Tag-me Plugin

Plugin to tag wiki content collectively in order to find content by tags and to get a meaningful page ranking.

Introduction

The larger a wiki gets, the harder it is to find content. This wiki tagging plugin attempts to solve the issue based on these assumptions:

Assertion 1: Intranet search does not work well due to inadequate ranking of search engines on intranets. This is because there are typically not many cross-links between pages.
Assertion 2: Let the individuals build their own taxonomy to find content quickly
Assertion 3: Let the users do the ranking to get an "human intelligence" ranking of important content

There are clear benefits in tagging content in a large TWiki (10K or more topics):

Find relevant content in a large system quickly,
- by quickly accessing related topics via the tags on a topic
- by quickly accessing related topics via related tags listed in a specific tag view
- by quickly identifying important tags in the tag cloud
Access my favorite topics quickly (assuming I tag topics of interest)
Solve the search ranking issue of wiki content indexed by a search engine
Help solve stale content issue (old topics do not get tagged)

The design goals of the TagMePlugin were as follows:

Any topic can be tagged by individuals -> create taxonomy for individuals
Show tag statistics of all users on each topic -> show popularity
Encourage users to reuse the same tag on a topic -> get a "collective ranking", or "vote for a tag", or "tag count"
Make it as easy as possible to increase the tag count
Make it as easy as possible to add a new tag to a topic
Encourage users to create new tags, but try to avoid use of similar tags for the same subject
Search for topic by tag, sorted by tag popularity

User Interface

Tag List on Topic

Every topic has a list showing all tags associated with the topic. Additional tags can be added to the topic, and new tags can be created.

Default "twiki" style

Screenshot of tags shown on a topic:

You see:

a list of tags with vote count and add/remove vote buttons,
an add tag selector
a link to create a new tag
a link to the all tags view

"blog" style

But the same control can have a different look and feel if we specify style="blog". In view mode it has a terse apperance:

Screenshot of tags on a topic, style=blog

But, if you click on Tags, and that you have an account and can edit tags, you will see:

Create, Rename, Delete tags

Create New Tags

Go to TWiki.TagMeCreateNewTag to create new tags.
Anyone is allowed to create new tags.

For developers:
Use the url parameter createtag=my+tag+name to pass a new tag name to the form.

Add Tag to Topic

Once a new tag is created, it can be added in the tag list of the topic.

Rename Tags

Go to TWiki.TagMeRenameTag to rename existing tags.
Rename permissions are controlled with ALLOW_TAG_CHANGE (see Plugin Settings below).

For developers:
Use the url parameters renametagfrom=my+old+tag+name and renametagto=my+new+tag+name to pass the old and new tag names to the form.

Delete Tags

Go to TWiki.TagMeDeleteTag to delete existing tags.
Delete permissions are controlled with ALLOW_TAG_CHANGE (see Plugin Settings below).

For developers:
Use the url parameter deletetag=my+tag+name to pass the to-be-deleted tag name to the form.

List All Tags

TWiki.TagMeViewAllTags shows all tags used in the system. The font size indicates the overall tag count of a tag.

Screenshot of tag cloud in the list all tags view:

Tip: In a WebHome of a web you can show a tag cloud of all tagged topics in that web with this variable:

<div class="tagmeTagCloud" style="line-height:2em;">
%TAGME{ tpaction="showalltags" format="<a href=\"%SCRIPTURL{view}%/%SYSTEMWEB%/TagMeSearch?tag=$tag\" style=\"font-size:$size%\">$tag</a>" separator="&nbsp; " minsize="94" maxsize="220"}%
</div>

List My Tags

TWiki.TagMeViewMyTags shows all tags used by logged-in user. The font size indicates the overall tag count of a tag.

Tag Search

TWiki.TagMeSearch shows a list of topics that are tagged with all of the selected tags, sorted by relevance. Topics with a high tag count are shown first.

Plugin Variable

The Plugin handles a %TAGME{}% variable that performs different actions. The tpaction="" is a required parameter.

