Thord Daniel Hedengren - Smashing WordPress_ Beyond the Blog-Wiley (2014)

34 PART I • Getting Started with WordPress

FUNCTION AND QUERY-STRING STYLE ARGUMENTS

Now look at something a bit more complicated:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(); ?>

This template tag will output a tag cloud displaying at most 45 tags, with the smallest one at

the font size of 8 pt (points), and the largest at 22 pt. They are displayed in a flat listing and

sorted by name, in ascending order. You know this because these are the default values, and

there are a lot of them, as you can see in Table 2-1. In fact, wp_tag_cloud() can pass 14

arguments to a parameter.

Table 2-1 Default Tag-Cloud Parameters

Parameter Description Default Value

smallest Smallest tag size 8

largest Largest tag size 22

unit What font size unit is used pt

number How many tags to display at most 45

format How to display the tags flat

separator What goes between the tags whitespace

orderby How to order the tags name

order How to sort the tags ASC

exclude What tags to exclude none

include What tags to include all

link Should links be edit or view view

taxonomy The basis for the tag cloud post_tag

topic_count_text_

callback

Lets you create a custom tooltip

for links

default_topic_count_

text

echo Whether to show the tag cloud or

return it

true

If you compare these values to the description of the default output of wp_tag_cloud(),

you’ll see that they are passed without your needing to pass any arguments manually.

Now try altering the tag by changing some arguments within this parameter. There are two

ways to pass arguments to the wp_tag_cloud() parameter: function or query-string style.

If you’ve been using WordPress for a while, you have no doubt seen them both. Function style

is the preferred method today, but you’ll run into query-string style as well.