Don't Like The Profile Page Element? Make Your Own

Every week, we see questions

I have friends posting in my blog, so it looks like a team blog. But it's my blog, and I want to show only my profile.

or

I want to list a friends profile, even though she's not technically a blog member.

or maybe

I want to add my birthdate (my city, the colour of my hair, whatever...) to my profile. How do I make it look good?

and questions about tweaking the blog template, to accomplish this need, abound.

The Profile gadget, like most "out of the box" blog features, is pretty basic.

• If the blog has one Member (presumably, you), an excerpt from your personal profile is displayed.
• If the blog has more than one Member, a Contributors list is displayed, with each entry a simple link to the personal profile of the member.

Very simple functionality, and sufficient for the beginning blogger.

Eventually, the beginning blogger becomes the intermediate blogger, and the questions (as above) start.

Make it easy for yourself, when you want something more in your Profile page element. Don't touch the template (making it complicated if you ever want to upgrade the template).

Just remove the standard Profile gadget from the sidebar, and replace it with an HTML / JavaScript / Rich Text gadget of your own design.

If you know HTML or Rich Text, you can write the equivalent of the personal profile, or the contributors list, in 10 minutes.

Or, you could take 30 minutes, and come up with something really shiny. Use your imagination here.

• If you just want your picture, and a short caption, add a Picture gadget.
• If you just want text, you can add either an HTML / JavaScript, or a Text, gadget.
• If you want your picture, and some text about yourself, add an HTML / JavaScript gadget, and arrange the text above, beside, and below the picture.
• If you want links to other web pages, HTML / JavaScript / Rich Text will do the job.
• You can even make your own Profile page, and have it look like a separate blog page.
• Maybe make your own Profile page, using the new Static Pages editor.
• Maybe even make a super profile gadget, using post editor.

And with the profile being coded as a gadget, not as a template tweak, it will be transportable if you change templates. Easy to create, easy to maintain, easy to retain.

This is yet one less need to use the template editor, if you have a blog with a designer / layout template. There are a few other techniques that you may consider, if you want to make yourself anonymous in the Blogosphere - but there are few that are easier to do.