The Real Blogger Status

Some blog owners add pages - dynamic and static - to their blog, then discover that the Pages gadget lists them in the wrong sequence. We see an occasional question, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . My pages are poorly organised. How do I change the sequence? This is not a difficult problem, to correct.

One of the most useful features of Blogger is the ability to add many different accessories, to a blog. There are accessories, for every blog - and for every owner preference. The "Add a Gadget" wizard, in the Blogger dashboard, is the best procedure for adding accessories , to customise a blog reliably. Using "Add a Gadget" is a simple process. It will be most useful, in the long term, if used cautiously, however.

Owners of private blogs have, periodically, lamented the lack of options for distribution of comments and posts. We've seen a few queries, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I let my readers subscribe to my private blog? There's no good answer, to please everybody, here. You can't use EMail, FeedBurner, or Reading List, for sharing private blog content. FeedBurner requires the blog comments / posts newsfeeds - and private blogs don't produce newsfeeds .

Blog owners have been requesting the ability to position various post content items above the post body, for years. We've seen reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about problems moving Comments, Labels, Share Bar, and others. Several years, "Arrange Items" was upgraded to allow Labels to be moved above the post body. That option was provided briefly - then removed later.

One of the most visible changes, to the blog display , involves properly setting main page size. You change the posts count using "Show at most" on the dashboard Settings - "Posts, comments and sharing" page - or "Number of posts on main page" in the "Configure Blog Posts" wizard. Both let you set the main page display limit. You can limit main page size by days with posts, or by total post count.

One of the more challenging limitations of Classic (HTML based) templates involved the template packaging. Each template provided a combination of background, colours, fonts, and layout. If you wanted any different combination - a different background, for a set of colours and fonts, you would have to compromise on the layout. Or a specific layout meant a compromise on the colours and fonts. Surely, somebody remembers the "Minima" vs "Minima Black" choice? And settling for the serif fonts, to get the right layout? With the Layout class templates (XML based), Blogger introduced the "Fonts and Colours" wizard - and a beginning to making the packaging more modular.

One of the most versatile ways to organise a blog is by using a Pages index. Long ago, the only possibility, for indexing a blog attractively, was a horizontal table, with manually added links. We called it a horizontal menu bar . Alternately, a vertical linklist might be used. Then Blogger added static pages - and later, the Pages index gadget .

We've dealing with owner installed malware, for over 5 years , when reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . In early 2010, we diagnosed the first mass malware installation. Owner installed malware can be quite deceptively marketed , by the hackers who produce it. With proper blog setup, and accessory installation policy, though, identifying and removing misbehaving accessories can be made easier.

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.

Blog owners frequently have to edit or remove various blog gadgets - and sometimes need coaching, to edit or remove. Editing or removing gadgets, normally, is pretty simple - when you know what you're looking for. Whenever you are logged in to Blogger, as a blog administrator, you can find the "Edit" link, on the dashboard Layout wizard - or the "Quick Edit" link on the blog (when "Quick Edit" is enabled), as displayed. Sometimes, identifying a problem blog gadget, to another person, isn't easy. What happens, if someone misreads your instructions?

One very useful Blogger feature is the option to bypass the Blogger dashboard - to edit the various gadgets, and existing blog posts. The feature, termed "Quick Edit", provides two different icons, generally visible to the proper recipients, with the option enabled, on the published blog. The "Quick Edit" "pencil" is visible to administrators and authors, in the posts toolbar, to the right of the "Email Post" icon. This will generally be in one of the post footer lines. The gadget "screwdriver / wrench" icon is visible to administrators, to the lower right of each template gadget (except for "Blog Posts"). Though the "screwdriver / wrench" icon is more visible, that icon has no name, and no selection option in the Blogger dashboard. And, there are more mysteries.

The "Configure Page List" wizard is an extremely useful - yet obscure - feature in the dashboard Layout page. Not every blog owner sees the "Pages" gadget, in the "Layout" page and knows to click on "Edit", to access "Configure Page List". Nor do all owners know how many assorted functions, previously part of the "Pages" dashboard wizard, are now found, exclusively, under "Configure Page List". "Configure Page List" is an essential component in the pages management suite , in the Blogger dashboard.

