When Reverting to Classic Template Was A Big Mistake

Oops!

Now you want to revert back to the New Blogger (Layout) version, but Blogger only allows for part of that; unless you had not yet created any page elements, you can't switch back with a single button-push or without some busy work! 1. locate and click on "Customize Design", 2. then click on "Upgrade Your Template ", 3. choose a new template. 4. click "Save the template" [More below...] You will be returned to an upgraded version of Blogger (with the layout) in which you will find some aspects of the Layout version, but not the elements that you added previously. You can create new Page Elements, but all the elements that disappeared when you reverted to the Classic template will remain lost. The only way to have kept a "backup" of the page elements would have been to have "expanded" the widget templates and to have made "copy and paste" copies of the text data and kept them in plain-text files (such as Notepad). I've switched back and forth like this numerous times, but only in a test blog, not in an important blog with things too important for me to lose all the elements, so I may not have noticed every detail of what's possible and what's not. I just know that some things will be possible. Never discount the possibility of being able to view "cached" versions of your blog in Google or other search engines and possibly being able to "copy and paste" some of your code or info from there. Maybe you can recuperate a goodly portion of it by using your Internet Options to get to the "View Source Code" feature. But do be careful not to copy any parts of the posts out of the Source Code into your actual template; it will cause great damage if you do!

Where Is "Style" In New Blogger?

When you open the template, move to the Edit Html tab and click it. Search for "Body" and other Style (CSS) items that you might already be familiar with from Classic Blogger, though they are not called "Style" any more in New Blogger templates! (Note: CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets). You might see something like this: body { background:oldlace; url("http://www.blogblog.com/harbor/rocks.jpg") no-repeat right bottom; background-attachment:fixed; margin:0; padding:0; font:x-small Georgia, Serif; color:$textcolor; font-size/* */:/**/small; font-size: /**/small; } At that point you are in the Style (or CSS) section.

END.

FTP Users Can't Use New Blogger

At present, FTP users cannot avail themselves of the new features in New Blogger. I don't know why; Blogger says so.

It may be of interest to FTP users to investigate the new Custom Domains with Blogger, where you can use all the New Blogger features. Go HERE to read about it in a Blogger help file.

END.

Change Font In Posts

In New Blogger:
1. go to Dashboard 2. go to Layout 3. click on Fonts and colors 4. click Text Font in box at left 5. locate list of font styles at right 6. click one. 7. click Save Changes when finished END.

How To Upgrade A Migrated Blog

When a blog has been Migrated to the New Blogger servers (all blogs now are), but the template has not been Upgraded, you will not yet have access to the additional features of New Blogger. You can continue to sit on your Classic template if you wish. You do not have to Upgrade, but you can.

Current instruction page from Blogger: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44474

Original New Blogger Instructions
Customize Design : To Upgrade, look for the tab beneath "Template" that says "Customize Design" and click on it to select a new template.

My Version Of Instructions
Customize: 1. Click on "Customize" in the Navbar above your blog. 2. You'll see some instructions that terminate with "Learn more about Blogger Layouts customization". 3. The last few words of that line is supposed to be a link that you can click on to proceed. If it doesn't act as a link, use the Refresh button and clear your cache and cookies to correct it!

If you have been used to a customized template, the system will save a copy of your current template. You will be stuck with this new template until you can re-customize it, bit by bit. You CANNOT replace the New template with your Classic template with Copy and Paste. They are incompatible. However, if at length you cannot stand New Blogger, you can REVERT to the Classic template. But you cannot leave the New Blogger servers nor can you refuse to migrate to them when advised to do so. If you are a new blogger, you likely started out in Layout mode and are better off there, though it is possible to change to a Classic template.

Changing Templates In New Blogger

You have to change, but you don't have to change!

At some point soon, most of you who have held back will be forced to make the change to New Blogger. When you get there (are Migrated), you may not have to change your template immediately or even for a long while.

Those of you with a heavily customized template can (sorta) keep it!

However, you can't quite keep your own--not if you upgrade! Sadly, if the time comes when you have to or want to change to a new template so that you can utilize the full range of new features in New Blogger, then you may as well realize going in that the template choices are few. You may find them all dull and boring.

Cheer up if you're dumping an attractive customized template! It will take work, but just choose one and let the system Upgrade your template. Later, as time goes by and you learn how things work in the new set-up, you can begin to make the changes in your new template so that it will resemble your old one.

Keep a copy of your old template for reference. You will be able to Copy and Paste portions of it into the new template, as well as restore the additions you made to your old css code that are not in your new template.

