Editing The Template In A New Blogger Blog

The template in a New Blogger blog, when published to Blog*Spot (or to a Google Custom Domain) is written in XML, not HTML. A lot of HTML based tweaks won't work in New Blogger.

If you force HTML into your template, you may end up with one of the new, cryptic error codes

bX-lgwej

This says that your post template contains invalid HTML.

Are you seeing this error? If so, don't despair.

• Revert the template back to Classic, so your readers can access the blog.
• Build a test version of the blog, and work on a New Blogger template, while your readers are accessing the production blog.
• Take your HTML based template tweaks, that made your Classic blogs unique, and add them as HTML / JavaScript page elements. Test everything, carefully, in all available browsers.
• When you have a New Blogger template for your blog, looking as you like it, Save the template to a known location.
• Migrate your production blog to a New Blogger template again.
• Restore the saved template, developed above, to your production blog.

XML is not as user friendly as HTML was. But 90% of the HTML based tweaks can probably be copied into HTML page elements in the GUI Page Elements section of the Template. Forget about raw XML, and use Page Elements.

XML is not as forgiving as HTML. You may have to learn some discipline, when coding New Blogger template entries, and even posts.

Most HTML tags, like the Anchor tag, come in pairs.

<a href="http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/editing-template-in-new-blogger-blog.html">
http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/editing-template-in-new-blogger-blog.html</a>

is an anchor link to this article. Notice the

<a...> ... </a>

pair.

Some HTML tags, like the Break tag, don't come in pairs.

<br>

is a tag that I use a lot. There is no sequence

<br> ... </br>

A Break tag, in strict HTML, is better written as

<br />

The requirements of strict HTML you will probably have to learn from experience. An Object tag can't be written as the Break tag is written.

<object />

isn't valid. Nor is a simple

<object ... >

Here's how I got an embedded video object to work, in my Miscellaneous Musings post More Bumper Cars

<span style="text-align: center; display: block;"><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/z9tKWzxSZ5E"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/z9tKWzxSZ5E" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="samedomain" height="350" width="425"></embed></object></span>

Note the Embed and Param tags, too. The Param didn't require pairing. The Object and Embed tags did - you'll get errors when publishing with them unpaired. I got an error when I tried publishing Object as

<object ... />

The only solution was to publish it as

<object ... > ... </object>

Apparently all tags aren't as versatile in formatting as the meta tag is. Life isn't fair, nor is strict HTML easy. Deal with it.

>> Top

Beta Evaluation

Today is September 16. I made my first post in this blog on August 16, so this is my one month evaluation.

The Good

• Labels.
  
• Archives, to replace Previous Posts.
  
• The Page Layout editor / GUI Template.
  
• The improvedTemplate editor.
  
• Private blogs, requiring authentication.
  
• The improved Main Page view.
  
• The improved Edit Posts screen.
  
• Various minor tweaks.
  • The Edit Posts screen lets you page forward and backwards, when there are more posts then will fit on the maximum requested posts screen.
  • The post editor actually highlighted an error, in addition to saying that I had made one.
  • Instant publishing - no spinner of death.
  
  

The Bad

• Feeds don't work with Google SiteMaps.
  
• Authentication / commenting between beta and classic users.
  
• External publication not working.
  
• Post Summaries (aka ">>>More") not working.
  

The Ugly

• Once you go forward, you can't go back!
• Not all features are provided, to those blogs that publish externally.
  

The Good

Labels
If I was to pick one feature which would keep me in a Beta Blog, it would be Labels. The ability to associate posts by keyword, dynamically, is useful. Just that. But take that ability, and generate a custom main page view, of all posts with that keyword. Way more than useful. Very user friendly.

Archives
The old 10 Previous Posts list is no more, it's been integrated with the archives.

The Page Layout (aka Page Elements) Editor
The ability to customise 75% (my guess) of all blog features, using a GUI process, is a big relief. The template editor is not very user friendly. But defining commonly used features in a GUI process, and letting us change their characteristics, goes a long way towards making the template editor unnecessary.

Just moving elements within the page is a major improvement. Want a link list at the top of the sidebar? Grab it, drag it, and drop it. Want to change colours and / or fonts? We now have a standardised setting process for that. No more "Why did that change size?").

