Domain Hosting Sale: Dynamic templates

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Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Adding a gadget to a blog with a dynamic-view template

This article is about how to add widgets (also known as gadgets) to blogs that have dynamic templates.

Things are looking up:

Beer glasses can have widgets, and
now dynamic-view blogs can have them too

Previously I've described dynamic templates, and how you can turn them on, and also off, on your blog. And when people asked "how do I put a whatever gadget onto my blog", the short answer was " you can't - yet".

But now Blogger have announced that it's possible - their post also shows us how the docked widget bar works.

And if your blog already has a dynamic template, they've added a few gadgets for you. For my test blog, this was Followers, Archive About me and Subscribe - I'm not sure if these are the only ones, or it was based on my layout before the blog went dynamic.

How to add a gadget to a blog with a dynamic template:

This is just like adding a gadget to a blog with a designer or layout template, ie:

Go to the Layout tab (Design > Page Elements, if you're using pre-Sept-2011-Blogger)
Click Add A Gadget.
Choose your gadget, and configure it if necessary.
(NB Blogger appear to be converting all the existing gadget setup screens to the new-interface-look-and-feel, so don't be surprised if the buttons etc inside the gadget parameter windows look different)
Preview to check it's ok
Click Save Arrangement.

It's not perfect yet:

The layout editor window looks somewhat strange, in post-Sept-2011-Blogger anyway:

More importantly, Blogger's announcement says

Gadgets supported in Dynamic Views currently include: Blog Archive, Followers, Labels, Profile, Subscribe (a new gadget - automatically present if either Follow By Email or Subscription installed), and Link List.

So no HTML, no AdSense, no Blogroll (except you can make your own with the Link List), Statistics, Slideshows, Polls, etc ... yet. To make matters worse, there's nothing to tell you what gadgets you cannot add: you put them in, but they're just not there once you save and look at the blog.

But some of them may become available, if Blogger can figure out how to place with within the type of space they're using for gadgets on dynamic views, where we don't really have a sidebar. And until then, the following section from my original post still applies.

In the meantime:

The October announcement did show how you can customize the colors of your dynamic-template blog.

Southern Speakers has been publishing lots of how-to information about how you can format dynamic blog elements by adding CSS rules - his most recent post is about how to remove static page titles. He has also described a way to put gadgets that you can get the code for into a page - this description is specifically for the Followers gadget, but could be applied to other code too, provided you can get the code.

And if you want, you can just switch back to using your most-recent template, and wait for the improved version of dynamic templates to arrive.

Or you could do cunning things, like put AdSense ads into your posts instead.

For history's sake:

This is the body of my original post. It's not true any more, but I want to keep it here, in case I need to use some of this text agaon - or so you can see how much better things are now.

The Full Story:Google told us in late October 2011 that they're working on making this possible. They haven't said when they expect to have this available. If we're really lucky it will be "one day very soon" (and boy will I have a red face if they announce how to do it tomorrow!)

I suspect that it's not an easy thing to do, because dynamic template blogs are basically a totally different way of displaying your blog, using your RSS feed and (now) CSS rules, rather than reading all the design details from the blog itself. Providing this, along with the level of design control that people with Designer and Layout templates are used to, might be quite technically challenging.

I've written this article because I got sick of explaining "no not yet" in the help forum: I really want to give people there the full story, but finding the link to that October announcement every time was a pain. Now I can just link to this.

But hopefully I'll be able to totally re-write it, very soon :-) Giving negative answers isn't nearly as satisfying as explaining how to do things.

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Removing dynamic templates from your blog

Dynamic templates can be removed from your blog - but be careful if you want to keep any gadets etc that were on your blog before it went dynamic.

Overview:

Previously, I've described the initial version of dynamic templates for blogger, and the second release.

This 2nd version is a lot better integrated with the rest of Blogger, but it has some consequences for many other parts of the system.

In particular, if you want to go back to using a design or layout template there is a real risk of losing all your previous gadgets if you aren't careful how your remove the dynamic template.

Dynamic view template = no Design option in the dashboard drop down

One effect of choosing a Dynamic template for your blog is that the Design option is not on the main-menu drop down in the dashboard in the new, the post-Sept-11 Blogger interface.

Instead, there is just Template, which takes you straight to the Template designer: this happens because, unlike layout or designer templates, you have no control over the layout of a blog with dynamic template, and cannot edit the HTML behind it.

If you want to have this level of control, including being responsible for the consequences of editing your template, then you need to remove the dynamic template, and switch back to a regular one.

How to remove a dynamic template from your blog:

When you have chosen a dynamic template, there is an option in the Design screen to " Revert to previous template".

If you click this link, your blog template goes back to how it was before you applied the designer template, including all gadgets and layout customisations.

BUT

If you choose "revert to previous template", and then pick a different designer or layout template before saving, then you will lose all gadgets and customisations that are not on the "standard" version of the new template.

The moral of the story: always back up before making major changes to your blog. (And even then I'm not 100% convinced you will be able to restore your gadgets to exactly how they were.)

