So I decided it is time to finally implement the Ultimate Tag Warrior. I am not a php wizard, but I am patient and eager to learn new stuff, both of which help a lot when installing WordPress plug-ins. Although all the plug-ins come with instructions I am often experiencing difficulties.
Adding tags to my posts was easy, but creating a tagcloud wasn’t. I was able to create a tag archive page which would display a tagcloud (following the instructions), but that wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I wanted to display my tagcloud in my dynamic sidebar which uses widgets. So I put the php code in the (empty) Text1 widget, but it turned up empty. So I tried adding list HTML tags, which didn’t help either. After some googling it turns out that you cannot put php code in your widgets. But of course there is a widget to help me fix this widget problem.
This widget required a framework which generated yet other problem: Fatal error: Call to undefined function king_version_head() in wp-content/plugins/king-includes/king-framework.php on line 118
Whoops! Nothing would show up because of this error. Fortunately the easy solution of deleting the plug-in from my server and uploading it again helped. I encountered another error while installing the King Text Widget but fortunately this was entirely my own fault. I had put the php-file in the plugin folder, but this isn’t a plug-in but a widget so it belongs in the widget folder. But the framework had to be put in the plug-in folder, because the framework is a plug-in and not a widget. Are you still with me?
Then there it was, my tagcloud! But it didn’t quite look alright. The block didn’t show a white background like all my blocks in the sidebar do. So it doesn’t automatically take the CSS, which makes sense, because it’s a dynamic block. After several guesses at where to put my div class code for the block it worked! (Just put the correct CSS around your php, it is logical after all). It pretty much took a whole evening, but here it is… my tagcloud.
PS: I just noticed the tags only display on the front page, not on the individual post page. It’s getting late. Tomorrow.
Update December 1st: added a php line to single.php
Next task: convert the old categories which are now tags to lowercase (simply renaming the categories didn’t work). Any ideas besides a possible CSS solution of text-transform:lowercase ?