%TAGME{ tpaction="show" ...}% - shows the tag list on topic

Parameter	Comment	Default
`style="blog"`	will expand into a "tag edit" frame that allows tag management as commonly found in blogs or tag systems like delicious, but only if tpaction is actually present. If `tpaction` is omitted, but the style is `"blog"`, will show nothing. Thus a button to make the edit tags frame appear can be put as: `<a href="%SCRIPTURL{viewauth}%/%SYSTEMWEB%/%TOPIC%?tpaction=show">Edit tags</a>`	"twiki"
`label=", "`	(for style=blog) link label (text) to open the edit tags form	`""`
`button=", "`	(for style=blog) the complete button, link or html construct that will be shown when not in edit tag mode. Should open the Edit tag form when clicked by redirection to this same topic with a `tpaction=show` added. Overrides `label`.	`""`
`header="..."`	(for style=blog) Printed before the edit tags form if it is not empty, `$n` can be used for newlines. e.g: `header="Manage your tags: <i>"`	`""`
`footer="..."`	(for style=blog) Printed after the edit tags form if it is not empty, `$n` can be used for newlines. e.g: `footer="</i>"`	`""`

%TAGME{ tpaction="showalltags" ... }% - view all tags or my tags as a tag cloud

Parameter	Comment	Default
`by="me"`	My own tags only; can also be a USERNAME	all tags
`web="%WEB%"`	Limit query to a web	current web
`topic="*Plugin"`	Limit query to a topic, or a comma-space delimited list of topics with optional asterisk wildcards	all topics
`exclude="fixme"`	Exclude tags; specify a tag, or a comma-space delimited list of tags with optional asterisk wildcards	all tags
`mincount="2"`	Exclude tags below the threshold of `mincount` votes	all tags
`minsize="90"`	Minimum size of tag `$size` (typically percent font size)	`"90"`
`maxsize="180"`	Maximum size of tag `$size`	`"180"`
`format="..."`	Format of a tag, tokens `$tag`, `$size`, `$marker` (adds selected="selected" for use in html options), `$count`, `$order`	`"$tag"`
`header="..."`	Printed before the list of tags if it is not empty, `$n` can be used for newlines. e.g: `header="Tags: <i>"`	`""`
`separator=", "`	Separator between tags	`", "`, unless `format` has been specified
`footer="..."`	Printed after the list of tags if it is not empty, `$n` can be used for newlines. e.g: `footer="</i>"`	`""`

%TAGME{ tpaction="query" ... }% - tag search

Parameter	Comment	Default
`by="me"`	My tagged topics only; can also be a USERNAME	all tagged topics
`web="%WEB%"`	Limit query to a web	current web
`topic="*Plugin"`	Limit query to a topic, or a comma-space delimited list of topics with optional asterisk wildcards	all topics
`tag="..."`	Name of tag	(required)
`sort="web"`	Sorting of tagged topics: `"tagcount"` by tag count (relevance), `"web"` by web then topic name, `"topic"` by topic name	`"tagcount"`
`norelated="on"`	Do not show the list of "related tags"	(show related tags)
`nototal="on"`	Do not show total number of topics found	(show total)
`minsize="90"`	Minimum size of topic `$size` (typically percent font size)	`"90"`
`maxsize="180"`	Maximum size of topic `$size`	`"180"`
`format="..."`	Format of a topic, any token of TWiki.FormattedSearch can be used, such as `$web`, `$topic`, `$summary`, `$rev`, `$n`. In addition, `$votecount` expands to the number of tag votes, `$size` to the suggested font size, and `$taglist` to the tag list of the topic.	(nice formatting)
`separator=", "`	Separator between tags, `$n` or `$n()` can be used for newlines	`"$n"`
`limit=""`	limit number of results if `sort="web"`
`header=""`	if `sort="web"`, add this header once per web with results (only `$web` is interpreted)	`---+++ $web`
`footer=""`	if `sort="web"`, add this footer once per web with results (only `$web` and `$count` and $showmore are interpreted)	`showing $limit out of $count results $showmore`
`refine`	Normally related tags are shown that when clicked on will search for the related tag. If `refine` is set to 1, then the link instead will add the clicked tag to the set of tags being searched for, allowing you to incrementally refine search results. If not set the value of `ALWAYS_REFINE` is used.

%TAGME{ tpaction="newtag" ... }% - create new tag

Parameter	Comment	Default
`tag="..."`	Name of tag. Accepts alphanumeric and underscore characters only (unless `NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT` is set to 0 to allow any user input)	(required)

%TAGME{ tpaction="add" ... }% - add tag to topic, or add vote to existing tag

Parameter	Comment	Default
`tag="..."`	Name of tag	(required)
`nostatus="on"`	Turn off status text shown when a tag is added or voted on	(show status text)

%TAGME{ tpaction="newtagandadd" ... }% - create new tag and add tag to topic

Parameter	Comment	Default
`tag="..."`	Name of tag. Accepts alphanumeric and underscore characters only (unless `NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT` is set to 0 to allow any user input)	(required)

%TAGME{ tpaction="remove" ... }% - remove my tag vote on existing tag

Parameter	Comment	Default
`tag="..."`	Name of tag	(required)
`nostatus="on"`	Turn off status text shown when a tag is removed or voted on	(show status text)

How to put tags on every page

To show the tag interface at the top of the page directly below the breadcrumb (like on twiki.org), use the default template view.tagme.tmpl in the templates directory.

