Tit-Bits of Blogging (Part-3)
Selecting A New Template
The process of implementing a new Blogger template is quite simple. However, remember that any customizations you have made to your existing template must be made again to your new template. For instance, if you have edited your existing template to add links or insert advertisements, you will have to make those same edits in your new template. I’ll give you extended information on template modifications later.
In this particular topic, you learn the mechanics of selecting a new Blogger template and carrying it through the publishing process. For example, suppose that you picked a rather plain template during the initial stages of creating your blog, and after living with it for a few posts, you decide you want to try another standard Blogger template. In a few clicks, your blog can assume an entirely new look and feel. To begin, log in to Blogger and click the Change Settings icon in the Blogs section of the Blogger Dashboard.
1-Click the Template Tab: The Blogger user interface includes four top-level tabs. Click the Template tab to display links to the tools available for working with your template.
2-Click the Pick New Link: After clicking the Template tab, you will see a screen that displays your current template code, with the Edit current link preselected. To select a new template instead of editing your existing one, click the Pick New link under the Template tab.
Selecting A New Template
3-Click a Thumbnail to See the Full Version: Scroll through the list of thumbnails until you see something that catches your eye. Then click a thumbnail to see an example of a blog as if it had that particular template applied to it. The full-version example opens in a new browser window, so be sure to close that window when you finish viewing the template.
4-Select a Template to Use: After you select a template that you want to use, click the Use This Template button underneath the new template.
5- Click OK to Change Templates: After selecting a new template from the list of thumbnails, you are presented with a JavaScript alert asking you to verify this change. Click OK to accept the change, or click Cancel to close the alert and return to the selection screen. After you click OK, there's no going backthe template will have been applied.
6-Click Republish to Republish Your Blog: Although the new template is applied as soon as you click OK on the alert in the previous step, you must republish your blog to see pages with your new template applied. Click the Republish button to initiate the publishing sequence. When the publishing sequence displays its notice of completion, you can navigate away from the Blogger user interface and view your newly attired blog.
Configuring Basic Blogger Settings
This topic will familiarize you with the basic configurable options under the Settings tab in the Blogger management interface. For example, suppose that you want to modify your blog title or descriptionjust edit the existing settings and you're good to go. To begin, log in to Blogger and click the Change Settings icon in the Blogs section of the Blogger Dashboard.
Configuring Basic Blogger Settings
1-Click the Settings Tab: The Blogger user interface includes four top-level tabs. Click the Settings tab to display links to the numerous configurable options. The Basic link will be preselected for you.
2-Edit the Blog Title: You can edit the title of your blog at any time. Simply enter a new title in the Title field. If you have gained a wide readership, changing your blog title might cause your readership to dwindle until users realize that it is still you behind the posts. On the other hand, changing the title of your blog is sometimes a good way to jump-start a new blogging identity.
3-Edit the Blog Description: You may enter up to five hundred characters, including HTML markup, in the Description field. Standard Blogger templates often include a space for the blog description. You can use this space to add additional information about yourself and your blog, or you can use the space to include favorite quotes or other content that adds personalization to your blog.
4-Add Your Blog to Blogger Listings: Select Yes or No from the Add Your Blog to Our Listings? drop-down list. If you select Yes, your blog will be listed in your Blogger profile as well as Blogger's list of recently updated blogs when you add a new post. If you select No, your blog will appear in neither your profile nor in Blogger's list of recently updated blogs. Selecting No does not affect the publishing status of your blog or the availability of your blog to readers. This setting is applicable only to listings.
5-Show Quick Editing: Select Yes or No from the Show Quick Editing on Your Blog? drop-down list. If you select Yes, your published posts will include a link that will take you directly to the compose window so that you can edit your post. The quick edit link is visible only to youthe logged-in user and owner of the blog.
6-Show Email Post Links: Select Yes or No from the Show Email Post links? drop-down list. If you select Yes, a link will be included in your published posts that will allow you to send a note, plus the post's URL, to a specified email address. If enabled, the Email Post link is visible to any blog reader, and is very useful when your readers want to share good blog posts with their friends. Instead of composing an email in a separate application, readers would be able to simply click a link within your blog post, send the message, and return to your blog for further reading.
7-Show Compose Mode: Select Yes or No from the Show Compose Mode for All Your Blogs? drop-down list. Modifying this setting affects all blogs registered to your account. If you select Yes, the default editor for your blog posts will be the compose mode or WYSIWYG editor. If you select No, the Blogger editor is a more stripped-down version that allows you to enter your own HTML markup at will.
