I was looking to write a cool module to use in future tutorial articles when I came across the nifty looking WP-Cumulus WordPress plugin by Roy Tanck. It had all the elements I was looking for, and he has kindly released the code (including the flash source) under the GPL license. Approximately 2 hours later PS_Cumulus was born!
Before anyone asks, the name has to use an underscore as a hyphen isn’t allowed in PrestaShop class names….
I’ve added hooks so that it can be added to the header area (Top of page), home page, left column, right column and footer — just in case anyone should want to place it in any of these locations. I’ve even installed the WordPress version on this site, so you can see it in action.
There’s a new update to this that addresses any SEO concerns by displaying a “Legacy” cloud should Flash be unavailable. Major changes are:
- Enable/Disable “compatibility mode” – This uses one of two methods to embed the flas, should there be problems with display using the standard method. It also works even when javascript is disabled (but flash installed) – not terribly useful for PrestaShop as by default the store needs javascript enabled. It may help someone somewhere though.
- Display “Legacy” tags when flash doesn’t work/isn’t installed. A tag cloud likely makes no perceptible difference to SEO but why not eh?
- Fixed the class assignments to the links, and added a css file to let you style the links when Flash isn’t used (default just proportionally increases the font size from 9px to 18px). Bit of a strange one, as the font sizes will “fight” with each other, but you could always style them based on color.
- Added the modules own tag query function (the default one in Prestashop doesn’t work properly anyway and always missed one of the tags out) and added the option to sort by tag name, frequency (times) or “none”. Also an option to specify the sort direction as ascending or descending. This will only have an effect on the non-Flash display.
Version 1.1.21 (Initial Release August 2009) : PS_Cumulus Tag cloud module
Version 2.1.21 (Update #1 August 2009) : PS_Cumulus Tag cloud module v2.1.21
Comments
37 responses to “PS_Cumulus a WP-Cumulus port to Prestashop”
I used the form ps_cumulus_2_1_21 are different versions of prestashop and it always worked.
Now I installed the module on version 1.4.3 and provides the odd thing is that standards opens the front office only in the languages English, French and Spanish, if you select the Italian and German in the form disappears.
Can you give me some advice on this?
Thanks and congratulations for the excellent work.
Hi~
Thanks for good module, but I got problem with ssl unsecure.
If i click tag cluod in https://….. ssl unsecure error displayed.
Is there any solutions?
Hi !
I’ve just installed this great module ! (I’m creating a site on PS 1.4)
I would like to add a title above the cloud (ie “Tags cloud”)
Where can I do this, I’m not fluent in PHP (nor in English 😉 !!
Thx in advance
Hi Paul
Seems to be a problem with this module and v1.4, when the module is uploaded and installed, no default data is entered all the boxes are blank and therefore nothing is displayed on the front-end.
When I manually entered the options everything worked fine.
nice tag block thanks
Thanks, nice job.
I installed CUMULUS on my website (prestashop 1.2.5). Everything works fine with tags in English, but with Russian tags does not work. When you click on the tag says “can not find …” and instead of Russian letters wrote the characters. As I understand the problem encoding, but I do not understand where to look.
Tell me where to fix?
Thank you.
Hi there !
I don’t know if this bug as been reported (or I don’t where), but there’s “hacking attempt” error when using accented words.
I corrected the search href at ps_cumulus.php, line 725 :
$tagcloud.= urlencode(‘‘.$tag[‘name’].’‘).’%0A’;
If this can help someone…
Hi my website is in French and I have that problem.
I couldn’t fix it with your code.
Can you please explain it again ?
what is the original code ? and what code should replace it ?
Thanks
Hi,
I installed it but it did not appear, even after changing ‘advertising_block’ to ‘tagcloud_block’, and testing in IE8 and firefox. Any ideas?
Btw how does this differ from the normal tag cloud that comes with prestashop?
Cheers
@Hightone69:
It won’t show in Firefox if you have any ad blocker addons installed – it uses the ‘advertising_block’ class, which AdBlock Plus (et al) disables.
Copy the ‘advertising_block’ class in your global.css and rename it to something like ‘tag_block’ (also change the class in ps-cumulus.php) and you should be ok.
Hello
I installed CUMULUS on my website (prestashop 1.1).
It works perfectly and it’s embellished it.
I just changed the module to use for doing research on my site and not just tags (search query instead tag search).
I have a question: In my database (tab tag) I created words how can I make them appear in the cloud.
Thank you for the advice
Hello
This module is great! works great on Internet Explorer 8! by cumulus cons module ps does not work on Firefox 3.6 you have an idea for this to work with firefox 3.6? if you have any ideas I am
Cordially
Hi there! I am a bit confused. I see the hooks however I can not move the tag cloud on the left side where I want it to be.
Could you please elaborate how exactly I can make the tag cloud to be on the left side I will appreciate your reply
Hello, Great Module!
It’s almos exactly what I Need! Thank You very Much. However, I would like to add a header, Im doing a prestashop for a gift store, and I pretend to have over the ps_cumulus the legend “From you to someone: “, but I don’t find where to add the code, could please someone help me? Thanks in advance.
