Atrus's Tag Glossary

The original Tag Glossary by Atrus can be found here.

KeenSpace Tags and How to Use Them

Before you use tags, you need to know what they are and their function. Tags, which usually look like this ***something*** are used to put a marker in your html document. When the page loads, that marker makes a call to some information that will be displayed there.

This makes it very easy for the information to change, should the need arise, while the tag remains unchanged. Why? Because if a change is needed, you won't have to cut out a huge portion of html coding on your page and redo it. This allows the tech guys at Keenspace to improve on things that would take effect on everyone's pages without everyone having to recode like crazy. Much more efficient.

To use a tag, you would simply put the tag on your page where you would like the information to be displayed and it will show up there when the page actually loads. If you want the entire bit of information centered on your page, then you need to put the appropriate html coding for it to work (i.e. <center>***something***</center>). That will center whatever is placed there from the marker's call. The same works with bold, or italics, or making it a link.

A note about conventions used:
bold blue text
Denotes ***tags***
bold red italic text
Used to make important information stand out
bold green text
Denotes things that should be taken literally, like file names and literal strings. This overrides the usual blue used for ***tags*** when they're in an example
italic text
Used to denote things that should be substituted in (a filename, for example). Obviously this is different from the use of italicized text for alerts.
Indexes of Tags
Tag Descriptions
***calendar***
This tag produces a calender box of the current month. The dates that have comics in your comics directory will be clickable, taking the reader to that day's comic. This is for both daily and weekly strips. Make sure that you spell calendar correctly.
***first_day***
This will not be displayed until you have two or more comics in your archives
This tag produces a link to the first comic in your archives. You can make a graphical "button" and put it in your /workspace/images directory. It MUST be named first_day.gif, first_day.png or first_day.jpg. The graphic will then be displayed where the tag is and it will be linked to the first comic in your archive. If you don't have a graphic, then a text link that says The first comic will be displayed. You may have an image named first_day_ghosted.gif, first_day_ghosted.png or first_day_ghosted.jpg to be used when nothing would be displayed otherwise (your first archive page or if you have one or no comics).
***last_day***
This will not be displayed until you have two or more comics in your archives
This tag produces a link to your latest comic. Same rules for the creation and placement of the graphical "button", except this one must be named last_day.gif , previous_day.png or last_day.jpg. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called Today's comic.You may have an image named last_day_ghosted.gif, last_day_ghosted.png or last_day_ghosted.jpg to be used when nothing would be displayed otherwise (your index page or if you have one or no comics).
***next_day***
This will not be displayed until you have two or more comics in your archives
This tag produces a link to the comic that comes immediately after the currently displayed comic. If there is no later comic, there will be no graphic button or text displayed for the next day. Same rules for the creation and placement of the graphical "button", except this one must be named next_day.gif, next_day.png or next_day.jpg. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called Next comic.You may have an image named next_day_ghosted.gif, next_day_ghosted.png or next_day_ghosted.jpg to be used when nothing would be displayed otherwise (your index page or if you have one or no comics).
***next_days_comics***
This tag, usually placed near the bottom of the page out of sight, will produce a 1x1 pixel of the next comic to be loaded so that the reader can go to the next comic and it's already been cached. This is for quicker browsing through your archives.
***previous_day***
This will not be displayed until you have two or more comics in your archives
This tag produces a link to the comic that comes immediately before the currently displayed comic. You can also make a graphical "button" for this and put it in your /workspace/images directory. The same rules apply here as with the ***first_day*** tag, although the graphic you create MUST be named previous_day.gif, previous_day.png or previous_day.jpg. If there's no graphic a text link appears called Previous comic.You may have an image named previous_day_ghosted.gif, previous_day_ghosted.png or previous_day_ghosted.jpg to be used when nothing would be displayed otherwise (your first archive page or if you have one or no comics).
***previous_days_comics***
Same as ***next_days_comics***, except it loads the comic that comes before the current one displayed.
