Journal

More about tagging

Following some interesting discussion about tags I've decided to experiment a little on this site.

Like most designers, I like to keep a list of bookmarks of useful sites and resources. Over the past six months instead of saving these bookmarks in the browser, I've been posting them on this site in my 'Of Interest' section. One thing did bother me though.

Adding content to a bottomless pit, without any meta-tagging, and more importantly any UI to access that meta data, caused problems in terms of trying to find stuff.

Previously this list was just another blog in Expression Engine with a set of custom fields. Now, I could of course used categories to tag these links, which would have worked fine. However, I happened upon the Links List module for Expression Engine which is designed for exactly this. Yoshi has done a sterling job in creating a very flexible EE module with stacks of functionality.

So, what have I done?

Well, I've created a bunch of Links Lists (one for each month) and then migrated the content across from the old blog-list. At first I thought multiple lists might be a bit of a nightmare, but Yoshi's module provides a simple interface to move links from one list to another. Then, each link is given a bunch of keywords which can also be viewed as a list. Oh, and there is a 'tag-cloud', but I don't think I like it.

Why go to all this bother then?

As I said I wanted to organise the 'bookmarks' into more of a navigable structure but I also want to provide access to them from related journal posts. So, if a journal post is given keywords then these can be cross-referenced to the 'Of Interest' links and provide a list of contextual related links for the user (and also for me!).Well, that's the aim anyway.

So, it's a bit of an experiment and I may change it back at some point. Oh, and the RSS 'Of Interest' feeds are bust - I'm currently working to fix them.

Another point is I'm continually amazed by the power of Expression Engine and when combined with well written modules, such as LinksList, it really does blow me away. Right, better get on with some real work now (I was only supposed to spend an hour on this!).

Comments

Hi Mark,
I have switched to ExpressionEngine after your excellent documentation of your own transmission. I even have implemented another site using it since then and I can only share your enthusiasm.
Since I have only launched recently, my own repository of links is not all that huge yet and for the time being I have decided to go with the regular category system. But I am very interested to see how this “experiment” of yours goes. So keep us posted please. Great job once again!

alex's Gravatar

alex
Sat 30th Jul 2005
at 4:59 pm

I’ve been dumping my personal “breadcrumbs” into del.icio.us for the last few months in anticipation of leveraging it on my website in this fashion. I haven’t quite decided how I want it to look/function yet, but the basics are there. I’ve quit using [browser] bookmarks entirely now.

I agree that EE is great, too - now if user navigation could be improved (customized category navigation output, for example), that would be something.

Allan White's Gravatar

Allan White
Mon 1st Aug 2005
at 3:40 pm

One of EE’s best features is the data modeling ability (you choose what forms & fields your blog/website section has). Mark et. al., what do you think a good UI element for choosing (predefined) keywords would be (and can EE make one)?

I was thinking of a listbox (scrollable, multi-selectable) but wasn’t sure if it could be done in EE. I suppose checkboxes would work, too, but that could get crowded.

Thoughts on picking (as a user, in the control panel like an admin or priv’d user) from a list in EE?

Allan White's Gravatar

Allan White
Mon 1st Aug 2005
at 5:55 pm

Hi, out of interest could you let me know more about del.icio.us?

How useful do you find it and *blushes* what exactly is it?

Graham Sanders's Gravatar

Graham Sanders
Tue 2nd Aug 2005
at 7:14 am

Alex - Glad to see you using EE and also your feature on Unmatched Style - good job!

Allan - At the moment a simple list of tags, or a tag cloud, is probably the best way of representing tags. In fact the tag cloud UI is arguably already a convention which should probably be used.

Graham - del.icio.us is a “social bookmarks manager”. Basically you post links there and tag them with keywords of your choice. Other people can post the same links and tags as well and can therefore build up a network of links. Very cool and popular site. The only reason I don’t use it for these links is the problems I’ve had with Magpie parsing the Delicious RSS in my links list.

Mark Boulton's Gravatar

Mark Boulton
Sat 6th Aug 2005
at 3:39 pm

really a great comment style

really a great comment style's Gravatar

really a great comment style
Sat 27th Aug 2005
at 3:47 pm

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A picture of Mark BoultonI'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.

I've got a thing about grids and typography and occasionally ramble on about them to anyone who will listen.

If you're after simple, clean and effective web design; let me know.