The slightly improved Template editor.
The template editing process, while substantially like the old, helps you to save and restore your current template, using a GUI process. This will encourage each of us to save our templates more readily, which will reduce stress level when editing templates, which may reduce mistakes. I know that it will for me. Plus we can make smaller changes, leading to more understanding of what we are doing, and possibly less mistakes.

And a possibility for endless activity - template HTML now supports Javascript. I am just getting in to this - but there is real potential for pushing into new territory.

Authentication
Using a Google account / password to authenticate ourselves allows blogs to be made private for viewing, as well as for adminstration. And it integrates well with the menu of blogs (ie "dashboard") under our control.

The Improved Main Page View
Under Classic Blogs, you could have 2 views - main page, and article. You could have an article view of any specific post, but you could have a sequential ("main page") view of only the latest 10 (or whatever number the blog owner determined) posts. If the articles of interest weren't in that latest x number, it was time to look by post name. Oh yes, there was no post name list (excepting of course the 10 previous posts). Good luck finding a post by title!

Now, your main page view is unlimited. The limitation simply affects how many in a single view - when you get to the end of the page, just hit "Newer" or "Older". And integrating Label search results into main page view makes it great.

The Vastly Improved Edit Posts Screen
Start with the first improvement that I saw weeks ago. When you peruse the Edit Posts list, if you decide upon a limit of 50 posts, that's now just 50 posts on the first screen. More than 50 posts? Hit "Older" ("Newer").

And it gets better. All posts are listed, with their Labels. Want a comprehensive list, by post, of all labels used? Here it is.

And in another column is a master list of all labels. If you click on one, the list of posts shows all posts for that label. And each post listing all labels for that post. Want a labels cross-reference? Here it is.

And we have ability to select listed posts, and then to add or remove a selected label. Need to change one label for another? Here's a list to do this from, quite painlessly.

And a minor (but not very much so) item. For each post with Comments, you get a link to view the comments for that post.

Various Minor Tweaks
A nice experience here. I actually went to Publish a post, and was told that I was missing an opening "<a>" (unbalanced "</a>"). The difference here was that it highlighted the offending "</a>"!

The spinner of death is no more. When you Publish a post, or edit the template, your changes save instantly. No more waiting. YAY!

The Bad

Feeds

Authentication

Publishing To External Servers

Post Summaries

There's No Going Back, Folks!

Not all features are available to blogs that are published externally (aka FTP blogs).

>> Top

Raw HTML Editing In Template

This is now available. I am crossing my fingers, and adding a Google Sitemap to my blog.

Here is the relevant portion of the template (details omitted, to prevent the old post / sidebar alignment problem.

<head>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
<meta content='.......' name='description'/>
<meta content='.......' name='keywords'/>
<META content='.......' name='verify-v1'/>

So far, it's been accepted by the Google Sitemap wizard. Plus, I did a View - Page Source in Firefox, and the new meta records seem to parse properly.

You have added a Sitemap to http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/. Reports may take several hours to update. Thank you for your patience!

(Edit 8/30 21:45): Close, but no cigar. The Atom feed looks great, from Sage. But, looking at my Google Webmasters display, I see

Line: 1 Incorrect namespace
Your Sitemap or Sitemap index file doesn't properly declare the namespace. [?] Tag:
feed
Line: 1 URL not allowed
This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. [?] Url:
[http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/......./posts/full/.......]
Line: 1 URL not allowed
This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. [?] Url:
[http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/......./posts/full/.......]

More work tomorrow. :(

Migration From Blogger Classic To Blogger Beta

I have several Blogger blogs, among the various websites and other web presences that I maintain. Two of my biggest blogs - PChuck's Network, and The Real Blogger Status - simply can't be migrated, given the current level of problems, and of design deficiencies, in Blogger Beta. The latter blog, which I call RBS, absolutely won't be migrated until there are no more Classic blogs. Maybe it won't be migrated at all.

How can I continue, without developing RBS, even after everybody else takes the plunge and moves forward? Simple - I have RBS Beta, in addition to RBS Classic. RBS Beta will contain all issues specifically related to Blogger Beta. Now eventually, RBS Beta will contain most of the content that I write, relevant to blogging. But RBS Classic isn't going to disappear.