Excellent module! There is one more request: released tagcloud.swf file with the ability to display Cyrillic fonts! I think it will be very useful to the community.
I apologize for my English …
All the necessary files should be in the downloadable archive (the original WP source is in there). I’m not a Flash expert sadly, so I would have to leave that to someone more competent than me to develop!
Hi,
Looks nice – just one issue, html validator didn’t like the fact that you had a http://www.ecartservices.net instead of a href “http://www.ecartservices.net” on line 273 of ps_cumulus.php (just thought you may like to know)
– Andrew
hi!
wonderfull module. i would want it too, but unfortunately it seems that it doesn’t work for me. i have just installed it as a simple module and in the back-end, as i see, everything is ok, i have the green checkmark, but on the frontpage there is nothing. nothing can be seen that there should be something. i have to do something else too? i saw on the original wp tool’s site that for showing it, should be inserted some code in a template file. i have to do it also? thanks!
Great Job!!! But,
How can I modify it to show in thai tag font?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Hi all,
Great module !
Is it any way to modify it in order to have subcategories in case of tags ?
Txs !
hey there, i have another question about this module.
I’m really aiming to keep my website as professional as possible and this module is a great tool, but i feel that when you right click it (a lot of people will) that the “pscumulus by roy tank” + clickable link to another site is a bit unprofessional, i don’t mind having comments showing his link and things, but on the actual website i really want to remove it. Am i allowed to remove his link and name from the right-click menu? and if so, what’s the best way to remove it? thanks in advance
Hey Paul, can’t wait for your update? Many thanks for this awesome work!!!
Hi,
I solve the problem which occurs line 363 , modify the ps_cumulus.php file by adding $tagcloud=””; at the top of the hookRightColumn function (line 338, see below):
public function hookRightColumn($params) { $tagcloud=””;
I am running 1.2.0.1 version and having same problem as Cb. showing “Undefined variable: tagcloud in C:\wamp\www\prestashop\modules\ps_cumulus\ps_cumulus.php on line 363″.
hoping that someone finds a solution this is great module
thanks
I’ll post an updated version tomorrow that should fix it, and the search bug.
Paul, Thanks for the great module.
I am running 1.2.2 version and having same problem as Cb. showing “Undefined variable: tagcloud in C:\wamp\www\prestashop\modules\ps_cumulus\ps_cumulus.php on line 363”.
I am looking forward to your fix for this. This is great module I am looking for.
Thanks
Angel
hey there, excellent module/port! thank you. I installed this on 1.2.1 and it worked fine, but i upgraded my prestashop to 1.2.2 today and installed this module, and even though it works, i get this “Notice: Undefined variable: tagcloud in C:\prestashop 1.2.2\modules\ps_cumulus\ps_cumulus.php on line 363” on every page. The module seems to be working fine though! any comments or help anyone can give me?
and also, because it’s in flash, does that mean that it’s not SEO friendly? i know how important it is to have tags like these for better SEO, and i know that flash isn’t readable to the engine crawlers, thanks again
Hi there,
Thanks for the heads up on the issue with 1.2.2 — I’ll take as look at that and see what might be causing the problem. These frequent releases are playing havoc with my testing program!
With respect to SEO, if flash isn’t installed or javascript isn’t available it should fall back to a text-only link version so it should be fine when crawled. The actual value of tag clouds in terms of SEO is a little debatable, but it’s certainly good for user navigation, so for that reason only it’s worth implementing.
Paul
I would like to use it with presta 1.1. Is it possible? I tried, the module in back-office is okay but in front-office doesn’t show anything …
Hmmm, trying to paste in the whole line of code didn’t quite work out… Anyway, you get the idea…
Small issue: when tags with special characters or accents are passed, search doesn’t work
Fix: on line 364, use urlencode on ?tag= like so:
$tagcloud.= urlencode(”.$tag[‘name’].”).’%0A’;
hi Paul, that’s exactly what im looking for. thank you very much! im wondering how to put this could into a block that appears like other titled blocks. i was try to mod its css with no luck. can you put me in the right direction?
Hmm – that’s a bug really as no you can’t. I’ll look at an update to optionally do that and post it over the next few days. I decided not to use a .tpl file for this as the markup is fixed due to its nature, and performance is better if you don’t use smarty. I originally meant to go back and add support for this, but obviously forgot!
try thickbox enlargement with any product on http://www.bm-shop.com
Very good module, thanks.
Just a little display probleme with thickbox, tags are dispayed in front of thickcbox background for me.
That’s very possible. I’m looking at the best way of allowing supportable customisation at the moment. Module .tpl files can be copied and “overridden” in the theme folder, so I’m thinking that for modules like this there should be a way of allowing an overridden css file in the theme directory — that way you could tweak how the module is displayed per theme.
Do you have an example of this problem somewhere I could look at? — it may be that a minor tweak will remove sort it — or suggestions for changes to the default css are welcome too!