8-Save Your Settings: To save the changes made on the Basic settings screen, click the Save Settings button. You will see a confirmation onscreen when the settings are saved, and at that point you must click the Republish button to initiate the publishing sequence. When the publishing sequence displays its notice of completion, you can navigate away from the Blogger user interface and view your blog or work with other settings. One other button is visible on the Basic settings screenthe Delete This Blog button. Click this button only if you are absolutely sure that you want to delete the blog, its settings, and all of your posts. If you delete your blog, your posts become irretrievable.
Using Blogger's Publishing Settings
The standard Blogger publishing settings are relevant for publishing on the blogspot.com domain. In Tit-bits of Blogging (Part-2), I talked about 'Using Blogger with Third-Party Hosting' and about publishing via FTP to a different host. In this topic, only two additional publishing settings are discussed and both are accessible via the Settings tab in the Blogger management interface. To begin, log in to Blogger and click the Change Settings icon in the Blogs section of the Blogger Dashboard.
Using Blogger's Publishing Settings
1-Click the Settings Tab: The Blogger user interface includes four top-level tabs. Click the Settings tab to display links to the numerous configurable options. The Basic link will be preselected for you, so click the Publishing link to access the publishing settings.
2-Modify Your Blogger Hostname: If you want to make a change in your Blogger hostname, enter the new hostname in the Blog Spot Address field. Just like modifying your blog name, you might experience a drop in readership when you change your blog address. Blogger does not include any redirects from your old address to your new address, so the only way to leave a notice of an address change is to actually create an entirely new blog and maintain both concurrently. If you want your readers to follow you to a new home, do not simply modify your Blogger hostname. Use this publishing setting only if you want to make a wholesale change from one address to the other.
3-Notify Weblogs.com: Select Yes or No from the Notify Weblogs.com field. Selecting Yes alerts the Weblogs.com notification service that your blog has been updated. Many blog readers monitor Weblogs.com and visit blogs as they are updated because readers like fresh content. If you select No, Weblogs.com is not notified of your update. To gain a wide readership, it's important to utilize all the notification services to which you have access.
4-Save Your Settings: To save the changes made on the Publishing settings screen, click the Save Settings button. You will see an onscreen confirmation when the settings are saved, and at that point you must click the Republish button to initiate the publishing sequence. When the publishing sequence displays its notice of completion, you can navigate away from the Blogger user interface and view your blog or work with other settings.
Working With Blogger's Formatting Settings
The Blogger formatting settings represent the largest grouping of settings for blog display. In this group of settings, you can modify date and time formats for timestamps, change language encoding for your text, implement a template for individual posts, and much more. To begin, log in to Blogger and click the Change Settings icon in the Blogs section of the Blogger Dashboard.
Working With Blogger's Formatting Settings
1-Click the Settings Tab: The Blogger user interface includes four top-level tabs. Click the Settings tab to display links to the numerous configurable options. The Basic link will be preselected for you, so click the Formatting link to access the formatting settings.
2-Determine the Number of Posts to Display on the Main Page: You can enter a number of days or a number of posts to display on the main page of your blog. In the Show field, enter the number in the text field and select either Days or Posts from the drop-down list. The number of posts on the main page of your blog should not be overwhelming: You want the page to load quickly, but it should not be limited to just a few days' worth of posts because new readers will want to get a feel for your writing before venturing into your blog's archives.
If you utilize a day-based setting such as 7 Days rather than a setting equivalent to a number of posts, Blogger will impose a limit of 999 total posts on the main page of your blog. However, if you write 999 posts in just seven days, I recommend going outside for a brisk walk and reacquainting yourself with the world!
3-Select a Date Format for Headings: All blog posts are displayed within a date-based grouping, and the Date Header Format field is used to determine the style of this date. You can select from numerous examples of date-based headings, from a full day-and-date heading such as Monday, June 06, 2005, to simply Monday, or 6.06.2005, and so on.
4-Select an Archive Date Format: In addition to the posts on your main page, all posts are part of an archive that Blogger automatically keeps for you. The size of the archive itselfdaily, weekly, monthlyis controlled through an archive setting; the Archive Date Format field determines how that archive will be displayed to the reader. For instance, if you have set up monthly archives, the options in the Archive Date Format drop-down list are relevant for that type of display.
As shown in this example, June 2005 is selected from the drop-down list. This means that the user can access a month-based archive by following a link in the blog to June 2005 (as well as July 2005 and so on). Other options in the drop-down list include the full range of dates (06/01/2005 06/30/2005), different methods for displaying the month (such as 06/2005, 06.2005), and so on.
