The Real Blogger Status

In 2010, we learned about the mysterious Post Template - and the problems that can be caused, when it is corrupt or out of date. We developed magical ways of correcting the problems . Revert the widget templates. Reset the post template. Add or tweak specific template code. It's now 2015, and Blogger Engineering has rewritten the Template Editor , and given us new possibilities for correcting problems with the post template - and other gadgets.

Blog owners are periodically asking themselves How do I invite my readers to leave comments? Some blog owners think of commenting as the most important way to get new readers. One of the most seemingly insignificant components of the Blogger template is the link to invite the readers to leave comments. This is not a simple feature - it varies according to where the comment form is placed, and to different language and style decisions.

Some blog owners like to publish blogs that use custom colours, in the titles. Carefully coordinated colours are important, in some blogs. Both the blog title, and the individual post titles, in many blogs, are clickable link captions. The blog title links to the blog home page, and / or the post titles link to the individual post pages. Some blog owners get confused, when they try to set the colour of the titles, to a custom colour - and see link colours (which vary according to status) , instead of the selected custom colours.

Not everybody likes to be known, everywhere. Some folks prefer to publish a blog, without their name appearing. Anonymity is a goal, for many blog owners. Blogs using both Dynamic and non Dynamic (Layout, Designer) templates can be made anonymous - but different tasks are involved. Fortunately, both tasks are simple.

A few times recently, we've had reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , of mysterious text, appearing in the middle of the posts . How do I remove unwanted text appearing in the middle of the page? Frequently, all that we can see is a mass of text. Occasionally, the mysterious text has been readable. Extracting key phrases from the text, we can some times locate the source of the mysterious text, in the post code.

Many problems with post features or layout can be resolved by refreshing or resetting the post template , using the Template Editor . Not all post display problems are caused by unwise use of the Template Editor - some problems may be part of the individual posts. The dashboard Post Template wizard , in Settings - Posts and comments, lets you add a template to the posts - in addition to the "post template". The "Post Template" added content then appears as part of each new post, in the post editor window.

Every person who maintains a Blogger blog (or other web site) has his or her own idea about what features she or he wants to present, on his or her blog / web site. With a Classic template, this need was provided only by editing the blog template, using HTML. With a Layouts / Designer template, besides letting us add and move template objects all over the display page, Blogger gives us the ability to add and move objects all over the post layout. This, too, is done without even opening the "Edit HTML" Template wizard.

Right now, a few blog owners who depend upon using the Draft status on posts, and who move posts in and out of Draft status regularly, are noting an oddity in the New GUI Posts menu. I can't find my Draft posts - there's no menu selection!

Since the most important part of almost all Blogger blogs is the posts, the "Blog Posts" gadget is an essential element in the template. Sometimes we have to remove the gadget though - maybe the gadget is corrupt - or in odd cases, we may have a duplicate "Blog Posts" gadget . In either case, the solution is known, and is quite simple. Remove (the / one) "Blog Posts" gadget. Unfortunately, not everybody, needing such advice, is able to do this. People using the Template Editor in the New Blogger GUI (2011) may find, to their frustration, that removal of a "Blog Posts" gadget isn't permitted.

Occasionally, we see evidence of wistful thinking in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I make an exact copy of my blog, to another URL? This should be a simple enough task - but it's not.

For several weeks, we've been seeing a light but steady stream of reports from blog owners unable to update various template gadgets, on their blogs. This blog, personally, has the full page Topics Index , which needs to be updated with half a dozen newly created labels. In some cases, the "Save" button may appear inactive or dim; in other cases, the owner will see the "Saving..." status endlessly displayed, while the wizard appears to "hang".

Blogger is continually adding new features to the Blogger platform. Some features, which are specific to individual posts, don't always work as well as they should - or in some cases, don't work at all. Other Blogger supplied features may stop working, after the blog is changed to use a third party template , or after the template code is tweaked using " Edit HTML " - maybe when installing a third party commenting system . In many cases, failure of a post related feature to work consistently, or at all, is caused by the lack of supporting code in the post template. Generally, when someone reports such a problem in BHF: Something Is Broken , the advice to refresh the gadgets, or the post template, will be given. Some forum helpers may grow to see the advice, now given as From Template - "Edit HTML", select "Revert widget templates to default", and select "Blog1". as a magic wand, to be waved over any blog with a problem. There is n...

