Andertoons 2.0 – Tags Revisited

A while back on the old Andertoons, I started displaying the tags I’d associated with each cartoon.

Very simply, when I create a cartoon and enter it into my database, I assign a number of words that apply to it. A typical sales graph cartoon might have ‘sales,’ ‘selling,’ ‘graph,’ ‘meeting,’ ‘business,’ ‘office,’ etc…

In web 2.0 sites, tags are a big deal, and a great source of simple and deep navigation, so I put the tags up for everyone to see, and made them links to more cartoons that share those tags.

The new wrinkle at the new site is something called a tag cloud. Check out the cartoon below:

Tags1



The tag ‘work’ is listed below the cartoon. Click on it and you get this screen:

Tags2



Pretty standard, except for the new column on the right:

Tags3



These are the tags most often shared by these cartoons. In cases where there are fewer shard tags, the fonts will get smaller as the list descends to indicate the lesser associations.

But here’s the really cool part. When you click on the microscope icon above, this pops up:

Tags4



Without leaving the screen, you get a tag cloud of all of the tags shared in ‘work,’ organized alphabetically, and rated by font size (the more often shared, the larger the font).

Click on a tag and you’re off again to more thumbnails. Or click outside the cloud and return to where you were.

Is that cool or what?!

It’s an entirely new way to browse the site, and, although tag clouds are now common, this sort of pop-up cloud is unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere.

Anyway, hope you like it!

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Catwoman?! No, seriously… CATWOMAN?!

Catwoman

I don’t have American Movie Classics on my satellite TV package. I’ve always wanted to check it out as I’m kind of a movie guy and it seemed to show some really interesting stuff.

Scratch that. (Foreshadowed pun intended.)

This Saturday and Sunday they’re showing “Catwoman.”

The Halle Berry “Catwoman.”

The horrifically bad Halle Berry “Catwoman.” (Read my review here…)

Don’t get me wrong, I like Halle Berry in conveniently ripped skintight leather as much as the next guy, but come on… American Movie Classics?!

(Hat tip to my man Eric.)

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Chicagoland Cartoonists Cabal

OK, I really have no on to blame but myself.

The past month I was so consumed with new website stuff that I neglected the Cabal. Plus, there were some scheduling problems for a number of members.

Still, Kyle Miller showed up and we got to talk toons and games for a good while. Turns out Kyle was directly responsible for me wasting precious hours on his Creep Night pinball when I had my PC.

Small world eh? He also brought some samples from his portfolio that were a lot of fun.

I brought some greeting cards, plenty of questions, and an apology for not getting the word out better.

That being said…

Cartooning Community, you’re on notice! Bulletin boards, blogosphere, other things that start with “b”, it’ll be everywhere!

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Andertoons 2.0 – Highlighted Search

OK, sorry for yesterday’s lack of Andertoons blogginess. AT&T seems to have things working this morning, but also called to tell me that my DSL may go back down. GRRR…

Anyway…

Another really fun new feature over at Andertoons, is something my programmer just sort of came up with on his own. Check out the cartoons below:



Highlighted Search

These came up in a search for the word “red.” True, neither cartoon is about the color, but at least you get to see why they came up in the search results.

See it? Look at the first cartoon’s caption – “Don’t think of it as being fired…” The “red” in “fired” is a different color and bolded.

Now this doesn’t always work. If a cartoons has “red” somewhere in the tags, it won’t show up here because I

m not showing tags on the search pages.

Still, it’s one of those little things I’d have never thought of, and one more great little detail that hopefully makes Andertoons more fun and useful.

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