Since I’m the newest member of the Automattic team perhaps a little introduction is in order. In the past I’ve been a jack of all trades IT guy: system admin, programmer, DBA, et cetera. Now my focus is on WordPress. My off time is spent mostly with my wife and two daughters, with the occasional basketball game thrown in there for good measure.
Now on to the news: another new widget, and a new option for a few others.
For those of you who are really into tag clouds you’re in luck, now you can display your blog categories as cloud using the new Tag Cloud widget.
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If you aren’t into tag clouds, but still looking for something a little different in the way you display categories we have something for you too. The Categories and Archives widgets now have options to use a drop down menu. This will be especially helpful to those of you who want your categories and archives list to take up less room on the sidebar.
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WordPress.com News 
Wow, as a space-saver it’s excellent.
Only, the post-count does not work when you use as drop-down. And when I remove drop-down and use post-count, then the number in the category is on a separate line, and so looks messy (visually). So I’ve resolved to use just drop down.
Thanks for all this. Category and Archives drop-downs shown here: http://regenerationayk.wordpress.com
Thanks for that! very nice 😉
The tag cloud is terrific…I’m already using it and it works like a charm. Thank you so much!
Absolutely amazing. WP.com is already over the top (“off the hook,” as my students like to say), but this goes several step further. Thank you so much.
Welcome Josephscott!
I like clouds – great! thanks. I enjoy all these “games”…playing with my blog is my favorite past time these days. May use the drop down for archives.
😉 Susan
Nice! I thought my tag list was getting kinda long for my taste.
Re: drop downs – Why not have this option for blogroll as well?
Welcome to the WordPress.com community, Joseph!
What a beautiful start you’ve given us.
THANK YOU!
Very interesting widget here
Very cool. Thanks!
OMG.. this is too good! 😀
Recently on Tuesday I was reading some forums about tag clouds and I was so sad just seeing my partners in blogger having the posibility to have them in their blogs and also a posibility to have drop-down list!!!
I cannot wait to go to my blog and modify it right now!!!
P.S. you are so bad… today, I won’t be able to finish my job report either! 😉
Way cool… keep the good job!
Excellent!
I’m not cloud crazy, but I do like the drop-down options in the other widgets.
Nice job, guys.
Cool.
For the people who want to put tag clouds on their own page (instead of in a sidebar) there is still my Tag Cloud Generator that works with any WordPress or WordPress Multi-user blog.
(example of what my tag generator looks like)
nice job, cheers
Damn! How COOOL! You guys rock! I LOVE WordPress! 🙂 Thank you Joseph, and thank you all at Wp.
EEEK!
Voy a probarlo ahora mismo, ésto va mejorando, me gusta.
Thanks!!
Great work!!! 😀 Now I won’t have to manually update my tag clouds like I used to!
I could rant and rave and say how cool and awesome and fantastic it is – but I won’t. I’ll just say two things – it’s amazing and thankyou.
This is a neat idea.
These are awesome options. Thanks!
I just added this cool new widget. Thanks!
The Cloud of Topics is very misleading. It’s a Tag Cloud, right? A Cloud of Categories. A Cloud of Tags. But topics?
Anyway, this is long been requested and much thanks for helping to see this through. And welcome to the world of WordPress.
Cool! I thought about clouds in these day! Thanks! 🙂
thank you!
Oh, I got it now. Sorry about that. The user has the option to title it whatever they want. You chose “topics”. The example was a little confusing. WordPress has a reputation for choosing dumb names for things, as does Google and other brilliant folks who come up with brilliant things and give them dumb names. I just wanted to make sure I understand what the example was. Sorry.
This is fabulous. It will be even better when the tags are added! Thank you.
I like the compact but readable version of the cloud in the sidebar, but //engtech’s is super, too.
I notice that the cloud is sorted alphabetically and size = number of posts. (good)
The drop down isn’t sorted by alpha or by numeric. Any way that will be alphabetized?
How much of the display is theme-specific? That is some themes add numbers of posts to cat/tags and some don’t
Camai! Bula!
I know the answer to the display of drop down categories– it is theme specific; at least number of posts don’t show in K2
Yeah!! Thank you!!
I’ve been waiting for this… Thanks!
I’ve been waiting for this one; my archives extend infinitely down my sidebar. Thank you! Now I feel like me and me blog are finally fully attuned.
Suggestion. Add a way to limit the number of categories to only the top 30 or so instead of automatically listing every one.
Is there any way of limiting the number of tags? A tag cloud would be great for my blog but I have so many categories and subcategories that it just is way too big. If the option of putting a number of tags was available, this feature would be close to perfect!
Welcome to wordpress. Seems like tehre is more staff every day?
Not too sure on the look of this, I think for the time being I prefer engtech’s and the fact that it can be on it’s own page.
