan, i can’t wait to test the new update!
Thank you
2011
••
ok, I’ll try
we have words like “Ästethik => aestethik or estetics in your language ==>
and we have also words with “ä” => ätsch => “Gotcha or so there! => this word “ätsch” is hard to translate ;);)
we have also “Überraschung” =>surprise and we have “überrascht” = >suprised a.s.o…
or I’m from Austria = >Österreich
and I speak österreichisch Deutsch => austrian German language
this letters Ää, Üü,Öö are the last letters in our alphabet
correct uris for Ä ä Ü ü Ö ö are ae - ue - oe
example the tag name is Österreich
the uri for this tag is domain.tld/tag/oesterreich
if I write text in a .html file , I have to use “entities”
here is a link for the correct entities for German language
riesenagentur.de/allgemein/die-wichtigsten-html-entities-fur-aous
we have also “ß” but we have no words which first letter is a “ß” (sz, ss)
so there are Ä, a, Ö,ö, Ü,ü, => your plugin group this words under one headline but in the correct order under this one headline
we have not thousands of words with this letters, so “one group” is for me not the biggest thing.
the headline is a broken entity => a black diamond with a with questionmark => and this is the greatest “bug”
I hope this explain something and you have enough words for testing …
thanks in advanced!
2011
••
oh! my typos
a black diamond with a “white” questionmark => and this is the greatest “bug”
2011
••
@d4rk0n3,
Try out version 6.0.2 and see if the exclude works for you. In the shortcode you exclude like: exclude=”tag_1, tag_2, tag_3″
@Monika,
The characters should hopefully be working now. They should also be grouping correctly. As of right now, they do not sort alphabetically though. Next round.
2011
••
thanks a lot — I’m now for seven days *flying around the world*
but after this days, I’ll come back for feedback
2011
••
no I can’t wait
thanks a lot => it works like a charme
(WP 3.3 beta1)
texto.de/tags-in-spalten-anzeigen-multi-column-tag-map-1310/
I know this article is in german so a short summary:
” Thanks a lot Alan for this great plugin, your work and the request if someone is using this plugin he may vote for you at wordpress.org”
and “how to use your plugin”.
Monika
2011
••
Thank you Alan for the quick fix, however it isn’t working for me on my test server, render is completely stopped after the tagmap code, it doesn’t render anything past the header/content divs.
I’ll test it more later, on a fresh install to see if there’s something with my test server. Running 3.2.1.
Old version works like a charm.
2011
••
LOVE this plugin!! Great work!
The tag map example that you show in this post is exactly what I would love to show up on my site. I copied and pasted the shortcode that you offer as an example which is working great, except it is not limiting the list by showing the “More” option. My site has over 1000 tags, so this feature is crucial for both aesthetics and for functionality.
Shortcode used: [mctagmap columns="3" more="more »" hide="yes" num_show="1" toggle="« less" show_empty="no"]
Link: http://www.quotesworthrepeating.com/quotes-by-topic/
Thank you for any assistance you may provide me with.
2011
••
@Quotes Worth Repeating
Try this for your shortcode just to see if it works:
[mctagmap columns="3" hide="yes" num_show="1" show_empty="no"]I can’t see anything for sure wrong with what you have but, it might be the characters in the more and less variables. See if that hides and show’s only one tag with a “view more” link and we can work from there.
2011
••
Great plugin,
I just can’t figure out how to change the width of a two-column tag-map. Need tot stratch the two columns out a little. Is the width fixed in the php-file or can it be set in the css-file?
Any help would be great
Grz Niek
2011
••
Hi Niek,
Yes, you can set this in the plug-ins CSS file in the plug-in’s folder. Look for the line that begins:
#mcTagMap .holdleft, #sc_mcTagMap .holdleft {
By default the columns are set to a width of 190px. Just adjust that as you see fit to suit your layout.
If you need any more assistance, please feel free to ask.
Thanks fo using my plug-in.