5-Select a Timestamp Format: Every blog post is timestamped with its publishing date and time, and this timestamp is shown in the footer of your blog post unless you specifically remove that code from your blog template. In the Timestamp Format field, you can customize the appearance of this timestamp. Your timestamp can include only the time, as shown here, or it can include the full date as well, such as 6/05/2005 07:25:45 AM. If you have selected a full date in the Date Header Format setting, it is unnecessary to repeat the full date in the post's timestamp, but to each his own. You will often see a full date in the date heading, and then simply a timestamp such as 5:41 AM in the post footer.
6-Select Your Time Zone: Although not directly displayed on your blog, having the correct Time Zone setting is relevant for timestamping your posts. Our time zone is GMT +5:30. That's the Indian time however, time zones in the US can be pretty confusing. If you are blogging at 5 a.m. in Los Angeles, it's 8 a.m. in New York City. Your timestamp should reflect your local time, so in the Time Zone field you should select [UTC 08:00 America/Los_Angeles] and not [UTC 05:00 America/New_York] unless you want all of your timestamps to be in New York time. If you have a large, worldwide readership you might want to set the Time Zone field to [UTC +05:00 GMT], which would stamp all your posts in Greenwich Mean Time.
7-Select a Language for Date Formatting: The names of months and days are easily localized in software applications, given there are a standard number of days and months ready for translation. As such, Blogger offers you the ability to display your date header in any of a number of different languages: If your blog is in English, you can display the date in German, or if your blog is in French, you may display the date in Russian if you want. For instance, if I have selected a full date header via the Date Header Format field and English from the Date Language drop-down list, my date header would show up like Friday, June 24, 2005. But if I selected German from the Date Language drop-down list, that particular date would be displayed as Freitag, Juni 24, 2005.
8-Select a Character Encoding: You may compose your blog posts in any language, but after you've decided to use a particular language, it's important not to change the Character Encoding setting because it affects how your posts are stored in the Blogger databases. Therefore, if you plan to compose your posts in languages other than English which is the default setting be sure to change this setting immediately after creating your blog.
9-Select a Line Break Conversion Setting: When Yes is selected from the Convert Line Break drop-down list, the Blogger Post Editor will automatically insert a tag in place of a hard return. So, if you use two hard returns to separate paragraphs while typing, Blogger will insert two tags. If No is selected from the drop-down list, you will be responsible for inserting your own hard returns or other paragraph markup.
10-Select a Title Field Setting: If Yes is selected from the Show Title Field drop-down list, a text field will appear in the Post Editor as you create your post, allowing you to provide a title. If No is selected from the Show Title Field drop-down list, no text field will appear in the Post Editor. Changing the value of Show Title Field does not affect any posts that have already been published; it affects only the options available in the Post Editor from the time the change is made.
11-Select a Link Field Setting: The Show Link field setting works in tandem with a specific Blogger template tag, which you can learn more about in 30 Identifying Elements in the Blogger Template Source. If Yes is selected from the Show Link Field drop-down list, a text field will appear in the Post Editor, allowing you to provide an additional link which will then be displayed in your post. The placement of the post field is determined by a specific template modification. If No is selected from the Show Link Field drop-down list, no additional text field will appear in the Post Editor.
12-Allow for Float Alignment: The Enable Float Alignment field is relevant for users who experience display issues with their Blogger templates, especially when posting images. If Yes is selected from the Enable Float Alignment drop-down list, Blogger will continue to insert a specific DIV tag into the post template. This tag comes into play when inserting photos using Blogger Images, but might cause problems with certain templates when images are not inserted. If No is selected from the Enable Float Alignment drop-down list, the DIV tag will be suppressed.
This is a setting that you won't know you need to modify until you post a few entries, with and without images, and notice if your template looks wonky. If you are experiencing a large amount of whitespace in your posts, set Enable Float Alignment to Yes and see whether that fixes the problem.
13-Create a Post Template: If you find yourself repeating certain elements of code or if you keep a Post-It note filled with certain oft-used bits of HTML, simply enter those items in the Post Template textarea. This template has nothing to do with your overall Blogger template. Instead, it's simply a chunk of code that will appear in the Blogger Post Editor each time you create a new post. You might or might not use that code, and if you do not use it you can simply delete it as you type something else.
A good example of a post template would be if you post something every day in a table format. Instead of having to type the code for the table over and over each day, or save it in a separate file and then copy and paste it when you're ready to use it, you can enter the basic code as a post template. Then when you open the Post Editor to type a new entry, the table code would be ready and waiting for you to complete it.
14-Save Your Settings: To save the changes made on the Formatting settings screen, click the Save Settings button. You will see an onscreen confirmation when the settings are saved, and at that point you must click the Republish button to initiate the publishing sequence. When the publishing sequence displays its notice of completion, you can navigate away from the Blogger user interface and view your blog or work with other settings.
