For Christmas (End Of Year) 2009, I went back to Virginia again, for a brief visit. What I found, besides the snow (and there was too much of that) were some positive notes. The State Of Virginia USA really is moving into the future. For us Californians (Yes, I consider myself a Californian) they now have a Frys Electronics, a Trader Joes (2 of them in the Richmond area!), and an In-N-Out Burger (No, they don't have that yet!). OK, I'll settle for 2 out of 3.
The point is, Virginia really is moving ahead, into the future. And this month, some bloggers are feeling the need to do that. Two changes in Blogger - Auto Pagination, and the approaching end to FTP Publishing, will both hasten the end to classic templates, and make the move to layout templates more natural.
Owners of blogs with classic templates have, for a long time, been asking about how to get "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links for their blogs. That's not a feature that can be provided, in HTML, unfortunately. The "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links have to be dynamically generated, so they can't be part of HTML based templates.
This week, we're seeing a new need for the "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links. Owners of blogs subject to restriction in archive or main page size, thanks to Auto Pagination, report inability to get all posts indexed by the search engines, or viewed by their readers. Neither main page view, nor individual archive page views, will consistently display all posts in a single page. Without "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links, all posts can't be indexed or viewed.
Without the dynamic display that's part of a blog with a layouts template, your blog won't have "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links, and won't provide indexing or viewing of all posts in an archive or main page. Nor will the blog have a dynamic labels index.
Now, blogs that use classic templates, and have large or complex posts, are just broken. When support for FTP publishing ends next month, there will be no more blogs that absolutely must use classic templates.
No support for FTP published blogs = no need to support classic templates.
XML based layouts templates are now reality, in Blogger blogging. It's time to move ahead, Virginian bloggers.
That said, I am suggesting that you provide details about your problems, so Blogger may be able to fix your problems.
The point is, Virginia really is moving ahead, into the future. And this month, some bloggers are feeling the need to do that. Two changes in Blogger - Auto Pagination, and the approaching end to FTP Publishing, will both hasten the end to classic templates, and make the move to layout templates more natural.
Owners of blogs with classic templates have, for a long time, been asking about how to get "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links for their blogs. That's not a feature that can be provided, in HTML, unfortunately. The "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links have to be dynamically generated, so they can't be part of HTML based templates.
This week, we're seeing a new need for the "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links. Owners of blogs subject to restriction in archive or main page size, thanks to Auto Pagination, report inability to get all posts indexed by the search engines, or viewed by their readers. Neither main page view, nor individual archive page views, will consistently display all posts in a single page. Without "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links, all posts can't be indexed or viewed.
Without the dynamic display that's part of a blog with a layouts template, your blog won't have "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links, and won't provide indexing or viewing of all posts in an archive or main page. Nor will the blog have a dynamic labels index.
Now, blogs that use classic templates, and have large or complex posts, are just broken. When support for FTP publishing ends next month, there will be no more blogs that absolutely must use classic templates.
No support for FTP published blogs = no need to support classic templates.
XML based layouts templates are now reality, in Blogger blogging. It's time to move ahead, Virginian bloggers.
That said, I am suggesting that you provide details about your problems, so Blogger may be able to fix your problems.
Comments
Sorry, Blogger. It's time to find a new blog source.
That's your opinion, and you're entitled to your opinion. However, if you're going to use the Internet, you better be prepared to move with the changes.
Static page sizes, and classic templates, are where Blogger started out. Blogger moves forward, and like surfing, you better stay on top and keep moving, or you'll get buried - and you'll drown.
I'm old - but I'm not dead.
Thus I hope blogger will still allow to use the classic templates, and if they come with a restriction to 15 instead of 20 posts displayed, that's a price I can live with.
The option to go to the very basic of a template is one of the things I like about Blogger. LJ doesn't offer it at all and Wordpress only if you get a paid account, and frankly, their free templates are fugly. ;) Another feature I like is the free photo upload (sure, there's a limit, but if you downsize the pics it goes a long way). And I can actually find human beings here - never managed that when I had trouble with my old LJ account.
So unless my blog explodes some day, I'll stay with Blogger. And thanks for the efforts you put into improving it - even if not all improvements work equally well for everyone.
trying to keep upwith your responses, chuck, soplease bear with me.
i guess at this point what i need to know is whether or not there still may be a possibility that i, with my classic template, will continue to have labels and archives work.
let me get specific with my examples.
since january i have been re-assembling calendars from around 1900. these are from all over the world, and the main challange is that none of them appear whole anywhere else, online or in books, as far as i can tell.
so far the majority of the calendars are from a dutch artist theo van hoytema. he did calendars from each year from 1902 to 1918.
and a number of the other calendars are from the viennese magazine 'ver sacrum,' the american illustrators edward penfield and louis rhead, a bunch of other mad dutchmen, and the WPA.
these are all labeled with the word 'calendar,' and the hoytema also are labeled 'TVH.'
at the top of the sidebar you have two choices (amongothers): 'the theo van hoytema calendars,' and 'the calendars." these are obviously just directors to the appropriate labels.
except for that now they don't work!
there are currently 19 posts with the label 'calendar,' of which 10 are the hoytemas.
you begin to see the problem....
let me add though that i currently have 896 posts. in the times i have explored the idea of moving to layouts, i apparently can't use my background, which i want to keep. additionally, most of my images have that background texture as a border so they will fit more seamlessly onto the page.
given that i would say there is a minimum of 3 images per post, you can easily see the impossibility of trying to edit them all.