A project of The Sunlight Foundation    
PopUp Politicians for Web Pages

What Is It?

Popup Politicians is an Javascript-based widget that adds mini-profiles with links of Members of Congress to your page that appear when you mouseover the link.

Example

Roll mouse the sun!
Sen. Larry Edwin Craig
Representative Robert ADERHOLT
Rep. Edwin (Ed) Perlmutter

Project Status

Launched 07.19.2006. Significantly revised 09.10.2006 and 12.1.2006.

How It Works

When the script runs, it finds politicians names in your web page and adds a popup. The script runs after the page loads and contacts a remote web service on Sunlight Labs servers to retrieve information about the politician.

Sample page demonstrating what it will and will not tag

What name do I use?

Not sure what name to use in your content in order for him or her to get tagged?

Look them up in our search page

Additionally, names will be recognized based on a title and last name, if and only if that name is unambiguous. That is, there is only one representative with last name "Case" so Rep. Case will be tagged but there are 5 Millers and so Rep. Miller is ambiguous and will not be tagged: one must use the official name such as Rep. Brad Miller. If one uses the official name provided from the lookup feature above one can be assured that it will provide the correct popup information

Note that names will not be tagged if a name is split across a line. Thus, Sen. Artur
Davis will not be tagged but Rep. Artur Davis is fine when all on a single line. We hope to correct this in the next release.

How To Use / Install

Step 1: Add the Script Link to Your Web Page, in the <HEAD> section:

<script src="http://sunlightlabs.com/widgets/sunlightlinks_autopop.js"></script>

Step 2: Add Politicians to Your Web Page:

Just add the proper prefix (e.g., "Rep.", "Representative", "Sen.", "Senator") to a politicians name in the text of your pages. The first occurance of a politician receives a sun link and popup bubble. Examples: Rep. George Miller and Representative Gwendolynne S. Moore.

Upgrading from Previous Versions

If you previously installed the first, manual Popup Politician on your Website, you will fine this version signficantly easier to use. First, replace the the previousy script with the above indicated link. Second, remove any previously added "rel" tags from your website and leave just the politician's name.

Example: Replace <a href="http://sunlightlabs.com/tag/Sen.+Trent.+Lott" rel="tag"> Sen. Trent Lott</a> with Sen. Chester Trent Lott.

If you were using the first autotagging script, you will find this version far more sophisticated and robust. Simply use the script indicated above.

Keeping Up-to-date

The SunlightLabs plans to support popuppoliticians for the forseeable future. We can let you know when the popups is updated by filling out the simple form below. The information will be used only to inform you about developments in the popups. It will not be shared with anyone else or used for any other purpose.

First name
Last name
Email
Organization name
Organization type

Primary Developer(s)

Duncan Werner, Natalia Blokhina, Carl Anderson

Developer Notes

Revision history

The Code is Open-sourced

We are open sourcing all the js, html and php code for the popups, as well the mysql database itself. The code is being made available under an Apache-2 license. Now you are free to develop PopUp Physicists, Popup Photographers or what ever PopUps your heart desires.

Get the code from https://source.sunlightlabs.com/public/.

The zip file contains all the js, html and php code but not the SQL file. This link allows one to browse the individual files of that zip.