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Blogger Magic - A Blog Within A Blog

One of the most fascinating features of Blogger blogs is the various options to organise our content.

Long ago, I wrote a simple article, Adding A Blogger Blog To A Website. That's become one of the most consistently popular posts, in this blog. Most blog owners have multiple interests, and like to organise their different interests, by subject - and have a different blog, for each subject.

Some people like to have a blog, and a website - and host both the blog and website in one Blogger blog, under one URL. For a small blog / website combination, that's an easy way to start out - and a good alternative, to having multiple blogs / websites.

It's easy to create a Blogger blog, and have the blog host multiple virtual blogs and / or websites.

The simplest "blog" uses a static home page, and the posts accessed from Pages, as "Blog".

A static home page - and all posts accessed as "Blog".

First, redirect the Home page to a static page.

From: /
To: /p/Welcome.html

Then add a simple dynamic "Blog" page, using "Configure Page List" - if you want all of the posts visible from the "Blog" tab.

Caption: Blog
Link: /search/label/

But, there are more possibilities.

Organised right, you can do without an archive section.

Done carefully enough, you can maybe display an entire blog without archive pages.

Have enough sections - and consistently use Jump Break on the posts - may let you fit a dozen or so posts onto one index page.

Some people organise blog content, using static pages.

The most obvious solutions for this need - to some people - is to setup static pages, one page / subject. But sometimes, interests / subjects overlap - and material that's published on one static page (as in one blog or website) might be relevant to another page (or blog / website).

I recommend basing the blog on dynamic content - and dynamic accessories.

The easiest way to make all of the content accessible is to add various dynamic indexing and search accessories. But some static structural accessories are useful, too.

Then, add a Pages gadget, if not already added. You can have a linkbar / tab index - or possibly a linklist, positioned anywhere convenient. Or both.

Start by labeling your posts.

First, add labels, to the posts. You can use either the posts index, or post editor, to add labels. You use the former, to add one label to many posts - and the latter, to add many labels to one post.

With the posts well labeled, decide how you want to display the pages.

Dynamic content lets you display one post, in multiple pages.

Using this blog as an example, this post could be useful in my "Labels", "Magic", and "Redirecting" sections of this blog, to start. Look above, at the toolbar. Do you see the "Magic" button?

Hover the pointer cursor over "Magic" - and see what's there.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/magic

From: /Magic To: /search/label/Blogger%20Magic

There's my "magic" blog, within this blog.
Magic

Just as easily, I could have "Labels" and "Redirecting".
From: /Labels To: /search/label/Labels
From: /Redirecting To: /search/label/Redirecting

You can separate the "Home" page from the "Blog" page.

Some people want to keep the blog and home page separate. They have 2 labels, "Blog" and "Home". All that they do is publish various posts, to either label - and setup 2 redirects.
From: /Blog To: /search/label/Blog
From: / To: /search/label/Home

And there's a blog
Blog

within a blog.

Making things simpler, if you want "Blog" to index all posts (as in an actual "blog"), you don't need to label the posts. Apparently, "... /search/label/ " retrieves everything, instead of nothing.
From: /Blog To: /search/label/

There are several possibilities for "Home" page content, too.

As an alternate to redirecting the home page to a label search, you can always redirect the Home page to a single post - if that's your preference.
From: / To: /2014/07/blogger-magic-blog-within-blog.html

And that is a very basic blog, within your blog.

And you can still use static pages, for truly static content.

And one final detail - add one or more actual static pages. For non changing content, that you don't want ending up in a search engine hit page, add a simple static page.

You may have to add the Pages gadget, using "Add a Gadget".

Most blog owners will use the Pages gadget, to index their dynamic and static pages (such as "posts" and "pages"). If the Pages gadget is not already present in the blog, you may use the dashboard Layout page and "Add a Gadget", to add the gadget. Then, use "Configure Page List" to add the pages created.

Comments

byff said…
Groovy. Thanks for the assist. Saved me hours of auto-fiddling.
Sam Lewis said…
Thank you so much for this!! It has helped immensely! One question, if you don't mind answering, once I've set up my dynamic page as described in this post, Is there way for me to have a post pinned to the top of this dynamic page to use as a "table of contents"?

I primarily blog about crafting but occasionally blog about the neuromuscular disease I have, especially during september when it is the Awareness Month. Therefore I am posting every day covering topics such as symptoms, treatments, buying a wheel chair etc etc. I'd like to have a table of contents just for this dynamic page listing these topics for easy navigation.

Sorry, long question, but is this possible?!

Thanks in advance,

Sam
Nitecruzr said…
Hi Sam,

Thanks for the question!

Yeah, you could position an HTML gadget or linklist at the top of the page, and set it to display only with the "blog" page - and you could put a Table of Contents into the gadget.

But if you have a dynamic blog, would n't it make more sense to index the content dynamically, using dynamic accessories, located in the sidebar?

Then you can spend more time working on blog posts - and less time building and updating a Table of Contents.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/10/conditionally-displaying-template.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2015/04/use-dynamic-accessories-with-dynamic.html
Kristen said…
Thanks so much for your help! This was great! I have a question about how my blog appears on a smartphone vs. an iPad or PC. My blog address is: http://bodhimeditationsociety.blogspot.com/ . I created a static page, called "Latest". This is essentially my Home page. It lists the latest posts sequentially. Then, I have Linklist tabs that display posts indexed by label. On a smartphone, the Latest page is all that displays when you open the blog. I thought to get around that by adding a text gadget that says, " If you are viewing on a smartphone, please touch "View web version" for full functionality. Otherwise, you will only see the Latest posts." However, this text object doesn't display on the Smartphone version. Any thoughts on how to fix? Thanks so much! Kristen
Unknown said…
how to make multiple posts on pages other than homepage?where can we find ?configure page list?"
Nitecruzr said…
Hi Divyarishi,

Thanks for the question.

If the Pages gadget is not already present in the blog, you may use the dashboard Layout page, to add the gadget. Then, use "Configure Page List" to add the pages created.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2008/10/page-elements-add-gadget.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2014/09/blogger-magic-configure-page-list.html
AmberCat said…
I am having a problem with “Captcha” on my Google Blogspot Blog.

http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

When I attempt to import a Word, PDF or .XML document to my Blog the process begins quite well with me identifying myself to “Captcha” as not being a robot.
But every time without fail after verifying that I am NOT a robot and the import reaches 100% the every maddening "Captcha" pops up a infernal message saying: "Verification unsuccessful. Please try again." Then my import attempt is killed.

I should point out the following:

Before beginning the import I uncheck the block that says: "Automatically publish all imported posts and pages"

The files I am trying to import is a file from my own blogger blog which I previously had exported to my laptop with the intention of importing it back to my blog at a future date which is now.

In an effort to resolve this issue I have:
Cleared Browser Data
Tried a different browser
Waited 24 hours to try again.
Turned off all Extensions
Tried an “incognito” browser.
I have gone through this process numerous times.
I inquired on the Blogger Forum but received no comments of pragmatic assistance.

Can somebody assist me in resolving this issue?

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