The Real Blogger Status

The Theme Designer rocks. There are GUI adjustment / selection wizards, for dozens of theme objects, in any given blog. You can make font and color changes, using various GUI wizards - and see results, in real time. And the wizards are logically grouped, by function. If you know what objects you need to change, you can tweak your blog theme, without worrying about CSS coding. But depending upon the browser zoom level, some of the available wizards may not be immediately visible, on some "Advanced" submenus.

I published this blog to the "Notable" theme of the "Responsive" class templates, in February 2018. I never spend a lot of time tweaking and making blog formatting changes - there are so many other Blogger issues to write about. But that ugly big black box, at the top of each post page, was in my list of improvements needed. And last week, I found the motivation, and instructions, to improve the look of this blog.

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.

Of the many Blogger Mysteries that confound blog owners and readers, none are more obscure than the many bX codes. Some problems, reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , start so innocently. As I edited the Template HTML, I saved my changes - and the bX error suddenly appeared. Each different bX code refers to a different problem, with Blogger in general. Of the bX codes that refer to template corruption , each different bX code may refer to a different template corruption problem.

One of the most versatile ways to improve your blog is by adding CSS rules. CSS stands for " Cascading Style Sheet ". The term "style sheet" refers to the template sections which contain style rules, which affect the appearance of the blog. The term "cascading" refers to how you manage the rules. With CSS, you have no need to edit existing style rules, to make a change. If you define your rules properly, you make higher level rules specific enough so they cascade over lower level rules .

We've had the Google CookieChoices banner in our blogs - thanks to the European Union cookie privacy issue - since April 2015. Not all blog owners - even those in Europe, where its presence may be required by law - appreciate what Google provided for us. The banner clutters up many templates, making our blogs more busy looking. In some cases, it may hide - or be hidden by - important blog components. There are several ways of customising the banner, to make it more acceptable - that are not too difficult to use.

Some blog owners, who publish their blogs using a dynamic template, prefer the "Magazine" view. A few owners observe that there's a problem with the "Read More" function, in the "Magazine" post summary display. How do I let my readers know that there's more to read? There's no caption to indicate "Read more ..."! This is an odd omission, too. With Dynamic Templates involving 7 different views, though, it's not difficult to imagine 1 or 2 details dropping through the cracks - and we are here.

An occasional blog owner reports frustration with various "Advanced" Template Designer wizards, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I have entered my new colour palette under "template>advanced>" - and the colours will not show up on the blog. I even checked that the colour values were right under "Edit HTML". This blog owner wants different background colours, than are provided as defaults - and does not understand why the wizards, that advise Template applied. simply don't work.

Not every blog owner, who likes the dynamic templates, likes the docked sidebar - which pops out, only with the cursor properly positioned. How do I get the sidebar to remain visible? Nobody knows where it is, with it hidden! This blog owner is ignoring the need to use all horizontal screen space, effectively, when viewing the blog in some dynamic views. However, if you really want the sidebar to always be visible, it's easy enough to make it do that.

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.

People like to customise their blogs - and some want to use a favourite photo - not one of the stock Blogger background images. The problem, too frequently, involves file size. I found a background image I really like (or at least I think it would work OK) - but when I resized it to the upload specs detailed in customizing your template, it said the file was too big! Blogger limits background images, as supported by the Template Designer, to 300K.

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 .

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we see a report of template inconsistency, in the Tabs Menu. Most of the tabs links work fine - the pages pop right up. The two tabs on the far right, you can't click them and they don't act as links. When we check the published blog code , the pages gadget looks normal - the two tabs reported just, mysteriously, refuse to operate.

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.

One of the neatest magic tricks is to make something disappear, with just a flick of the wrist (whether or not holding a "magic" wand). We see occasional requests to make template components disappear. Many times, we end up recommending editing the blog template . Sometimes, unwanted components are part of the post template - and we have to explain why editing the post template is not a good idea . Some template components, when properly identified, can be made to disappear with the proper CSS rule. CSS rules can be added, using the Template Designer - and do not require editing the template. Even better news, CSS rules added using "Add CSS" are persistent. Even changing the blog template - or resetting the post template - does not erase CSS rules, added using the Template Designer.

We're seeing a number of blog owners, reporting a new problem with their Blogger dashboards, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I am seeing an new error in the Live Preview section of the Template Designer. The following errors were found: isExperimental : Required field must not be blank Upon examination of the URL window in the browser, the source of the problem is seen. draft.blogger.com /blogger.g?blogID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx#templatehtml It appears that we are seeing one more reason why routine use of Draft Blogger is not a good idea.

Not all blog owners appreciate the differences between using the various template wizards, and what they will actually see, once the blog is published. The confusion about the various template wizards, and what is actually seen, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , is numerous. Why aren't my changes to the template being saved? This question is expressed in a number of ways - and has a number of causes.

For several weeks, we're been seeing various reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning problems with template updates, being made using the Template Designer wizard. The reports are not so widespread to indicate a complete malfunction - but neither can we dismiss the problem, as being unique to one browser, one template type, or one particular update pattern. It's likely that we are looking at a number of problems, aggregated and compounded, into one common symptom. I cannot Save changes in Template Designer. With a problem report like this, some examining of the details may be appropriate.

This week, we're seeing a small flood of problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about problems with the Template Designer. Every time I change something, I have to refresh the page in order for it to show up. It won't "Save" when I try to save the layout changes. It just says "Saving..." at the top of the page and fades away, but doesn't actually save any changes. Many problems involve changes made to the template, using the Designer, which aren't being saved - or are broken when saved. Most of the people reporting these problems have made changes to the template, previously - some are so experienced at making changes, they can't believe that their latest changes could ever have problems. Interestingly, this history of changes is not a coincidence - and it's likely that some of the changes helps to cause these problems.