NB Any posts you have made in the meantime are kept - it is simply the template that is changed here, not the blog contents.

Disabling dynamic views for your blog:

In new-interface-Blogger, I cannot see any way to turn Dynamic views off.

In pre-Sept-11-Blogger, there is still an option to turn Dynamic views off, under Settings > Formatting.

This is still relevant, because people can see your blog using dynamic views, even if you haven't chosen a dynamic template, by using www.YourURL.blogspot.com/view (although this may not work for blogs with custom URLs)

Dynamic templates: turning them on in your blog

This article is about the 2nd version of dynamic templates that Blogger have released: what they are, how to add them to your blog, and what restrictions they have.

Announcing Dynamic Templates, part II

In March 2011, Blogger announced Dynamic Views, and I posted describing them, and telling you how to give your readers the ability to see your blog in dynamic views.

Today, they've announced them again (without acknowledging the previous announcement!). This time with a few differences:

There are seven templates (instead of five)
Some templates allow for blogs that don't have great photos in every post
You can set your blog up so that visitors automatically see it using one of the dynamic-view templates: it's just another option in the template designer (see Setting up your Blog to use a Dynamic Template, below).
Most (all?) templates include some gadgets: search, RSS feed link, link to Blogger, and regular sized +1, Tweet and Like buttons (instead of the anorexic ones in regular designer templates at the moment)

There are still restrictions: blogs must be public, with RSS site feeds enabled.

And there are still lots of things missing: for example, blog-owners have no control over gadgets or layout, fonts or color scheme (even though the announcement says this is coming, I cannot find where to access it).

You cannot add gadgets to a blog with a dynamic template. So you cannot install Google Analytics, or AdSense or any other sort of advertising. That said, this help article does say that Blogger will continue to support AdSense for blogs that already have it, so the work around may be to use a regular designer template, put in some ads, and then switch to a dynamic template.

Setting up your Blog to use a Dynamic Template

To make a dynamic view the default option for your blog:

1) Check that it is public,

2) Check that the RSS site feeds is switched to full or jump-break

2) Choose Design > Template Designer (pre-Sept-11 interface), or Template from the dashboard drop-down (post-Sept-11 Blogger)

3) Choose Dynamic from the list of options (if it's not in the list, then post probably your blog doesn't meet one of the conditions above.

4) From the row underneath, choose which of the options (ie dynamic template types) you would like as a default.

Next:

Removing a dynamic template from your blog - be careful, don't lose your gadgets!

Saturday, 30 April 2011

Showing readers your blog in the new Dynamic View templates

It's easy to let readers see your blog using the new dynamic views / templates. But there are some consequences.

What are the dynamic templates?

In April 2011, Blogger announced:

" ... five new dynamic templates ... that you’ll soon be able to customize and use for your blog."

The post below is what I wrote then. Some of the information is now out of date - for example you can now add a limited range of gadgets to dynamic-view templates, and you can choose them as a default. You have control over colours etc the same as normal templates. And Yoga on Southern Speakers has published a lot of ways you can use CSS rules to tweak dynamic templates.

But I am keeping the original content below, because the linking technique is useful for people who don't want to have a dynamic template all the time.

Original Post content:

I'll write more about what these are/aren't later on. But for now, people want to know how to use them.

Applying the dynamic views to your blog:

Right now, there is no way to make any of the new dynamic templates the default opening view for your blog: your blog still opens to the home page that you used, which in most cases shows the entire contents of your post recent post.

This may change, as Google works out how people want to use Blogger. But in the meantime you can, very easily, give your readers a way to switch into any of the default views.

In short, just put some text that links to

http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view

into a place that your visitor can click on - and of course make sure that your blog meets the other conditions (ie public, feeds enabled, views not disabled) .

To give your readers more options, you could have five different links, similar to what I've done here:

Flipcard
Mosaic
Sidebar
Snapshot
Timeslide

In this option the links are to:

Flipcard http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/flipcard
Mosaic http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/mosaic
Sidebar http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/sidebar
Snapshot http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/snapshot
Timeslide http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/timeslide

I've done fancy things to format the links as buttons (will explain how to do that in another article). But there are lots of possibilities: you could just make the links plain text in a row, or even put them into a link-list gadget.

Consequences:

If you let people look at your blog in a dynamic view, there are restrictions that they will face. These may not be a problem, depending on your niche and how important a customized-look-and-feel and right-up-to-date news is for your audience. But you do need to think about:

Displays and Monetization:
Initially, you cannot customise the way that the dynamic template look at all:

Fonts, colours, item placement - everything is based on the standard template
None of the widget that are on you blog are included
None of your "static" pages are shown
None of your advertisements are shown: this includes AdSense ads that are embedded right inside blog-posts.
Some of the view templates are very visual: the reader is shown a page of pictures, and each page represents one post. Currently you don't have ANY control over which picture Blogger uses to represent your posts on these displays.

Search Results
Most (all?) of the dynamic templates have a search-function built into them, and some let you search by Label or Post-date too.

