The Real Blogger Status

One of the simplest ways to make a blog useful is to add label searches. Adding label searches, in page / post text, is not easy - unless you know how to build the URLs. Here's a label search from this blog. http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/search/label/Blogger%20Magic All that I want, when using that label search, is to add another reference to my "Blogger Magic" post series. " Blogger Magic " emphasises how easy it is, to use Blogger. How easy is it, to remember that syntax - to add a label link? Maybe, a " Blogger Magic " reference, in this post?

We see an occasional question in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue about blog links - and the captions that change colour, mysteriously. Some blog owners seem to regard the colour changes as one more Blogger pecadillo - ignoring the fact that colour changing link captions have been part of Internet design , since the early days.

We've been experiencing - and discussing - referer spam, since 2011 . We still see unaware blog owners, asking in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When I checked my stats for my blog, and looked at traffic sources, I noticed a link from a different country - and it just seems weird that Russian readers would then go to a US site. When we explain that they're probably seeing another referer spam attack - and that clicking on the links is not always a good idea, we get a variety of responses. Some want to know if there is a purpose, to this noise.

Some people are particular about the colors used, in their blogs. They may spend hours - or days - choosing the right shade of gray, to complement the text in the posts. Later, they look at the blog, and discover a glaring discrepancy. Why are the post titles so nasty looking? The titles clash with the posts! These owners may just be discovering the reality of Blogger blogs, and the ever changing title colors .

This week, I added a gadget that's been needed, on this blog, for some time. You may see my new "Top" button, at the lower right corner of this blog. If you have a normally wide browser window, with wallpaper showing on either side of the posts / sidebar section, you'll see the new gadget floating on top of the wallpaper. If you have squeezed your browser window to save horizontal space, you may see the new gadget floating on top of the sidebar (but beneath the sidebar gadgets).

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.

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 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.

We're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about broken TextList gadgets. I cannot add a URL, linking to the Title of my posts, using the "Configure TextList" wizard. The 'Add URL' option is missing from the "Configure TextList" wizard. Similar to the shared design between the "HTML" and "Text" gadgets , it appears that the "LinkList" and "TextList" gadgets shared features.

From time to time, we see evidence of anxiety, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why do my posts have hashtag suffixes? and from some, more anxiety How do I know what hashtags to add, when referencing my posts? These blog owners don't understand the purposes of the suffixes.

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.

Long ago, Blogger blog owners would publish a blog as part of an existing website. With the website published as "www.mydomain.com", they would create a website subdirectory "www.mydomain.com/myblog", and publish the blog there. The option to publish a blog as "www.mydomain.com/myblog" required an externally maintained domain / website - and the Blogger feature "FTP Publishing". In 2010, Blogger, with many man hours spent fixing a constant stream of problems, retired "FTP Publishing" , in favour of "Custom Domain Publishing".

We've been asking for the ability to have post URLs that differ from the post titles , for some time. Now, we have the Custom Permalinks feature, available in the New Blogger GUI Posts Editor, for new posts. Some people would like to use custom permalinks for existing posts - and for pages. We can do that, too - but not by using Custom Permalinks. Custom Permalinks only works for new posts - and not for pages.

We've been asking for the ability to have post URLs that differ from the post titles , for some time. Up to now, we had a workaround, to do this. Publish a post, with a title worded to give the desired URL. Edit the previously published post, and change the title. That was a clumsy procedure - and it had side effects.

As a web master (aka blog master), besides adding posts and enhancing the template, you have a third activity - connecting your web site (blog) to other web sites and blogs. In many cases, you'll simply send the owners of the other web site (blog) a request to link to your blog. For links to large and very active web sites, you'll use an online wizard. To prove ownership of your web site, instead of sending email, you'll add a file of specific name, or maybe specific content, into the web site. You can't add a file to your blog, though. With a Blogger blog, you have no control over files and folders - all that you do is publish posts.

Earlier today, I observed one new feature in New Blogger GUI (2011) - the Post Editor "Add or remove link" wizard now offers the option to Open this link in a new window. This, in my opinion, is a major improvement in the New GUI (in general), and in Post Editor (in particular). A few minutes later, to my disappointment, I discovered a major design deficiency, in Post Editor.

For many years, I have consistently used "Edit HTML" mode when creating and editing my posts, because I need to make some links, embedded in the post content, open in a new tab / window (subject to choice of the reader). Up to this month, this could only be done by manually editing the links, and inserting the link modifier target="_blank" . Today, in creating this post, in "Compose" mode, and adding the above link, I see the option Open this link in a new window. in the "Add link " wizard. If Blogger is able to resolve the many design issues with the New Blogger GUI (2011) in general, this change in the New GUI (2011) Post Editor will go a long way towards removing our need to use "Edit HTML" Mode. This will remove a significant amount of problems of using Post Editor in dual modes, and will allow them to stabilise Post Editor in general. >> Top

Some blog owners are confused about the use of the "new window" link modifier target="_blank" and think that it gives them uncontrolled powers over the readers browsing experience, when visiting their blog. I want to select "new tab", rather than "new window", for all my blog links. and I want my links to open in a new window, regardless of how my readers setup their browsers. And both of these concepts ignore the personal needs of the blog readers.