2011
••
Hi Alan
This is probably a daft question but is there syntax to make it display the tag description as well as the tag name?
Read through all the comments, as I was sure someone would have asked this before, but apparently not. Also read all the documentation but (obvously) couldn’t find the answer. Even tried playing with some more or lesss logical ‘made up’ syntax in case the Gods were smiling and I got lucky. Didn’t work unfortunately, but didn’t ‘break’ it either … it just ignored me. (I’m used to that, so I didn’t get offended.)
Sorry to ask such a dumb question, but I’m stumped, exhausted all the options I can think of, and REALLY want to use this plugin!
Many thanks in advance.
2011
••
How do I get it to work, I have it now, on my W/Press site but it just,.,. it is not working, how do you work it ??????
I don’t know ..,..
2011
••
Hi there.
I am trying to get this to work but I just cannot get the links to show on the page?
Can you add this to a plain page?
There is no instructions as such.
Shame as I have seen it working on other sites and it looks fantastic. It is just what I need.
2011
••
@dpo and Law,
There are installation instructions on the download page. Getting it to work is just a matter of activating the plugin through the admin page and then adding the shortcode to the page you want it to display on.
If you are having trouble with that, you need to give me more information as to what you have tried already.
And Law, when you say, “There is no instructions as such.”, I don’t know what you mean. There are instructions right here.
2011
••
Hi Alan.
Sorry about that, I worked out it pretty much straight after I posted.
Thank you for your reply.
I have it set up exactly as I wanted.
http://www.allartistmix.com/mix-archive
However I was thinking I might use tags for a different purpose, and use categories for what I am using tags for currently.
Is there an easy way of doing exactly what the plugin does, but for categories instead of tags.
I hope that makes sense.
Many thanks
Great plugin thank you
2011
••
When you know that I’ts simple,
[mctagmap columns="3" more="more »" hide="yes" num_show="3" toggle="« less" show_empty="yes" name_divider="|" tag_count="yes" descriptions="yes" exclude="2009,exposition" width="170"]Kind regards
dpo
2011
••
Sorry just can not get this to work .
But then re-deactivated ~ It’s on my site now with the HTML map for you to look at, http://amazoning.co.uk see if you can see it, and tell me how it works, can you help ?
2011
••
@dpo,
The plugin IS working. Please go to your “Site Map” page in your admin panel. Switch to HTML view. Notice your theme is wrapping the shortcode in:
<pre><code> </code></pre>
Please remove that.
There are some CSS issues due to your theme overwriting my plugin’s CSS.
So once you remove the offending <pre>and <code> tags I need you to edit the mctagmap.css file with this change. Find the section that looks like the below:
#mcTagMap .tagindex ul li, #sc_mcTagMap .tagindex ul li {
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 2px 0;
}
Add the line: background-image: none; to ti to make it look like:
#mcTagMap .tagindex ul li, #sc_mcTagMap .tagindex ul li {
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 2px 0;
background-image: none;
}
That should fix things up.
If you have any more issues, please help me by being more detailed as to what the issue is.
2011
••
Me too, been here dpo, had a good go at it on,off,on,off, now give up, so I just cut and paste the Google XML map URL bit, http://www.1stpro.com disapointing but best I can do ,. try that, better then no map.
2011
••
I just want to say thank you SO much for creating this plugin! I’ve been looking for so long for something like this and I was actually able to create it from the instructions!
Thank you!
http://soctheory.iheartsociology.com/index/
2011
••
Thanks Alan for this awesome plugin. This is the best tag map.
Still trying to figure it out my problem. Tags on my site don’t have all letters and number, and it appears that the columns are missing something and not lined up across at the top of page. See “A, G, M, S” are descending:
http://www.corrietse.com/basicallyclothed/tags
Do you have any ideas what went wrong? What’s the solution?
2011
••
Hey Alan! Thanks a ton for the speedy response.
