The Real Blogger Status

Once we get our blog working, with lots of steady reader traffic, we want interactions with our readers. Eventually, we get tired of native Blogger commenting, and its inability to use comments to conduct casual and meaningful conversations with our readers. Sometimes, our thoughts turn to having a forum, where we and our readers can chat with each other.

I use "<pre> ... </pre>" blocks in my posts a lot, as a way to highlight code examples and log outputs. Unlike blockquotes, preformatted blocks preserve indentation in the material highlighted, and with both code and log listings, indentation (horizontal spacing) is as an important part of the display as is line spacing (vertical spacing). Earlier this month, I showed how the corrected (finally!) vertical line spacing issue had been corrected, and how easily you can tweak the line spacing for elements like pre-formatted blocks. At that time, vertical line spacing for pre-formatted blocks was predictable, and could be tweaked. Since that time and just before the (mostly Draft) New Blogger June 2008 release, vertical line spacing changed. You can see the problem, in Blogger Spacing Issue Fixed - June 2008 . When I wrote that post, the code displayed, as I describe farther down in the post as tighter vertical spacing (1.2em) Now, it's not tighter. Coming jus...

It appears that, in their push to launch (in Draft, mostly ) New Blogger June 2008, Blogger overlooked one significant challenge. This month, Mozilla released V3.0 of their popular browser, Firefox. Various bloggers are reporting odd problems using Blogger, and seem to connect the installation of the new version of Firefox with the start of their problems. Several bloggers have complained that the links that switch between "Compose", "Edit HTML" , and "Preview" modes are inoperative. Other Bloggers are missing toolbar buttons, or find that some toolbar buttons don't do anything. These are scripting problems, that have been observed from time to time . Note that Firefox V3.0, like V2.0 before it, was a major update. The Firefox V3.0 install doesn't require any complicated procedures - it just goes right over V2.x. Anybody with any experience with computers - either programming, software support, or user support, knows that installing one versio...

I've been helping people set up their custom domains for over a year now. We've dealt with simple setups, and complex setups - from a domain setup in 5 minutes using "Buy A Domain For Your Blog", to ones that take much longer because the domain itself is in use and requires Google Apps configuration. Occasionally, odd questions come up Chuck, what is "3600"? or Does my blog have to be published to either "mydomain.com" or "www.mydomain.com"? or Do I have to point the blog to "ghs.google.com"? The latter question wasn't easy to answer intelligently, basically I answered You can point the DNS to any host name that you wish, but if you want a working custom domain, stick to "ghs.google.com", and lets get this done. For an answer to the first two questions, and others, let's look at the setup process . Within the setup process, let's look at how this blog, " blogging.nitecruzr.net " is defined as a...

As I said in my previous post New Blogger June 2008 - The Post Editor , the changes offered to us, today, represent the first major overhaul since December 2006. Of course, I overlooked the rollout of Draft Blogger, without which this update would not be possible. So, having looked at the Post Editor, let's look at Settings, where we see changes in the Basic and Comments tabs. There are interesting changes in Basic . We have the promised "Import blog" - "Export blog" links. And next to that, a major change - "Delete blog", which now leads to a Delete your blog confirmation screen This will permanently delete your blog including all posts. You can create another blog at this address using the Google Account you're currently logged in with, however, we can't restore your blog posts once you choose to delete your blog. Before you delete your blog, do you want to export it ? Comments gets a possibly popular improvement. "Comment Form P...

So for the first major overhaul to Blogger since December 2006 (aka "New Blogger 2006"), the Blogger interface has been updated with lots of shiny features. Currently, the new features are visible only in Draft Blogger . The first change you will notice when you edit your post. In "Compose" mode, you get a shiny new toolbar - similar to what you'll see in GooglePages. Almost the same buttons, almost in the same order. The two attachment buttons - for Photo and Video - have been combined into one labeled "Image", and moved to the left. Full Justification is gone. And spell check is gone (no major loss there IMHO). But most others are there, and in the same left to right order. The major change that you will see is in "Edit HTML" mode. The toolbar there is gone . And it's the same crappy small editing window. The one change that we've been waiting for - still somewhere in the distance. In Blogger In Draft: New Feature: New Post ...

Occasionally, someone asks How can I require approval of any post before it's published? and my typical answer will be You can't, using the post editor. Any author can publish a post, and you can only moderate posts after the fact. The key words there are "post editor".