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.

Edit The Template

How to edit or add to the template
Old Blogger; 1. From the Dashboard, click on Template. New Blogger: 1. From the Dashboard, click on Layout. OR 1. From the Navbar, click on Customize. 2. Then click on Edit HTML to edit the template. Now you have to know what you're doing. If you are in New Blogger, you may wish to place the code in a page element instead.

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Links List in Beta

Migration Is A Two-Step Process

On the Dashboard of blogs that have been migrated to Beta (New Blogger), there's a Manage list out to the right of each blog title that says Posts Settings Layout. If you have not been migrated at all or if your template has not been upgraded at all it will say: Posts Settings Template.

If migrated, your Navbar will also have Customize and New Post in it. Clicking Customize there or Layout in Dashboard will start the rest of the procedure (upgrading the template).

If you are in Beta, you will be able to add a Page Element, one of which is a links list. When you add it, be sure to have handy access to the URLs that you wish to enter and then just follow the directions. Enter the title and URLs for each blog, click on Add Link, and when all links are added be sure to save the changes before exiting.

If you are interested in having links open in new windows, titles, or alt comments on pics, you should choose an html/javascript page element rather than a Links List. If the Links List allowed any of that, I never figured it out!

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Am I Beta (Layout Template) Yet?

If you think your blogs might have changed from Classic template to Beta (aka New Blogger or Layout), but you aren't sure that it happened, consider this:

If your blogs have been migrated to Beta (Layout), then you'd have "Customize" in the Navbar above your Title or "Layout" instead of "Template" in your dashboard. Click on either and it'll offer to upgrade your template. If Customize and Layout aren't there, your blogs haven't been fully converted to Beta. If they are there, click on them so that you can Upgrade your template to Beta. You can also check beneath the Template tab for "Customize Design" and click on that to Upgrade your template.

[Screenshot below shows above references.]


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Migration To Blogger Beta

Waiting For Beta

I think most people have had to wait to be "invited". On a gradual basis, I guess they do get invited. At one time when I was not yet interested in Beta, I saw the following; I don't know how it works.

Beta

I waited until there was an invitation, which was a text blip that started appearing after each "publish" on the right hand side of my screen telling me about how you could do "more" with Beta. The first step was to "migrate" my blogs into Beta, but then I had to Customize and Upgrade them in order to be fully converted.

Migration was done to all blogs at once. The other procedures were done one blog at a time, as I requested them. Clicking on Customization will cause it to offer to "upgrade" your template.

I had 4 or 6 blogs that they migrated all at once, saying they'd notify me when it was over. I thought that meant it'd take a long time, and maybe sometimes it does. But it only took 3 minutes to migrate my blogs, including the big one (The Rat Squeaks, with nearly 1000 posts). So Blogger's not slow all the time!

See other migration-related posts on this same site. (Click on migration under Label.)

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