Yes removed pre, code tags, and the tag map works perfectly like nothing else.
Awesome plugin. Thank you!
2012
••
Hi there Alan
First off, thanks for a great plug-in. Does exactly what is says on the tin. And very well too.
For my specific case, I’d like not to separate the different tags using letter headings. Rather, just list them, possibly seperated by a line. Is there a quick way to do that?
Thanks
Derry
2012
••
OK so I found a very unrefined way to do what I wanted. THought I’d post it in case anyone needed the same solution (and in case anyone wants to tell me just how unrefined it is
Basically, I deleted the line:
$list .=” . apply_filters( ‘the_title’, $letter ) . ”;
from the mctagmap.php file (Note: h4 tags altered so it displays properly here). Seemed to fix it up as I wanted.
Thanks again Alan for your work. Will rate and recommend this plugin.
2012
••
Hey Derry,
If that worked, great. You could do the same thing in the CSS by hiding the H4s and giving a bottom or top border to the UL. With the latest update, you can make a CSS file inside a theme mctagmap folder to make style changes. Using the folder also protect any CSS changes you’ve made to the core mctagmap.css file in the plugins folder form being overwritten with any future upgrades.
Both work but, just be careful to save a renamed copy of your modified mctagmap.php file so your edit won’t be overwritten down the road.
Thanks for using my plugin,
Alan
2012
••
Hi,
This is great. My readers have been asking for something like this. However, I have over a thousand tags. Many were used once on old posts (we’ve been blogging for over 4 years) and then abandoned. We didn’t get the hang of what we wanted to do with tags for the first year or so, so there are dozens of tags that were used only once.
My question is, is there a way to list only tags with more than one instance?
2012
••
Deborah,
The built in way already available in the plugin would be to use the exclude parameter. You would just list all the tags that are not being used anymore and the plugin would not show them.
If you want to modify the source to achieve this, you can like so:
/* line433~ */
foreach( $tags as $tag ) {
if($tag->count > 1){ /* add this line */
and then close it like so:
/* line 465~ */
} else {
$list .= '<li><a title="' . $name . '" href="' . $url . '">' . $name . '</a>' . $mctagmap_count . $mctagmap_description . '</li>';
$list .="\n";
}
}
} /* add this line */
}
if ($hide == "yes" && $toggle != "no" && $i == $counti && $i > $num2show) {
A word of caution. If you modify the source file, and I release a new update to the plugin, it will overwrite your modification. If you go this route, make sure you make a back up copy of the mctagmap.php
2012
••
Hello,
This is a great plugin, exactly what I needed for this site - http://askdrgottmd.com/all-tags/ which you can see makes good use of tags. I have had this plugin installed for some time now, but at some point, I can’t identify exactly when all tags were shown on loading and there was no limiting or show more/show less toggling, and I didn’t change the short code.
Now, it’s gotten to the point where the page is so long and browsing through it is cumbersome. I’ve tried deactivating a number of plugins, I’ve got the following shortcode specified - [mctagmap columns="4" more="more »" hide="no" num_show="10" toggle="« less" show_empty="no"] and I’ve tried changing the shortcode to see if I can effect any change when the page is loaded , the only thing that seems to have any effect is changing the # of columns.
Do you have any suggestions or ideas as to why the limiting and toggling is no longer working when they were working when I first installed the plugin? Much appreciated, Helen
2012
••
Hey Helen,
Looking at your shortcode you have: hide=”no”
Change that to: hide=”yes”
See if that fixes things.
2012
••
Alan, I saw the exclude function. The problem is, there are a couple of hundred tags to exclude, that’s why I was hoping for something like an exclude for posts < 2 or something.
2012
••
Deborah,
I wrote a way to do it in my last response. The line that has:
if($tag->count > 1){Sets up the number to exclude. The above says basically to show any tag that has at least two posts tagged by it.
2012
••
Ah, thank you. Code isn’t my first language. Now I understand.