I'll retain both blogs, and in the tradition of the web, use static hyperlinks between the two, in various mirrored posts. And I'll use dynamic digests, from syndicated feeds. Portions of the most current 5 to 7 posts, in either blog, will be visible in the other.

I used FeedDigest, which takes the syndicated (Atom) feed from each blog, creates a custom feed with the title and a small amount of content, from each post, and makes a small feedlet in javascript. I put the feedlet from each blog, into the template of the other.

• I setup RBS Classic, and added a feed from RBS Beta.
  • Into the template (editing the HTML) for RBS Classic, I put the FeedDigest feedlet from RBS Beta.
  • I installed that into the footer of the blog, right below the end of the posts.
  • I put an anchor tag at the top of the footer.
  • In the Sidebar, under Key Articles, I added a link labeled "Real Blogger Status - Beta Feed", which jumps me straight to the anchor tag, and to the bottom of the page.
  • See the details, if you like.
    • Check out the code.
    • Check out the display.
  .
• I setup RBS Beta, and added a feed from RBS Classic.
  • Into the template (using the GUI Page Layout editor) for RBS Beta, I added a Page Element (HTML/Javascript), in the footer.
  • The FeedDigest feedlet went straight into the new page element, which was placed right after the bottom of the posts.
  • I put an anchor tag at the top of the page element code, in the title of the element.
  • In the Sidebar, under Links, I added a link labeled "Real Blogger Status - Classic Feed", which jumps me straight to the anchor tag and the bottom of the page.
  • See the details, if you like.
    • Check out the code.
    • Check out the display.
  .

The dynamic feeds will simply complement the static links. I use a lot of static links in all of my blogs. Without hyperlinks, my blogs would be a bit less useful.

In some IT migration strategies, this is called a bridge. I suspect that this looks complicated, at first glance. It was simpler to do, than to write about. The whole job took maybe an hour. Writing this, with the examples, took an entire evening, and then some.

Migration Feed Example - RBS Classic, with a feed from RBS Beta

I setup an account at FeedDigest, and created a custom feed from The Real Blogger Status - Beta.

• Here's the code provided to me by FeedDigest.
  

  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/UZULGEIPQN.js"><noscript><a href="http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/UZULGEIPQN.html">Click for "The Real Blogger Status".</a> By <a href="http://www.feeddigest.com/">Feed Digest</a></noscript></script>



• Here's what it looks like, coded in the template of The Real Blogger Status - Classic (with various line breaks added, to prevent the old post / sidebar alignment problem).
  

  <hr />
  <p align=center>
  <a name="BridgeFeed"><strong>
  The Real Blogger Status - Beta</strong></a>
  </p>
  <p>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/UZULGEIPQN.js">
  <noscript><a href="http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/UZULGEIPQN.html">
  Click for "RBS Beta7".</a> By <a href="http://www.feeddigest.com/">
  Feed Digest</a></noscript></script>
  </p>
  <hr />



• Here's what it looks like, at the bottom of The Real Blogger Status - Classic.

Migration Feed Example - RBS Beta, with a feed from RBS Classic

I likewise created a custom feed from The Real Blogger Status - Classic.

• Here's the code provided to me by FeedDigest.
  

  
  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/PEXJUYD3JV.js"><noscript><a href="http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/PEXJUYD3JV.html">Click for "The Real Blogger Status".</a> By <a href="http://www.feeddigest.com/">Feed Digest</a></noscript></script>
  



• I created a HTML / Javascript page element, using the Beta Layout Editor, and added that to the bottom of the page. I copied the FeedDigest code into the new element.


• Here's what it looks like, at the bottom of The Real Blogger Status - Beta.

Meta Records

Anybody with serious ambition for his / her blog wants the blogs to be indexed by search engines. Making your blog (website) search engine friendly is a key issue in many forums.

One of the essential ingredients involved in that goal is the use of meta records. Whether for search engines in general, or for Google Sitemap in particular, meta records are essential. For the former, you'll add 2 meta name records - description and keywords; for the latter, you'll add 1 meta name record - verify-v1.

But meta records have to be installed in the non-visible portion of the template. Without raw template edit ability, this does not seem possible.

If anybody knows that I'm wrong, or has a workaround for this situation, please speak up.

(Edit 8/30 21:00): Raw template edit ability is now available. It does have its limitations, though.