This template is in fact a 'skin' template. To enable it, write in Main.TWikiPreferences:

   * Set SKIN = tagme,pattern

The list of skins can be appended, for instance: tagme,corporate,pattern.

For the "blog" style, use for a simple "Tags: list-of-tags (edit)" at the top of the page:

   * Set SKIN = tagme_styleblog,pattern

And for an alternate style, with no tags line shown if no tags exists, and the button to open the tag edit frame placed at the right of the Edit and Attach ones, in the same style, on the upper right:

   * Set SKIN = tagme_styleblogbutton,pattern

For TWiki 4.1, use:

   * Set SKIN = tagme04x01,pattern

Customizing the appearance

If you customize your site you probably want to change overall appearance. You can find instructions how to do that - at least for default pattern skin - in TWiki.PatternSkinCssCookbook.
The short summary is:

Create an empty CSS file, for instance sitestyle.css
Copy the CSS styles for tagmetags (see below at Example styles used on twiki.org) into the file
Attach the file to Main.TWikiPreferences

In Main.TWikiPreferences, write:

   * Set USERSTYLEURL = %PUBURL%/%USERSWEB%/TWikiPreferences/sitestyle.css

Other places for the tag interface

To show the tags in the top bar, edit TWiki.WebTopBar and copy:

<div class="tagmetags">
Tags: %TAGME{ tpaction="%URLPARAM{tpaction}%" web="%WEB%" tag="%URLPARAM{tag}%" }%, [[%SYSTEMWEB%.TagMeViewAllTags][view all tags]]
</div>

To show the tags at the bottom of every page, write in Main.TWikiPreferences:

 * Set WEBCOPYRIGHT = Tags: %TAGME{ tpaction="%URLPARAM{tpaction}%" web="%WEB%" tag="%URLPARAM{tag}%" }%, [[%SYSTEMWEB%.TagMeViewAllTags][view all tags]] %BR% Copyright &copy; 1999-%GMTIME{"$year"}% by... etc

Show tags without vote buttons

To just show the tags for a topic, without buttons or "Create new tag" link, use a showalltags search:

Tags: %TAGME{ tpaction="showalltags" web="%WEB%" topic="%TOPIC%" format="<a href=\"%SCRIPTURL{view}%/%SYSTEMWEB%/TagMeSearch?tag=$tag\">$tag</a> " }%

Tag styles

CSS Styles

TagMePlugin writes the following CSS styles:

Class	Used where
`tagMeControl`	Around 'tags shown on a topic': tag link plus vote counter plus add/vote button
`tagMeVoteCount`	Around vote count number
`tagMeNotification`	`span`: One-line notification feedback after adding or removal of a tag and on in this process
`tagMeNotification`	`div`: Block of notification feedback after creation of a tag and on errors in this process
`tagmeAction`	Link style for buttons add and remove tag vote
`tagmeNavigation`	Table style for tabbed admin pages

Search results CSS Styles

Class	Used where
`tagmeRelated`	Text style of the line "Related tags (Click to refine the search)"
`tagmeResultsTable`	Table style for search results
`tagmeResultsTableHeader`	Table header with link to topic, last modified date and author. These have the additional classes `td.tagmeTopicTd`, `td.tagmeDateTd`, `td.tagmeAuthorTd`, `tagmeTopicTdWeb`
`tagmeResultsDetails`	Wrapper around `tagmeResultsSummary` and `tagmeResultsDetails`
`tagmeResultsSummary`	The topic summary
`tagmeResultsTags`	List of tags for the topic

Preventing link wrap

If users are allowed to use spaces in their tag names (when NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT is set to 0), tag links may break halfway to the next line. To prevent wrapping, add a wrapper div around the tags:

<div class="tagmeTagCloud">
%TAGME{ ... }%
</div>

This CSS style is included in tagme.css:

.tagmeTagCloud a {
   white-space:nowrap;
}

Example styles used on twiki.org

To show the 'tags shown on a topic':

<div class="tagmetags">
Tags: %TAGME{ tpaction="%URLPARAM{tpaction}%" web="%WEB%" tag="%URLPARAM{tag}%" }%, [[%SYSTEMWEB%.TagMeViewAllTags][view all tags]]
</div>

CSS styles:

.tagmetags select {
   font-size:.8em;
   margin:0 .25em;
}
.tagmetags a {
   text-decoration:none;
   white-space:nowrap;
}
.tagmetags a:link,
.tagmetags a:visited {
   color:#8E9195; /* all links are gray; for blue links use: #06c */
   text-decoration:none;
}
.tagmetags a:hover {
   color:#FBF7E8; 
}
.tagMeControl {
   color:#8E9195; /* gray for non-links */
}

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a plugin setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, e.g., %TAGMEPLUGIN_SHORTDESCRIPTION%.