Nevertheless, nice work, guys. 🙂
Beautiful! Keep these things coming on!
Wow!! Thank you!! Cloud tags are so cute! I’m so glad this is now possible. Thanks again!
Sweet, you guys are really kicking this month!
*worship!*
Thanks a lot for those upgrades.
I wanted a tag cloud widget for quite some time now. Oh, and the drop down is good thinking – now I can display both methods without taking too much space.
Excellent job and thanks again!
Oooo! I can’t wait to try this out. Thanks!
very cool. I just would like to see a few more changes so then i could finally migrate my blogger blogs into wordpress!
Perfect! Thanx. Love the cloud!
a bit in shock !!!!!! coooooooollllllll
the new one is a good one, too!
Oh wow.
New toys to play with!
Thanks WP Team.
🙂
love it! the clouds are rockin’!
Nice. However, the tag cloud can be a bit too wide for some themes. (See the right sidebar of my blog.)
reallyyyyy nice!! too cooooooll!!
I love the clouds 🙂 thank you!
Very Nice!
its good
I’ve been waiting for this.
Thank you.
Cool stuff…just some of the things we were waiting for. But I’m counting on you guys to include the post-counts in the drop-down list!
Welcome to WP Joseph Scott. I was just wondering whether this drop down could also be extended to bookmarks/blogroll or pages?
This rocks! thanks a lot. I love the speed of development here 🙂
This was a long needed feature. A real space saver. Now less clutter,thanks.
You guys rock!
I’ve used both the tag cloud and the archives drop down and in fact I quite liked the line “Topics I write about” and have used that. 🙂
Been waiting for this for over a year. Thanks. The archives drop-down is awesome too.
@lorelle: Yeah sure, this should be named as Could of Categories but Tag Could is much more popular 😉
You guys are really responsive to user requests. What a great feature. Thanks!
Woohoo! Been waiting for this for a while!
With my Categories-fever, it’ll be a grrrrrrreat help!
Finally!!!
hey man it so deliciuse !!! 😉
Well, ok, as it turns out, the sidebar for the Andreas09 theme is too narrow and my cloud is way too long. Ah, well…
Welcome to to the team Joseph! Good stuff!
Trent
That saves so much space. For my archives I was just making a page and putting in a link to each month. This is a good thing. Thanks.
Austin
Wow, thanks a lot. Right after I sent that feedback form too. Thanks. (:
Brilliant. I just spent the last few days looking for a way to put a tag cloud in my sidebar. You read my freakin’ mind.
Thank you! One of the few things I missed from Typepad was the category clouds!
Oooh…
nice…
I like…
I’m going to use that on one of my blogs…
Not sure I like the tag cloud myself yet, but I appreciate it’s there as an option. I’ve been waiting for the space saving drop down menu though, thanks for that. It’s not often I implement a new widget when it’s announced, or even comment on the announcement……but I thought this was an exception.
Hey Jack and WP, you know what.. THIS IS WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR………. You guys read my mind…
Thanks a ton.. :-xx
GREAT – have been waiting for this one. Tnx.
a cool widget – nice
I will test it
Thanks for adding there wonderful features. I got two bugs for you to fix though. First, the padding under the drop down menu is a too small, making it stick to the title of the next widget. Then, there’s the maximum tag size in the tag cloud; it’s can get way too big. I’m using the Garland theme.
i was expecting that, excellent
Thanks. I like this new Tag Cloud widget.
very nice feature
Good job 🙂
nice touch, welcome on board 🙂
Excellent! 🙂
Yep. Not that useful until tags are added. There needs to be a difference between tags and categories.
The drop down option is something I’ve been wanting for a while. Thanks for implementing it. 🙂
excellent! welcome to the wordpress family, josephscott. come join us at the wp.com forums some time! 🙂
Nice addition but doesn’t a couple of themes has “Archives” functionality already? I would prefer the dropdown menu though. Thanks for this.
cool. Definitely going to add this into my site.
Great, I was considering dropping the archives altogether as they were taking too much space.
The tag cloud is cool! And the dropdown feature is a very good improvement. Thanks!
Ooooh, yes, space-saving, cool!
I agree with ChenZhen: why don’t do the same think for the blogroll? It will be useful.
Thank you again
(welcome, Joseph ^_^)
Thank you Joseph, TagClouds are among my favorites inside socialweb and socialbookmarking. It releases one from the weight of equivalent terms in alphabetical lists and I’m glad I can add this widget to my sidebar. Drop-down options are very good options to save room. I agree with ChenZen, why not a similar option for Blogroll or at least, a way to escape (again) alphabetical order. I know, one way come be to add a number at the beginning…
I love the tag cloud – thanks.
Loved the improvements, especially the tag cloud. I wish the dropdown for categories would list the tags in alphabetical order.