Blogger Help - Animated Flash Tag Cloud For Blogger

You can now easily display the tags of your blog in a more attractive way, by showing all the tags/labels in a flash box which will start revolving as soon as mouse cursor is placed on the widget. You can see the example of this widget in this blog itself.

"Blogumus" is an Flash based tag cloud widget which uses scripts converted from Roy Tanck's WP Cumulus plugin for Wordpress.

Initially I thought that as now these labels are being shown in flash widget so it may not be search engine friendly, but after looking at the source code, I came to know that it will not make these labels inaccessible to any search engine.

If your visitors do not have java script/flash enabled in their browsers, then it does degrade relatively gracefully, but label links will still be click able (though not animated) for those who do not use JavaScript of Flash (including search engine spiders).

How to install Blogumus in your Blogger layout

Although there are some difficult methods available on Internet, but by following this method the task becomes surprisingly simpler !
You can copy paste the code as it is, or change the code before pasting into your blog HTML as per your requirements.
By default the flash widget will be in white background, with gray labels/text, and of dimensions 240x300. And all these can be changed so as to suit your blog's layout and colors.

To start with:
Go to the LAYOUT section, and click on EDIT HTML.
Now find this line/code:

<b:section class='sidebar' id='sidebar' preferred='yes'>

And immediately after this code line, paste these code lines(in new line):

<b:widget id='Label99' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:title'>
<h2><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<script src='http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/swfobject.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<div id='flashcontent'>Blogumulus by <a href='http://www.roytanck.com/'>Roy Tanck</a> and <a href='http://www.bloggerbuster.com'>Amanda Fazani</a> via <a href='http://bloggerstop.net'>BloggerStop.Net</a></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var so = new SWFObject(&quot;http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/tagcloud.swf&quot;, &quot;tagcloud&quot;, &quot;240&quot;, &quot;300&quot;, &quot;7&quot;, &quot;#ffffff&quot;);
// uncomment next line to enable transparency
//so.addParam(&quot;wmode&quot;, &quot;transparent&quot;);
so.addVariable(&quot;tcolor&quot;, &quot;0x333333&quot;);
so.addVariable(&quot;mode&quot;, &quot;tags&quot;);
so.addVariable(&quot;distr&quot;, &quot;true&quot;);
so.addVariable(&quot;tspeed&quot;, &quot;100&quot;);
so.addVariable(&quot;tagcloud&quot;, &quot;<tags><b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'><a expr:href='data:label.url' style='12'><data:label.name/></a></b:loop></tags>&quot;);
so.addParam(&quot;allowScriptAccess&quot;, &quot;always&quot;);
so.write(&quot;flashcontent&quot;);
</script>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</div>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

Then preview your template. If installed correctly, you should see the tag cloud appear in your sidebar. Then you are free to save your template, edit the colors and dimensions as required, or move it to a different location. That's all! 

NOTE: You must have already added labels to at least some of your posts, to see the widget in action.

Customizing Blogumus

By default, Blogumus includes the following preset variables:

• Width is set to 240px
• Height is set to 300px;
• Background color is white
• Test color is Grey
  
• Font size is "12"

If you would prefer to make your widget wider, shorter, change the color scheme, etc, you will need to do this by editing various parts of the code. I'll go through these options in the order they appear in the widget code.


1. Editing width and height The variables for width and height are found in this line of the script:

var so = new SWFObject("http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/tagcloud.swf", "tagcloud", "240", "300", "7", "#ffffff");

The width (currently 240) is highlighted in red, while the height (300px default) is highlighted in blue. These numerical values specify the width and height in pixels, so you can alter these of you prefer.


2. Editing background color You can change the background color from white to any other color by altering the hex value in the same line:

var so = new SWFObject("http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/tagcloud.swf", "tagcloud", "240", "300", "7", "#ffffff");

For example, if you prefer a bright red background, you may replace #ffffff with #ff0000. Take a look at this page for a list of commonly used hex color codes.

NOTE: To get HTML color codes, you can see in these websites:
1. Uci.edu
2. Computerhope.com



3. Alter the color of text By default, the text is set to display as dark grey ( hex value #333333). You can alter this variable in the following line:

so.addVariable("tcolor", "0x333333");

Be aware that "tcolor" is a Flash variable and doesn't include the usual hash symbol of hex color codes. Be sure to only replace the numbers!


4. Adjust the font size The maximum font size of tags is specified in this line:

so.addVariable("tagcloud", "<tags><b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'><a expr:href='data:label.url' style='12'><data:label.name/></a></b:loop></tags>");

You can alter this to ensure tags are displayed in a bigger or smaller font if you prefer by changing "12" to a larger or smaller number.
While making any of these changes, you should be able to preview your widget and be certain that your new choice of color, dimensions and background are suitable for your needs. 

Credits: Blogumus is based on the original WP Cumulus plugin by Roy Tanck, and was converted for use with Blogger layouts by Blogger Buster .

You can read more blogger tricks and tips HERE