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.

Change font size in sidebar

In New Blogger
1. go to Dashboard 2. go to Layout 3. click on Fonts and colors 4. click Sidebar Title Font in box at left 5. locate Smaller and Larger at right 6. click one or more times to increase/decrease the size 7. click Save Changes when finished

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Blogs Don't Really Delete

Addendum to orignal post:

NOW THEY REALLY DON'T DELETE!

See my post NEW Undelete Button on Dashboard

Deleting blogs is a misnomer. Deleting your blog is problematic. Spam bloggers can jump on it (probably via robots) as soon as you "delete" it. Somehow Blogger's procedures allows them not only to grab your old address, but in many cases keep the content (posts) as well! Your writing then is used as "cover" or "bait" for the lazy-ass spammers; they keep your blogful of content alive, for their gain. (They may steal your content by pulling up a cached version of your blog on the web.) Even if none of that happens to you, Google caches (for instance) will not let your dead horse be buried. Cached versions linger on for long periods, so that you haven't really made it "disappear" utterly.

If I wanted to delete one of my blogs, I'd replace the content with a single dummy (aka "stub") post, one that just exists, that doesn't say much. Maybe it could say "Oink!" or some other favorite message of your own. I'd leave it like that, hoping that further Google rides across the Internet to Cache everything would then cache my dummy post.

I can't help but think Blogger may someday deal with the spammers so that Bloggers can delete without such worries. However, there is no telling how far away that is.

Never underestimate the value of contacting Blogger about such undeleted blogs. I have known them to obliterate all trace of them or to get them back for us, but it is often difficult to get their attention. Contact them at Blogger Support. Be persistent.

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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Expandable Post Summaries

For New Blogger (Layout template), see HACKOSPHERE I have personally installed and used the hack from Hackosphere on 3 of my own blogs, including this one, and it works very well. It was demanding enough that it took me 4 times to get it right, but it was worth it. Unfortunately, I didn't need to use a summary for this post because it's so short!

Fair Warning, though, about the above: In some cases, even short posts that you have not coded to say "Read more" at the bottom will do so, anyway. I would like to see a fix for this myself, but until it occurs, I don't mind the slight confusion. In some cases, I marked my short posts with END. at the end of the post, so even if it's marked "Read more", you can see that it's finished.

These sites might help, but I haven't used them, so I'm just pointing them out:

For classic Blogger, check expandable post summaries in Blogger help.

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Write Blogger Support

Inform Blogger Support of your problem. Give as much detail as you can for them to understand. Don't waste your time cursing them. If they don't help you instantly, they may take a while to get to you, but eventually a human will reply instead of the robot.

The Main Blogger contact is Slow Poke Blogger Support.

You probably have to keep notifying them; Their first response is always an automated reply. If their first response gives you a number, reference it every time you write back!

Another line of communication is

BLOGGER HELP FORM


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Time Zone -- How To Change or Set It

How to change the time zone setting
- Go to your Dashboard and log in. - Click on Change Settings. - You will be in Basic Settings. - Click on Formatting. - Look down the page and find Time Zone. - Click the arrow at the end of the box and Select the correct time zone. - Be sure to go to the bottom of the page and click on Save Settings.

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Backup The Template

FOR CLASSIC BLOGGER: If you never made a backup of the template and stored it somewhere safe like in Notepad or some other plain text editor, you can reload (select again) one of Blogger's standard templates. It will merely overwrite the one that's gotten damaged. It will not damage your posts. If you have customizations (such as links, etc. in the sidebar) in your current template, copy all that so that later you can Copy just those bits and Paste it into the new template to bring it up to par with how it was supposed to be.

If this works out, then you can make a new Safety Copy of the template! You know, right-click your mouse, then Select All, then right click again, and Copy. Keep it in memory and go straight to where you're placing the copy so that you can Paste it in there and save that file. Call it SafetyTemplate.txt or anything else you won't forget!

Attach date to filename:

Later you may want to keep several copies at a time, so you can attach a number or the date of the save to the file. Name it something you can remember.

Today is 09/04/06.

A saved template file might therefore be SafetyTemplate090406.txt

FOR NEW BLOGGER: The new system lets you download copies of the template to your hard disk, but since it's XML instead of HTML, you can't do as much with it. You can keep it safe, you can keep copies from different days. The Widgets are not there; they are evidently stored on the servers along with the posts. It's a different situation now.