Missing Archive In New Blogger

Arrived At New Blogger With Missing Or Malfunctioning Archive?

These are some guesses since I haven't heard much feedback about it
1. See if the Archive page element is activated. 2. If it is, delete it and then re-Add it. 3. If that doesn't work, check Settings-Archiving. 4. Change the Archive frequency (temporarily) to something else just to see if that will wake up the system. Click Save Settings at the page bottom.

Let me know if it works out. I need to find out if I'm full of moonbeams to make these suggestions.

END.

Bx Error Codes

I am placing this info above the older information below; this may be of more help to you. It's a Blogger form to report to and maybe find out what your particular BX code may mean:

Form for BX error codes:

---

I've never yet understood what Blogger thinks we can do (at Blogger Help Group) with these bx error codes. They are evidently working up a more organized system, but I haven't been let in on it yet!

After hearing from Chuck the nitecruzr, I learned that if you search for instance for bX-x082n7 in the Help Group, you'll find a large # of threads concerning the same topic with the same ID--failure to post or failure to save a draft. But so far I've seen no great information on it. Though Blogger Employee keeps telling us that they're on the case, for me this is too much of having to guess my way through their new problem-solving system!

Use the search feature yourself to search for your ID, but I don't know if you can discover much. The complaints are all about the same, and most people don't provide detailed enough info about what they were doing like Blogger asked. You may not learn more than you yourself observed.

If you haven't already, send your ID and other info to Blogger Support and hope that they can sort it out.

BLOGGER SUPPORT


BLOGGER PROBLEM REPORT FORM


BLOGGER HELP FORM


END.

Mailto, Or "Email Me" Link

If still using Classic Blogger, you would have to add the mailto code in the appropriate place in the sidebar. If you're using the Layout template, you'll do the following:

Add an email link in your blog:
1. On the Navbar, click on Customize. 2. Click on Add A Page Element. 3. Click Add To Blog under your choice of page element. 4. for adding a mailto, add an html/javascript page element. 5. Put the following html code into it: <a href="mailto:ratsouthern@gmail.com">You can email me here!</a>

Of course, put your address in it, not mine! You can change the "Email me" wording.

Save Changes when you've finished with the html in the page element.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Mailto, with a picture (or button) link:



Format for above Mailto picture link:

<a href="mailto:YourEmail@what.com"><img src="http://FullUrlOfPhoto" alt="Click to email Mortimer Snerd"></a>

Page Elements Screen

This post was written before several of the new categories, such as the Blog List, Slideshow, or Video or Poll, so that the screenshot below will not quite match what you would currently see. Sorry, someday I'll catch up.

Some people still complain they can't see this item. Sometimes it helps to use Refresh (F5 or Ctrl-F5) or to clear your cache and cookies (in Internet Options-Tools). At times, you might even have to do it twice.

Here is a partial screen shot of the Page Elements list. Others listed below my screen shot are "Logo, Profile, Blog Archive, and Page Header". It is easy to select one and add it.

Click on page-element in the Label box below for other posts on this topic.



See also: Text and Html/javascript page elements

END.

Create A New Post?

I need to create a new post, but how?

METHOD 1:
In your Navbar, click on New Post.

OR

METHOD 2:
On your Dashboard, click New Post under the relevant blog.

OR

METHOD 3:
1. When logged in to your blog, click on Customize in the Navbar.
2. Then click on Posting
3. and then click on Edit Posts

OR

METHOD 4:
If those icons aren't showing, check to see if the pencil icon under each post is
visible? If so,

1. Click on the pencil
2. you should be able to see Create and Edit Posts up above
3. Click on Create.

BUT

If these icons aren't showing and you've done all that you can about Refreshing (Ctrl-F5), clearing the cache and cookies, trying another browser, and so forth (see my EMERGENCY STEPS at the top of this blog), you may only be able to get help from a direct appeal to Blogger Support. Though that process is often slow, they're at:

BLOGGER SUPPORT
http://help.blogger.com/?page=contact

OR

BLOGGER PROBLEM REPORT FORM
http://help.blogger.com/?page=troubleshooter.cs&problem=&contact_type=bug_with_blogger_beta&Submit=Submit

[Be sure you're logged in to your blog, of course, when you try any of the methods above.]

Language Settings

Start at your Dashboard
1. click on Settings 2. click on Formatting 3. go down the page 6 boxes to find Language 4. to the right of Language click the box and you'll see a long list of languages on the drop-down menu. 5. Don't forget to Save Settings at page bottom.

[More below...screenshots, etc.]