NOTE: Do not change the settings here, overload them in the Main.TWikiPreferences. Prefix a setting with TAGMEPLUGIN_, e.g. to overload NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT define a TAGMEPLUGIN_NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT setting in the Main.TWikiPreferences.

One line description, is shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
- Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Tag wiki content collectively to find content by keywords

Log add/create actions:
- Set LOGACTION = 1

Optionally normalize tag names. Set to 1 to translate international characters to their latin match (ü to ue, å to aa, etcetera), and to convert spaces to underscores.
Set to 0 to allow any user input, except for the reserved characters ,#'"|*.
Setting to 0 also sorts tags case insensitive: 'U' comes after 't'.
- Set NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT = 0

If 1, then the refine parameter is always added to TAGME queries.
- Set ALWAYS_REFINE = 1

List of users and groups that are allowed to change (rename and delete) tags (names separated by commas).
Users that are not allowed to change post their change requests to TagMeChangeRequests.
If not set anyone can change tags.
- Set ALLOW_TAG_CHANGE = TWikiAdminGroup

Bundles are groups of tags that are presented as menus for convenience. It is a list of space-separated (or comma-separated if your tags may contain spaces) prefixed by bundle labels terminated by colon (":"). e.g:
- Set BUNDLES =
- #Set BUNDLES = Rating: * * * Todo: to_blog to_read
- #Set BUNDLES = Rating:, , *, **, Todo:, to_blog, to_read

Debug plugin: (See output in data/debug.txt)
- Set DEBUG = 0

Plugin Installation Instructions

Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this plugin. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the plugin on the TWiki server.

Download the ZIP file from the plugin web (see below)

Unzip TagMePlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:

File:	Description:
`data/TWiki/TagMePlugin.txt`	Plugin topic
`data/TWiki/TagMeViewAllTags.txt`	Supporting topic to view all tags
`data/TWiki/TagMeViewMyTags.txt`	Supporting topic to view my tags
`data/TWiki/TagMeSearch.txt`	Supporting topic to search for tagged topics
`data/TWiki/TagMeManage.txt`	Supporting topic to create new tags
`data/TWiki/TagMeDebug*.txt`	Supporting topics for debug
`lib/TWiki/Plugins/TagMePlugin.pm`	Plugin Perl module
`pub/TWiki/TagMePlugin/*.gif`	Icon files
`templates/view.tagme.tmpl`	Template containing GUI components

Configure and enable the Plugin:
- Run the configure script to enable the plugin
- Overload the Plugin settings as needed in the Main.TWikiPreferences:
  - Determine who will be allowed to rename and delete tags.
  - For international character support: set NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT to 0.
  - To allow any user input as tag name also set NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT to 0.
- To put the tags interface on every page, see the instructions above at How to put tags on every page
Test if the installation was successful:
- Go to TagMeCreateNewTag and add a tag
Note: If you have upgraded TagMePlugin to TWiki 4.2 or later and appear to have lost all your old tags: Copy all your tag files from pub/TWiki/TagMePlugin/ files to working/work_areas/TagMePlugin/ and they should magically re-appear.

Limitations

TWiki 04-Sep-2005 and older: Tags are lost if a topic is renamed or moved.