The recently redesigned Pages gadget and wizard has been with us for just over 3 months. We are occasionally seeing some confusion from people who can't add a dynamic page link to their blog - even when they manage to find the redesigned Pages gadget. I added a dynamic page, linking from "mymainblog.blogspot.com" to "mysecondblog.blogspot.com". Imagine my dismay, when the new page link goes to "mymainblog.blogspot.com/mysecondblog.blogspot.com", instead of to my actual target "mysecondblog.blogspot.com"! Here is a blog owner who is not aware of the unforgiving syntax of the "New Page › Web Address" wizard, and the "Web address (URL)" entry.

Ever since the new Pages wizards have been in use, we've been seeing reports from blog owners, who have problems with adding, deleting, and re sequencing links on the dynamic template menu bars. Most blog owners have gotten used to the idea of maintaining dynamic pages ("link pages", formerly known as "web address"), using the Layout Pages gadget - separately from maintaining static pages (formerly known as "blank pages"), using the dashboard Pages wizard. Even understanding the changes, some blog owners, who publish blogs that use dynamic templates, cannot add or delete dynamic pages - or cannot resequence the various page links. Some owners claim to have links on the menu bar that they can't delete. Others have added, deleted, or resequenced links - but have found their changes to be lost, when viewing the blog, after saving the changes.

The recent Blogger redesign of the Pages list / Pages gadget has caused some confusion. How do I create a "Web address" page? and How do I hide a page? and even How do I edit a "Web address" page? Once you understand how to use the newly designed Pages gadget, it's not complicated do each of the above. Then there are those who want to rename the Home page - which used to be obvious. Just use the Pages gadget . Look under “Pages to show”. There’s the box, containing “Home” (in the language of the blog). Type a new value for “Home”. Hit “Save”. Done. That's how it used to work. Now, you can hit "Save" all that you want. It just won't accomplish anything.

A week ago, Blogger redesigned the dashboard wizards, that are used to setup and maintain pages . The most visible change involved a complete redesign of the Pages wizard . Now, mirroring the look and feel of the Posts wizard, the Pages wizard has a pages index / menu - with layout, button / link set, and similar features resembling the Posts wizard. To make the new Pages wizard design fit in, the Pages wizard now only indexes and maintains "static" pages. Conversely, "dynamic" pages are maintained using the Layout "Pages" gadget. Archive retrievals. External links. Label searches. Additionally, all other Pages functions have been relocated, and are also provided under the Pages gadget, in the Layout wizard. This redesign did not go unnoticed, among the blog owners.

The schizophrenic nature of the HTML / Text gadget continues to confuse some blog owners. Recently, we're seeing claims about broken Text gadgets , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I hit the Save button, and nothing happens! Why is my Text gadget not working?? Too many blog owners are causing their own problem, because of confusion about the caption in the gadget update wizard . The header of the HTML / Text wizard is the only visible difference, between the "HTML" and "Text" gadgets. You'll see "Configure HTML/JavaScript" (for an HTML gadget) or "Configure Text" (for a Text gadget), as the gadget header. The rest of the gadget will be the same, for both gadgets - and this is why some gadgets, being updated, appear to be broken.

For over a week, we've had anxious blog owners unable to create or update the Text gadgets on their blogs. The "Save" button is not working, on my Text gadget! or maybe I see Javascript void(0) when hitting Save! Blogger actually fixed this problem, earlier this month - and it broke again, shortly afterwards. Not everybody understands that seeing "javascript:void(0);" is a symptom of the problem - not the problem itself. This problem, fortunately, has a reasonably effective workaround.

We add gadgets using the dashboard "Layout" wizard.

We get occasional reports , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about a broken Pages gadget. I created a new page - but when you click on the link, you get bounced back to the Home page! When you look at the blog with the problem, it's easy enough to verify the report - just look at the URL behind the link , for the most recent page created. Indeed, it points straight to the Home page (base URL for the blog). When this happens, there is a very simple workaround. Just create another page, identical to the problem entry.