Screenshot of Settings and Formatting Screenshot of language list in Formatting. [Language list above is just the first few; the real menu continues to scroll.

At the very bottom of the Settings menu, there's a box to Enable/disable transliteration. If you're seeing Hindi and you're from Nevada, you need to disable it!]

More thorough details can be read at Make Your Blog Speak Your Language, by nitecruzr.

Page Elements--Html/Javascript & Text

The Html/Javascript Page Element Is Better!

At first I chose some Text Page Elements for my information at the top of the blog, but I have since changed it to an HTML/JAVASCRIPT Page Element. For some reason, both require line breaks in order to separate the text into paragraphs. Fair enough, I can do that. But the Text element loses those line breaks every time you return to do some editing, and that's crappy.

So if you had paragraphs or any kind of one-line-at-a-time "grocery list", you'd have to revamp the post to restore it to what you started with! Not hard, just time-consuming!

Text page elements are only good for a straightforward paragraph of information or for some other kind of information that you don't have to edit often.

In the HTML page element, nothing changes or is lost, and you can just edit what you meant to without a lot of special revamping. This is important to a ceaseless reviser like me--I often re-edit!

It is misleading to all users that we are able to put HTML into a Text page element when it's so problematic to do so! And there should have been a warning about this difficulty with making paragraphs. Anyway, fair warning from me!

Change Your "About Me" Title

Trips Into Space?!

I'm not certain if you can change it in Classic Blogger, but in New Blogger you can easily change your About Me to read something else. Mine reads "Lies About Me". Yours could say "My Trips Into Space", or whatever you like.

You cannot however change the "See My Complete Profile" because that is one of the things that belongs to Blogger and isn't accessible to you or me, not that I have been able to discover. Sad, but true.

In New (beta) Blogger:

1. Unless you have been an idiot and deleted the "crossed tools" editing icon (wrench and screwdriver), go to the crossed tools under your "About Me" section.
2. Click on the editing icon.
3. A popup window will open with various information fields that you've probably already filled in when you created your blog.
4. The title "About Me" appears at the top and you can delete and/or replace it.
5. Click on Save Changes before you're through.

The change will usually be instantly visible when the popup window closes. If not, try Refresh (F5). You can go back to this editng box as many times as you need to.

See also: Have 2 or More Profiles On One Account"

Change Time-stamp Format of Comments

[This works for Old or New Blogger]

Next to your Template button, on the left, are your Settings. You can choose a time-stamp format (time, date, or time-date variations) for the comments from a list.

1. Click on Settings.
2. Click on Comments.
3. A little down the page you'll see Comments Timestamp Format.
4. Click the arrow out to the right and it'll show you a list to choose from.
5. Go to page bottom and Save Settings before you exit.

Turn Off Comments In One Post

Disallow Further Comments

1. Go to Manage Posts.
2. Locate the right post.
3. Click on Edit.
4. Below the Post Editor box, click on Post and Comment options.
5. Click "No" on Allow New Comments on this post.
6. Publish.

Beta Migration: Lost My Counter!

If your counter disappeared when you migrated, you'll need to locate the code for it in your old "classic" template. Copy it and paste it into a Page Element called the HTML/Javascript element. Save it. It will become a part of the Beta template. If it's not in the right place, you can use Drag-and-Drop to move it. END.

How Beta Check Spelling Should Look

Beta spell check now turns the screen light blue(!) and highlights all suspect words with red. Then you click the words that you might agree are suspect and it offers alternate choices.

There's a place to click "resume editing" when you're through with the spell check. You don't have to click every word.

There's no longer a pop-up involved.

END.

Change Navbar Color in Beta

Not Rocket Science
1. Go to your Dashboard. 2. Click on Layout. 3. Below where it says Add and Arrange Page Elements, 4. There's a blue bar with "Navbar" on it. 5. Click "Edit" out to the far right and it will offer color choices.

END.

Reverting to Classic From Layout

1. Go into Dashboard. 2. Click on Layout. 3. Click on Edit HTML. 4. At the far left bottom under the template, 5. Click where it says, "Revert to Classic Template." 6. There is also the option below it to "View Classic Template".

[Screenshot of template page below.]


See also Peter's post on reverting or Chuck's post on it.

CAUTION: You will probably lose your page elements if you revert to the Classic template. Although it's possible to then "upgrade" to the Layout template again, you won't get your page elements back. What's lost will probably stay lost.

See the post concerning this hazard at When Reverting to Classic Template Was A Big Mistake"

An associated topic is at Revert To Never Never Land.