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny, TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens
Copyright:	© 2006-2011 Peter Thoeny, Twiki, Inc; © 2006-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version:	2011-07-12 (v1.9)
Change History:
2011-07-12:	TWikibug:Item6768: Allow login name or WikiWord name for `by=""` tag queries; user specific "no tag yet" message if `by` user is not logged in user
2011-05-25:	TWikibug:Item6732: Fix for administrator not able to delete tag if Main web is renamed to User web
2010-06-12:	TWikibug:Item6490: Fixing hardcoded link to TWiki web
2010-05-26:	TWikibug:Item6433: Doc improvements
23 Oct 2009:	Peter Thoeny: Validate tag against known tags when adding a tag; improved docs
30 Aug 2008:	Colas Nahaboo: enhancements to the "blog" style: Bundles, count of known tags, option to delete tags
28 Aug 2008:	Colas Nahaboo: prefix & suffix options renamed as header & footer. New parameter style to TAGME to be able to define different UI style for the default "show" action of TAGME. Implemented a first one, "blog" for the simpler case of authors managing the same tags
26 Aug 2008:	Colas Nahaboo: prefix & suffix options to TAGME
16 Oct 2007:	Arthur Clemens: added backward compatible example template.
26 Sep 2007:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWikibug:Item4728 fixed incorrect cloud font sizes to reflect relative importance of tags actually being displayed
11 Sep 2007:	Arthur Clemens: updated example template to TWiki template convention.
11 Jun 2007:	Arthur Clemens: fixed sizing of tags with the same tag count; fixed CSS class for select box; updated documentation with "How to put tags on every page".
07 Jun 2007:	Arthur Clemens: removed dependency on (unreleased) TWiki 4.2.
21 May 2007:	TWiki:Main.WillNorris: added `view.tagme.tmpl` and updated installation instructions.
30 Apr 2007:	Arthur Clemens: fixed calculation of sizes in tag cloud; if `mincount` is passed only the shown tags are calculated.
18 Apr 2007:	Arthur Clemens: added permissions for rename and delete; added TagMeChangeRequests.
17 Apr 2007:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie for Escape Studios: contributed support for incremental refinement of tag searches.
12 Apr 2007:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie contributed ability to search for multiple tags. TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit for Escape Studios: added parameters needed for custom search result display.
05 Apr 2007:	Arthur Clemens: The "topic tags" select box is now created with Javascript to prevent the tag options getting indexed by search engines. The former select box is used for noscript fallback.
02 Apr 2007:	Arthur Clemens: Added "Delete Tag" interface. Added tabbed interface for Create, Rename, Delete tags.
30 Mar 2007:	Arthur Clemens: Added "Rename Tag" interface.
22 Mar 2007:	Arthur Clemens: Added option `NORMALIZE_TAG_INPUT` (to be set to 0) to allow any word as tag name (including upper case, punctuation characters and spaces). Moved "Create New Tag" to dedicated page. Created CSS styles in `tagme.css`. Added `mincount` parameter to `TAGME{tpaction="showalltags"}`.
14 Nov 2006:	Fix IE browser crash issue on print (forms can't be named "tags"; debug by TWiki:Main.KevinKalmbach)
14 Oct 2006:	Fix show default problem introduced by version 07 Oct 2006 (contributed by TWiki:Main.ChristianSuenkel)
07 Oct 2006:	nostatus="on" parameter for add/remove tag (contributed by TWiki:Main.FredMorris)
05 Oct 2006:	Fix issue of missing topics in tag search if topic name contains plus or minus sign (workaround for TWiki core TWikibug:Item2625 and TWikibug:Item2967)
04 Oct 2006:	Fix issue of statistics moving WebHome tags to WebStatistics
02 Oct 2006:	Support for topic rename (tags are no longer lost)
14 Sep 2006:	MAKETEXT support (TWiki:Main.KoenMartens); fixed nested webs issue; fix in generated XHTML (TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens)
20 May 2006:	Support international characters (contributed by TWiki:Main.AntonioTerceiro)
09 May 2006:	Support for sub-webs; enclose tag list on topic in `span class="tagMePlugin"`; tag selector not shown if empty; limit max size of new tags to 30 characters
21 Mar 2006:	TagMeSearch with `minsize` and `maxsize` parameters; TagMeSearch format with `$votecount`, `$size`; fixed JavaScript compatibility issue on TWiki 4.0
11 Mar 2006:	TagMeSearch with `sort`, `norelated`, `nototal`, `format` and `separator` paramters; linked tags in create new tag section; renamed TagMeViewSpecificTag to a shorter TagMeSearch; workaround for Dakar TWikibug:Item1838 to fix broken links in top bar
06 Mar 2006:	Remove my tag vote; added exclude="", minsize="" and maxsize="" parameters; more intuitive icons; in default view, sort tags alphabetically instead of sort by tag vote
03 Mar 2006:	Allow underscore in tags (and convert space and dash to underscore); added web="" and topic="" parameters; fixed font size issue in tag cloud with disproportional counts
28 Feb 2006:	Use tabs in all/my/specific tags view; show related tags in specific tags view; check if topic exists when adding tags;
26 Feb 2006:	Added view all tags / my tags (as tag clouds); view specific tag (sorted by tag count); do not allow guests to create new tags; log add/create tag actions
20 Feb 2006:	Initial version
TWiki Dependency:	$TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.024
CPAN Dependencies:	none
Other Dependencies:	none
Perl Version:	5.005
Benchmarks:	GoodStyle 100%, FormattedSearch 100%, TagMePlugin 99%
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/TagMePlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/TagMePluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/TagMePluginAppraisal

Topic revision: r4 - 2011-07-13 - TWikiContributor

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