***todays_comics***
This is a very important tag as it is what will display your comic(s) for the day, both on your main page (indextemplate.html), and on your daily archive pages (dailytemplate.html). The page for January 6, 2001, for instance, will display everything in your comics directory that has the 20010106 date in it, such as nukees20010106a.gif or 20010106b.html. These comics and/or text will be shown in alphabetical order. In the above example, nukees20010106a.gif is shown before 20010106b.html, because "a" comes before "b". The comic may be a gif, png, jpeg, flash or text file. Text files (files with extension txt or html) are copied into your page letter by letter (you put ***tags in them too). Please note that flash files will be displayed with a white background and dimensions of 350x414 set via HTML parameters.
***first_week***
This tag is just like the ***first_day*** tag, except it's for those comics which are weekly. It will display the first "week's" comic. All rules for creation and placement of the graphical "button" apply here. The graphic must be called first_week.gif, first_week.png or first_week.jpg. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called The first week.
***last_week***
To use this tag you must set up your account for KeenSpace Premium
This tag is just like the ***last_day*** tag, except it's for those comic which are weekly. It will display the latest comic in your comics directory. If the reader is on the page displaying the latest comic, then no graphic or text will appear. All rules for creation and placement of the graphical "button" apply here. The graphic must be called last_week.gif, last_week.png or last_week.jpg.gif. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called This week.
***monday***
To use this tag you must set up your account for KeenSpace Premium
This tag is similar to the ***storylinestart*** tag, except it's for weeks. It will display the first comic of the week. All rules for creation and placement of the graphical "button" apply here. The graphic must be called monday.gif, monday.png or monday.jpg. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called Go to the first strip of this week. This tag does work for comics that aren't set up for weekly archives. If used this way it simply links to the most recent comic that was for a monday (relative to the comic being displayed)
***next_week***
To use this tag you must set up your account for KeenSpace Premium
This tag is just like the ***next_day*** tag, except it's for those comics which are weekly. It will display the comic after the current comic that's being displayed. If there is no later comic, no text or graphic then nothing will appear there. All rules for creation and placement of the graphical "button" apply here. The graphic must be called next_week.gif, previous_week.png or next_week.jpg. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called Next week.
***previous_week***
To use this tag you must set up your account for KeenSpace Premium
This tag is just like the ***previous_day*** tag, except it's for those comics which are weekly. It will display the comic prior to the latest. All rules for creation and placement of the graphical "button" apply here. The graphic must be called previous_week.gif, previous_week.png or previous_week.jpg. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called Previous week.
***this_weeks_comics***
To use this tag you must set up your account for KeenSpace Premium
This will display all the comics from that current week. So July 3rd would be listed on top, July 4th down below, then July 5 and so forth. This is for those of you who like to have a page which displays the whole week for the readers to view.
***storyline***
This tag places a dropdown menu listing your storylines so the reader can go to them directly. Visit the Storyline Dropdown Primer to see how to set up your list of storylines which will be displayed in the menu. If you'd like to link to an off-comic page via the dropdown you can do so by placing a storyline entry to @site.com. For example KeenSpace, @keenspace.com (note that this is a trick and is not offical feature)
***storylinestart***
This tag will display a link to the start of the current storyline. It will look at your dropdown.txt in your workspace/data directory, find the first storyline listed, and display a link that will take the reader there. All rules for creation and placement of the graphical "button" apply here. The graphic must be called storystart.gif. If there's no graphic, a text link appears called Beginning of storyline.
***storylinestarturl***
This tag will only return the address of the current storyline in your dropdown.txt file. You use it like this: <a href="***storylinestarturl***">Your text goes here</a>
***day_of_the_month***
This tag will show the current day of the month, relative to the comic displayed on the page. Example: 10
***day_of_the_week***
This tag displays the day of the week (such as Monday), relative to the comic displayed on the page.
***month_of_the_year***
This tag will show the current month of the year, relative to the comic displayed on the page. Example: September
***raw_date***
This tag displays the date in the format YYYYMMDD relative to the comic displayed on the page. This makes it much easier to use the date in a script. It also makes it possible to link directly to the most recent comic from any non-archive page (including indextemplate.html) as /d/***raw_date***.html. This makes it easy to use frames or have a splash page. Example: 20010910