Configuring Blogger's Comments Settings
Comments play an important role in the Blogosphere: They are the primary way in which your readers will interact with you. Depending on the type of post that you write, readers might engage you in discussion or debate, offer support during trying situations, or just engage in friendly, conversational chatter with you as well as other readers. To begin, log in to Blogger and click the Change Settings icon in the Blogs section of the Blogger Dashboard.
1-Click the Settings Tab: The Blogger user interface includes four top-level tabs. Click the Settings tab to display links to the numerous configurable options. The Basic link will be preselected for you, so click the Comments link to access the commenting settings.
Configuring Blogger's Comments Settings
2-Enable or Disable Commenting: The Comments field allows you configure the overall use of Blogger comments. As you can see in later topics, you can elect to use a third-party commenting system and not the built-in Blogger comments. If that is the case, select the Hide radio button in the Comments field. If you want to use Blogger's built-in comments, select the Show radio button. If you select the Show radio button, you will still be able to disable comments on a post-by-post basis as part of the post creation process.
3-Limit Commenting to Certain User Types: The Who Can Comment? drop-down list allows you to limit the ability to comment to specific reader types. You might want to allow anyone and everyone to comment on your posts, in which case you would select Anyone from the drop-down list. If you want to restrict commenting to registered Blogger users, select Only Registered Users. Finally, if you want to restrict commenting to only those users who are also members of your blog, select Only Members of this Blog.
4-Select the Default Comment Setting for New Posts: As mentioned in step 2, when comments are enabled, you still have the opportunity to enable or disable comments on a post-by-post basis. The Default for Posts drop-down list determines the default setting of the radio button that will be visible in the Post Editor. If you select New Posts Have Comments from the Default for Posts drop-down list, the radio button in the Post Editor will be preselected to enable comments. If you select New Posts Do Not Have Comments from the Default for Posts drop-down list, the opposite will be true.
5-Select the Comment Timestamp Format: Much like selecting the timestamp format under the formatting options, you can customize the appearance of the comment timestamps. Unlike a post, which typically has a date heading displayed and is only ever attached to a single date, users may leave comments over a period of days and weeks. As such, a timestamp format such as 09:36AM is useless because you have no idea what day the comment was left for you. In this example, I've selected a format such as July 05, 2005 09:36AM from the Comments Timestamp Format drop-down list so that I will know the actual date of the comment in addition to its time.
6-Determine Comment Placement: The Show Comments in a Popup Window? field allows you determine the placement of the interface for viewing and leaving comments. If you select the Yes radio button, all comment-related activity will go on in a small pop-up window. If you select the No radio button, clicking the link to view or leave a comment will take you to a new web page.
7-Enable or Disable Word Verification: The implementation of a word verification feature in Blogger comments is an attempt to combat spammers who might otherwise take the opportunity to leave a "comment" to your post that is nothing more than a link to their spamblogs or other spam-like websites. If you require word verification before leaving a comment, spammers will not be able to use automated spam tools to leave a comment on your post because they must type the characters shown in an imagesomething a computer cannot read. Therefore, spammers must actually do the spamming manually, going through the word verification process each timesomething they are unlikely to do.
If you decide to enable word verification for Blogger commentsand I recommend that you do soselect the Yes radio button in the Show Word Verification for Comments? field. The default setting is No, meaning that no usersspammers or otherwisewill be required to complete a word verification test before leaving a comment on your blog.
8-Enable or Disable Profile Images in Comments: Blogger users have the option of uploading an image as part of their user profiles. This image could be a photograph, a cartoon, or virtually anything the user chooses. When a registered Blogger user with an image in his or her profile leaves a comment through the Blogger commenting system, this profile image might also be displayed. Whether or not profile images are shown for comments on your blog is entirely up to the blog owner (you!) through the Show Profile Images on Comments? field. If you select the Yes radio button, profile images will be displayed. If you select the No radio button, profile images will not be displayed.
9-Enter a Notifiaction Address: To receive notification when someone leaves a comment to one of your blog posts, enter a valid email address in the Comment Notification Address field. The notification email will include the blog title and date in the subject field, and the content of the comment in the email body. Additionally, the email will include a direct link to the post to which the comment is attached. You can then choose to respond privately via email, or publicly via a comment of your own.
10-Save Your Settings: To save the changes made on the Comments settings screen, click the Save Settings button. You will see an onscreen confirmation when the settings are saved, and at that point you must click the Republish button to initiate the publishing sequence. When the publishing sequence displays its notice of completion, you can navigate away from the Blogger user interface and view your blog or work with other settings.
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