However Blogger have said that the search-results are limited to posts that are shown on the screen at the time the search is done.   So if a viewer has a slow connection, or is impatient, the search will not include a lot of your posts.

Even if your readers have a fast connection, I'm pretty sure that the search only looks at posts that are currently in your RSS "feed".   The last time I looked, this was limited to 512kb (or was it 524kB) - something like that). If your blog's feed is set to "full" and you have some large pictures in your blog, this may mean that only a small proportion of your overall posts are available to be searched.
.
Internal navigation:
When you're looking at a blog in a dynamic template, clicking on any post-title takes you to a view of that post in the current dynamic template.   But clicking on an in-post link to another post title (eg a link like how to display a powerpoint presentation inside your blog as a slideshow) opens the post in a new window using the "standard" template that you have set up for your blog.

Statistics:
Currently, most statistics-gathering tools (eg Google Analytics) are put onto your blog either by changing the blog-template, or by installing some code into a widget.   Either way, the statistics tool code will not run, so you will not get any statistics about people who view your blog using the new templates.

(NB I haven't tested this, but I'm 99% certain that it's correct).

Other consequences:
Dynamic template are a brand new feature. There will be issues that I haven't considered yet.   I'd love to hear your thoughts about the templates and the challenges that we face in adapting to this new way that Blogger may start working.

Monday, 4 April 2011

Dynamic views in Blogger: What are they? What should you do about them?

This article is an overview of Blogger's new "dynamic views", including advice about their immediate implications for our blogs.

Blogger and Dynamic Views:

In late April 2011, Blogger announced a new feature called Dynamic Views. There was a post about it in Blogger Buzz, Google's blog about Blogger.

As well, when people log into Blogger for the first time since the launch, they see an "over-the-top" window on the dashboard, placed so it has to be reacted to (either Dismiss or Learn more) before using most of the dashboard links.

If you have multiple Google accounts, you will be shown the pop-up the next time you log into each one of them.

For a while, the Learn More link wasn't working: it's been fixed now, but just in case, you can find the article for blog owners and authors here (at time of writing, anyway). It links to another article for blog-readers, which explains how they can view blogs using dynamic views, without going into technical details.

What are Dynamic Views:

Basically, they are a totally different type of blog-template, that display posts from your blog's Feed (ie not the blog itself) in some new ways. The designs look good - though most rely on your blog having an excellent picture for each post, and you can't (yet) control which picture is used.

Rather than trying to describe them, it's probably easiest if you take a look for yourself - these links take you to this blog (ie Blogger-HAT) in each of the templates:

What are the consequences of this change

In the short term, no one (except possibly Google) is sure of the implications of dynamic templates. You can't make them the default way to view your blog yet although for there is a simple way to give your readers the option to switch to a dynamic view.

But this comment, from the end of the Blogger Buzz announcement, is probably significant:

We’re previewing these templates early on so we can incorporate your feedback for a wider launch soon. At that time you’ll be able to customize these templates and select one for your blog. Please let us know what you think!

What we're seeing right now isn't the finished product. (Which is just as well, because I have a lot of issues with the templates as they stand. For starters: no statistics, no gadgets, search is limited to what's in your blog's feed, no comments, focus on pictures but no control over the main image for each post). I expect these to be fixed - although I'm concerned about why they're limiting the view of blog to what's in the feed, unless it's part of the long-term plans.

For now, though, all you can do is either accept that some viewers will look at your blog using dynamic views and that this may mean you statistics aren't correct - or switch the dynamic templates off for your blog.

Turning off dynamic views for your blog:

To start with, dynamic views are enabled for all blogs. But you can turn them off:

Go to Settings > Formatting
2/3 of the way down the page, there is an option for Enable Dynamic Views
Set it to Yes or No, depending on what you want to do.
Press Save at the bottom left corner of the page (you need to scroll down to it).

If you do this, then any visitor who trys to view your blog using a dynamic view is shown a message (complete with Blogger logo) saying:

Sorry, dynamic views aren't available for this blog.
You'll be redirected to the blog homepage [link to the home page] momentarily. Learn more

To turning off, or not?

Initially, I wasn't going to bother turning dynamic views off for my blogs, even ones where dynamic views don't make sense eg because the blog looks more like a regular website.

But a later announcement of the Chrome extension for Blogger says that:

will automatically detect [your reader is] viewing a Blogger blog, and then display a Blogger icon (the orange ‘B’!) in [their] address bar which lets [them] select and view the blog in one of the five new dynamic views.below.

In other words, this will tell people [who use it] that they are looking at a site made with Blogger, even if you have gone to a lot of trouble to hide the fact.

Given that, I will be busy for the next 15 minutes, changing the setting to "off" for all except two of my blogs.

Flipcard	http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/flipcard
Mosaic	http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/mosaic
Sidebar	http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/sidebar
Snapshot	http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/snapshot
Timeslide	http://www.YOUR-BLOGS-URL/view/timeslide