-> Revised (26/07/08) <-

If you scroll down and look left, beneath the menu you’ll see a new addition to the page.

I’ve managed to find a way to integrate Roy’s awesome tag cloud plugin with Rapidweaver’s blog page.

And now that you’ve seen it, I figure you’ll want it too - and this is how to do it:

Note: requires php - will NOT work on .Mac.

This tutorial has been written with the “code-phobic” in mind. It may bore you with details that you feel are obvious. If so, just skim read until you find the parts that interest you. I’ve included screenshots of various steps in the process - to view the full size images, just click on the thumbnail of each image. The image will load on top of this page.

If you feel that this tutorial is too complicated, or you run into any problems, please let me know by posting a comment below.

As long as your server has PHP, I am confident that you/we will be able to get this beatiful tag cloud going.

1) Make a blog page. At this time, the script does not work with Rapidblog. I will look into this when I have finished a few other projects I have going.










2) Add some blog entries.











3) Download the tag cloud flash file. We'll be using "tagcloud.swf" and "swfobject.js". Next, download this file. This It contains a snippet that is used to insert the cloud, and “cloud_creator.php”, that gets tag information.






4) Upload both “tagcloud.swf” and “swfobject.js” to your server. Note URL that points to these files. If you’ve uploaded them to the root directory of your server, then the path will look like: “http://your_doman_name.com/tagcloud.swf” and “http://your_doman_name.com/swfobject.js”.


5) Upload the “cloud_creator.php” file to your blog’s “files” directory. The directory will either be called “files” or “blog_name_files”. The first image shows an example of each. The second image shows an example of how the blog files directory should look before the “cloud_creator.php” file has been uploaded.













6) Open “cloud_creator.php” in your browser. You should see a blank page.








7) Make sure “cloud_creator.php” is working. Check that “cloud_file.html” has been created in the blog files directory.






8) Change the page’s extension to .php.











9) Change the sidebar to HTML











10) Drag the snippet into the sidebar. Change the addresses to match your site.










11) Change the URLs in the following two lines to match your site, then paste them into the header.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagesofinterest.net/mikes/swfobject.js"></script>
<? include('http://pagesofinterest.net/mikes/blog_of_interest_files/cloud_creator.php'); ?>

12) Publish your page - you’re done!

Thanks for reading - if you like this tag cloud, head over to Roy's Site and let him know!

For those who have difficulty getting this going, I’ve created an example project. It is availabe here. If you get stuck, please download this file and study it as a first step.

It has been brought to my attention that some hosts do not allow standard use of the “include(‘URL’)” function. If you get a message that looks similar to this:

Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /a/path/to/a/domain.com/index.php on line 31

Then you will need to contact your hosting company and ask them how to get around this. Everytime I’ve contacted my hosting company (Hostmonster) about things like this, they’ve been extrememly helpful.

When you get it working, or get stuck - I want to know! Leave a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I am able.

 Subscribe in a reader  Subscribe by Email

Scroll to top

Tags: Rapidweaver | Tutorial | Flash | PHP | RW Tutorial