The Real Blogger Status

Some blog owners are accustomed to editing their Blogger profiles, from time to time. Publishing a blog that presents oneself to ones readers, openly, is important to some blog owners . The Blogger profile becomes a blog component that is edited, periodically, to keep the blog reader friendly. The Blogger profile editor produces content which is displayed in the "About Me" gadget, for single owner blogs. Multiple owner blogs, complementarily, display "About Us" - which provides a different display .

One of the easiest improvements, in a Blogger blog, is customising the "About Me" / "About Us" ("Contributors" / "Profile") gadget. The default gadget gets its content from the Blogger profile - and is edited, using the Blogger Profile Editor. With a team blog, the gadget changes to a list of team members - and this cannot be edited. But given 15 minutes, and some imagination, you can make your own Profile gadget.

We're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning problems adding or updating the HTML and Text gadgets. The most common symptom, when reported, is very simple. When I try to update the gadget, all that I see is javascript:void(0); In this case, we have to first explain that " javascript:void(0); " is not the problem - it's simply a symptom of the problem . Once we explore the problem itself, we see various possible causes. The base cause for problems with the HTML / Text gadget is simple - the script which processes gadget updates provides no diagnostics when detecting errors.

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.

An interesting bit of confusion is seen, occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I added a gadget using code from a third party website - but the new gadget shows the code, instead of the gadget content, when I view my blog! This is somebody who was confused by the options offered by the gadget setup wizard.

Blogger blog owners, like dogs, always want more. Cue the super annoying commercial currently running on some USA TV channels. More, please! And when I suggest using an HTML / Text gadget, tweaked to show only when the "home" page is displayed , I hear cries for "more". But how can I show my latest posts for a given label, on my home page? Surely, I can do that too? The answer here is that yes, you can do this - and fortunately, it's not difficult. It simply require a little more thinking.

Many bloggers want something better than the standard Blogger provided gadgets, like "Profile" / "About Us", on their blogs. For some, even a custom HTML / Rich Text gadget still doesn't provide enough choices. Rich text is too confusing. The HTML Gadget toolbar lacks features. There's no way to upload a picture.

With all of the predefined page elements that Layouts Blogger provides, that fulfill maybe 90% of the need for you to edit the template, there will be the 10% that they don't provide. Services provided by third parties - like guest books , or news feeds , or even visitor meters - won't be provided by Blogger, to everybody's liking. In some cases, Blogger / Google will provide one version of a given service - like Blogger Comments, Blogger Feeds, and Google Analytics - but their versions aren't the most popular in many cases. And some blog owners will develop their own simple applets, like the Cumulus / Google Translation Bar . Bloggers are like any people in any walk of life - they all want something different - better - or new.