Blogger wants bloggers to participate in social networking. They have encouraged this, for a long time, using the "Email Post Links" icon. Recently, they improved on the latter option, with a small set of buttons for sharing posts in the most popular social networking platforms. Now, our readers can have the option to easily share our posts using Email, Blog This!, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz. The new "Share Blog" Buttons are a part of the post template. Just like every other post template component, they are selected using the " Blog Posts " gadget in " Page Elements ". Blogs with older templates may not have the required post template code, to make this option work. If you use "Blog Posts", enable the Share Buttons, and still don't see the new buttons on your blog, reset the post template . Remember to backup the template , before and after making this change. >> Top

Blogger wants bloggers to participate in social networking. They have encouraged this, for a long time, using the "Email Post Links" icon. Until now, though, anything more would be installed as custom code . Now, Blogger offers us a set of Share Blog buttons. Our readers can have the option to easily share our posts using Email, Blog This!, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz. Share Blog is another option, selected as "Show Share Buttons", from the " Blog Posts " wizard in " the dashboard Layout wizard ". (Update 7/23): The "Share Blog" buttons require an updated post template . Older templates may not offer this option, immediately. >> Top

The posts are the most important part of the blog as a whole - they contain the material which your visitors read, which is generally what attracts them to the blog. Most of the blog content, that's indexed by the search engines, comes from the posts. It follows, then, that the post template is the most important part of the blog template . When there are problems with the posts or post accessories, and the problems can't be resolved by editing the posts using the Post Editor, or adjusting the various settings in the Blog Posts gadget, the post template is corrupt, or out of date. There are three possible techniques , to resolve problems with the post template. Resetting the post template is a fairly simple task, when you get used to it. It's done using the "Edit HTML" wizard in the Classic GUI Template Editor - and it's done without Expanding Widget Templates . Using the "Edit HTML" wizard, look for the "Blog Posts" gadget. ...

Almost every blogger is used to adding gadgets of various types, using the " Page Elements " wizard, to the header, the sidebar, and / or the footer of their blog. If you can't do that, you just aren't enjoying Layout Templates, to their fullest.

As a savvy consumer, you likely love to hear about offers for 2 for the price of 1, of something that you buy frequently. That's a great deal, normally. It's not for blog posts, though. When you start to see double in your blog, chances are that you duplicated the Blog Posts entry in the template. It's not hard to fix, fortunately. Edit the blog template , using the dashboard Template - "Edit HTML" wizard. Do not expand or unfold any widgets . If you unfold either 'Blog1' or 'Blog2', you will have to find the end of the unfolded gadget section, which could be hundreds of lines later. If you delete 1 too many, or 1 too few, unfolded lines, you will get a syntax error. Error parsing XML: ... The element type "b:section" ... Deleting just one line (see below) is way easier, believe me. Look for two lines, in the Body of the template, which may or may not be immediately next to each other in sequence: <b:widget id='Blog1...

One obvious way to merge two websites (either or both being a blog), is to use the same template on each, and link between the two in a consistent fashion. The reader of either blog never has to know when he's viewing the other, unless he habitually observes the content of the browser Address window. But how about if you would like to display one blog, in its entirety, in the middle of the other blog page? That's a feature called an IFrame.

Occasionally in your posts, you might want to add a quick popup window, explaining some concept in slightly more detail. The normal technique to add detail to an article, beside simply writing more text (D'ohh), would be to write a separate post, and link to that post . But there's a quicker, more elegant way to do this. And you don't end up with another window, as the link above for "link to that post". Check it out. Hover your cursor over the words "a quicker, more elegant way" above. It's not hard to code. But there's <a title="This is quick, and easy to do!">a quicker, more elegant way</a> to do this. We can add a popup in text, or we can attach it to a picture .

Various bloggers are complaining of mysterious blank spaces in the middle of their blog posts. The common factor noted, so far, is that the blogs affected are using a Rounders template. The blank spaces appear to be the result of AdSense or Google Ads content, which some bloggers aren't even aware of. <div style="float: right;"><script type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type="text/javascript"> </script><iframe name="google_ads_frame" src="http:// pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads? client=undefined ... " marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="" scrolling="no" width=""></iframe> </div> Note the " ... " above, that represents a large amount...