Tag cloud in SP2010

Question

I am using a managed metadata column in a content type. The content type is used across the site collection.I want to show the most used values of the column as a Tag cloud web part.

The out of box Tag cloud webpart can be used only for social tags and so it does not solve my purpose.

Any idea how this can be done. I want to develop my own tag cloud webpart.

Update : I need to build tag cloud that should be capable to aggregate tags from multiple site collections in a web application

Answer 1

If you have Fast Search installed, you can build a powerful tag cloud using deep refiners. For details, Please check the post below:

http://extreme-sharepoint.com/2012/04/10/sharepoint-tag-cloud-deep-refiners-fast-search/

The tag cloud described in this post can aggregate data from a wide variety of content sources and not just the site collection. It also gives you an idea how you can have the page to display all tagged items when you click a tag in tag cloud.

Answer 2

Ok, this is how I did it:

1. Build a method that enables me to retrieve all items of a certain ContentType (use SPSiteDataQuery for Cross-Site in the same site collection, or simple SPQUery for a single list) - many examples available but look here for a start http://sharepoint-snippets.com/spsitedataquery-examples-for-sharepoint-2010/ (actually i've built my own methods as i've reused quite a lot)
2. Look for the column the contains all the Managed Metadata you are looking for, but very important: SPField noteFieldOfTaxonomyField = childWeb.Site.RootWeb.Fields.GetField(string.Format("{0}_0", fieldName)); - this will return all the TAGS by using the HIDDEN field automatically created behind the scenes by SharePoint for every Managed Metadata.
3. Use the same code found in the Web Part on the CodePlex (http://metadatawebpart.codeplex.com/) to build your tag, which actually splits the TERMS and calculates ranking.
4. With results I actually build an alternative so that for MM fields allowing a single selection I generate a List rather then a cloud (see screens attached for actual examples).

Hope it helps let me know if I you need more details, C:\Marius

Answer 3

I know I'm sidestepping half of your question (others have provided good starting points), but check out this Codeplex project for the implementation of the Tag Cloud itself. Clean, lean interface & reusable: The tag cloud.

What I've done recently is build a TaxonomyDataSource class that provides terms in a standard Dictionary property (with some other stuff). Then in a separate webpart I'm rendering a nice Glossary, and a 3rd bit is the Tag Cloud.

I was pulling from only one list too.. Haven't had the need for multiple sources yet, but I would probably look at Search results with some local caching.

Answer 4

Well.. you could just create a custom webpart, get your Termset, and output the terms under

TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(site);
session.TermStores["Managed Metadata Service"].Groups["GROUP"].TermSets["TERMSET"].Terms 

with a foreach.. Just put in your groupname and termsetname and leave the termstore / if you hvn't changed that to another and that should work fine... If you have your output you could make som thoughts ' bout how you wanna display that.. A nice jquery tag cloud i once found is: http://www.goat1000.com/tagcanvas.php... its highly configurable and has good compability options for IE and missing canvas support. As you can see , you only need to output something like:

<div id="tags">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="http://www.google.com" target="_blank">Google</a></li>
    <li><a href="/fish">Fish</a></li>
    <li><a href="/chips">Chips</a></li>
    <li><a href="/salt">Salt</a></li>
    <li><a href="/vinegar">Vinegar</a></li>
  </ul>
</div> 

which is fairly easy if you output the ul and then just enumerate through that terms, while adding the li before, and the /li after your terms...
In the end you can create some Webpart options, maybe to toggle special styles or to choose the right termset and maybe add caching aswell.. Good luck!

Answer 5

I had almost the same requirements and come to creation of web part that interacts with Managed Metadata (to get terms from the specified term set) and Search (to get results). Then it builds a tag cloud for top results. Please check the link for more details.