The Real Blogger Status

If your blog is published to a dynamic template, neither you or your readers will have a navbar, when your blog is being viewed. The navbar, found on blogs which use a non dynamic template - when selected by the blog owner - has a number of reader friendly icons and links. Dynamic templates have a "menu bar" 1/5 of the way down the page - which provides a combination of the Pages gadget, and limited navbar functions. At the far right end of the menu bar, you'll see 2 tiny icons - when you are properly logged in as the blog owner. New post, the "pencil" icon. Home, the "home" icon.

The dynamic templates have been available for just over 3 months , and for all their usefulness, there are a number of identified deficiencies . We see, every week, naive questions about one well known deficiency. How do I add a bloglist (Followers gadget, labels index, popular posts, what have you...) gadget to my blog, with it using a dynamic template? Adding gadgets to a dynamic template display just won't be a simple project. Not to be facetious, but there is really no space on the screen, for an accessory bar (also known as a sidebar). The dynamic views dynamically fill all horizontal space.

Last week, after some complaints were heard from blog owners who were using the dynamic templates on their blogs, Blogger added "Dashboard" and "New Post" links in the header bar. These new links are accessible when the blog owner is logged in, as a blog administrator. Unfortunately, their improvement did not take into account the need to login. Blog owners, not logged in, will still see no links. If not logged in, you may access your dashboard simply using the link to Blogger. http://www.blogger.com/ Alternately, you may access the non dynamic alias of any blog, for instance http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/?v=0 and you may then use the "Login" link in the navbar. >> Top

Yesterday, we saw a few reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning the lack of a link, in the dynamic views header bar, to our dashboards. I'm using dynamic views and now can't access my dashboard! It appears that the Blogger logo / Attribution ("Powered by Blogger" caption), which formerly linked to our dashboards, is not there, any more. This deficiency appears universal - the links no longer appear on all different dynamic views, on header bars with the views listed side by side or in the pulldown list, or on blogs where dynamic views are default, or optional.

We're getting a few reports today, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , from blog owners who publish blogs with static pages , that use the new dynamic templates , and that now have no ability to index the pages in the dynamic views. We're also seeing reports mentioning some blogs which have no menu bar visible, in dynamic views. Both problems were, reportedly, first observed mid morning today, Pacific time.

Even before Blogger added static pages as a blog feature , blog owners have been asking how to make hidden or separate pages for their blogs. When static pages, and the Pages index gadget, were added, people started asking about indexing label searches and external links in the Pages gadget. There are several solutions to the need to have a Pages gadget that indexes archive / label searches, and external URLs. Each solution has its advantages, and disadvantages.