***set_today***
This tag sets the date for the date related ***tags*** to the date of the displayed comic. Used to undo ***set_yesterday***
***set_yesterday***
This tag sets the date for the date related ***tags*** to one day before the date of the displayed comic.
***short_month***
This tag displays the three letter abbreviation of the month, relative to the comic displayed on the page. Example: Sep
***the_year***
This tag simply displays the year, relative to the comic displayed on the page. Example: 2001
***this_weeks_date***
Similar to ***todays_date***, this tag dislays the date of the monday of the week the comic is in. For example, a page for 6/26/2002 would display the week of Monday, June 24, 2002 for this tag.
***todays_date***
Equivalent to ***month_of_the_year*** ***day_of_the_month***, ***the_year***. Example: Monday, September 10, 2001
***todays_truedate***
Same as ***todays_date*** except it displays the actual date information instead of the date relative to the comic displayed on the page.
***author***
This tag displays the author(s) of your comic as recorded in your comic's keenspace data (there's a link to alter it on your member page). This is useful for bylines and copyright info. For example, you could write &copy; 2001 ***author*** for your copyright notice.
***include filename***
This tag copies the contents of filename, which should be a text file (html or txt extension), into the page. filename should be in workspace/webpages/.This is useful for including things that are the same on all of your pages, such as copyright information or a menu. ***tags*** in included files work. Please note that you can include only one file per page (but you can include that one file multiple times).
***comic_name***
This tag displays the name of your comic as recorded in your comic's keenspace data (there's a link to alter it on your member page).
***keenspace_alert***
When the keenspace administrators need to get out important information (such as info about server trouble), this tag will be replaced by an announcement.. It should placed near the top of your index page. Most of the time it won't do anything
***keenspace_dropdown***
This tag has been disabled. A listing of alternative dropdowns can be found here.
This wonderful tag places the Keenspace Dropdown on your page. Just include this tag where you want it and the dropdown will appear. Only comics who sign up for the dropdown will be listed in the dropdown. If you sign up for the dropdown you should include it on (at least ) your main page as a courtesy to the other Space Cadets who will be cross promoting your site. To sign up, go HERE.
***url***
This tag is replaced with the base URL/domain name for your comic. Example: guide.keenspace.com
***1996_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 1996
***1997_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 1997
***1998_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 1998
***1999_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 1999
***2000_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 2000
***2001_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 2001
***2002_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 2002
***2003_archive***
Produces a comic listing just like ***daily_archive*** but limited to the year 2003
***big_calendar***
This tag displays a calendar month for every one of your archived comics, so if you have 12 months worth, you'll see a calendar (in the same form as the ***calendar***) for each month displayed down the page. This tag will not work on your daily strip pages (archives and index), as it takes too much time to create and generates a lot of HTML and complicated tables, which can take a great deal of time to lot and display, slowing down your page loading considerably. It is recommended it only be used to create a single archive page.
***last3***
This tag is meant for weekly comics, but it is not required that your comic be set up for KeenSpace Premium. It display the last 3 days' comics on your page.
***last5***
This a week oriented tag, see the notice above.
This tag is meant for weekly comics, but it is not required that your comic be set up for KeenSpace Premium. It display the last 3 days' comics on your page.
***daily_archive***
This tag produces a listing of links to every comic in your archives. The link text is the date in the same format as ***todays_date***
***story_archive***
This tag produces a listing of links from your dropdown.txt file.
***advertisement***
This is probably the most important tag as it puts the rotating ads that we get from BURST! Media on the top of your pages. You always want to have this displayed at the tops of your pages and centered. It's ok to put your logo next to it as seen at the top of Okashina Okashi/Strange Candy, but not any other advertisments. There, you can see that the logos are next to the ad (which, is usually 468 by 60 pixels, by the way). Please note that the footer message , ***comic_name*** is hosted on Keenspace, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics. , is also required.