Cool new native HTML widgets

I name this the coolest hack of the week. Glen decided to apply the tag-cloud idea to other HTML widgets. See this example and recall that I am only using straight HTML/CSS (no ECMAScript, no flash):

Update: according to Benoît Boudeau, it does not work under IE 6. According to Kamel Aouiche, it does not work under IE 7. It does not work under Safari.

Why is this important? Because you can convey extra information along with a selection widget. You could ask people to select which type of product they want while making more popular product appear in a larger font. In other words, you can hide a recommender system in the selection process.

We just need a good name for these new widgets. Cloudgets? Taglets?

Published by

Daniel Lemire

A computer science professor at the Université du Québec (TELUQ).

3 thoughts on “Cool new native HTML widgets”

  1. Better than sorting?

    Yes! You can actual convey much more information using this trick than by simply sorting in weight order.

    Whether it is better for the users remain to be seen, but I think so.

    (Disclaimer: I did not invent these widgets.)

    Reply

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