The other day I was reading Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald to remind myself just how much I had forgotten. As I read the chapter on blogs I saw a screen shot of a blog with post summaries which showed the title of the post in the “Continue Reading” link.

I thought that it looked so much better than just “Read more…” or “Continue reading…” or the other variations I have seen and decided to try and use it in my blogs. The big question was of course, “How on earth do you do that?”

That meant that I would have to start experimenting and looking through help pages. So, here goes.

Continue reading "How to Show the Post Title in Blogger Post Summaries"

 

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As anyone who creates content on the Web will tell you the best browser to avoid is Internet Explorer. This is because Internet Explorer, even the latest IE8, has so many inbuilt faults and errors that it is a struggle to get any website or blog to work properly. The errors also produce different problems for different users.

That is why you can now see so many sites displaying a message that the site is best viewed in Firefox. I will also advise you to use Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari or Opera in order to get the best from this blog.

In Internet Explorer the only problem I have failed to overcome is that if you use the AddThis Bookmark button and click on either Email or More to open another window you may not see it. It is there, but in IE it insists on being only at the top of the page and not in the middle of the window where it should be. All you have to do is scroll up the page and it will be there at the top.

This does not happen on all computers so you may be lucky and see it pop up straight away. I have been in touch with support at AddThis and they are aware of this IE problem but so far they have not been able to get it to happen on their own computers and cannot find out why this fault occurs only on some computers or what in IE is causing it.

Technorati Tags: IE Problems,Browsers

 

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Since the Firefox update which brings it to version 3.0.11 many users have found that the new tab command does not work. Whether you select New Tab from the File menu, right click next to a tab and select New Tab or use the New Tab button on the toolbar, nothing happens.

This is a serious nuisance as the only way to get a new tab is to middle click on a link. Unfortunately this is no good if you want to open a new tab to type in a new URL without losing the content of the previous tabs.

Fortunately, you have a choice of two simple cures.

Continue reading "Firefox New Tab Not Working"

 

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Today I was asked an intriguing question about styling the Blog Archive list by a fellow fan of this Blogging Pro template.

I have a request/question… Is it possible to get the year/count on the same line as the arrow symbol?
e.g. > MAY (3) or > 2009 (5).

I hope you understand what I am trying to say.

This was an interesting diversion after frantically rescuing this blog’s looks from some sort of server error which stopped the background graphics loading. So I had a look and it turns out that it is possible. However, although it works in the latest version of all the browsers (I checked it in Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8, Opera 9, Opera 10, Safari 4, Google Chrome 2, Avant 11  and Flock 2) it stubbornly refuses to work in Internet Explorer 7. I will keep trying for IE7 but so far it has resisted all attempts.

Update: It now works in IE 7 as detailed below.

Continue reading "Moving the Pointer In a Blogger Archive List"

 

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We all know how annoying it can be sometimes to have to scroll all the way back to the top of a page after reading a long blog post and a long list of useful comments. Just being able to click a link to take us straight back to the top is much easier.

Some blogs have added them to the bottom of sidebars, some have added them to footers if they have them. The easiest way to add the link is to place it so that it appears at the bottom of each page just above the standard Blogger navigation links to Newer Posts, Home and Older Posts.

Continue reading "Add a Top of Page Link to Blogger Templates"

 

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Blogger has now taken the Google search gadget out of draft and added it to the list of gadgets you can add to your blog sidebars. This means you can use Add a Gadget to add  and configure it instead of having to set it up in Google Custom Search, then copy the code into an HTML/JavaScript gadget to insert it the blog.

In the Configure Search Box window you can choose whether you want your readers to be able to search just your blog, the whole Web, pages you have linked to or the sites in your Blog Roll and link lists. Or, perhaps, all of them.

The choice is yours, as is the title. You may want to change it from the default “Search This Blog” to whatever best suits your requirements.

Clicking on “Save” when you have made your choices will add the gadget using your blog’s style and colours. So you will no longer need to bother about styling it to match the blog.

Now, in case you are wondering why the search choices are listed under tabs it is because the search results will open in tabs in your blog and will be styled to suit the look and feel of your blog. You can see an example here on Google’s Ajax APIs Blog.

A word of caution. If you have not made your blog public so that it can be indexed by search engines you will be given a warning notice. If you continue and click save, the gadget will be added but may not appear in your sidebar until you go to Setting>Basic and change the selection next to “Let search engines find your blog” to Yes.

Once installed you will have a custom search engine which, because it uses the Ajax Search APIs, will be constantly updated as you change or update your link lists and Blog Roll. And, best of all, the results will be inline and closely integrated with your blog.

The only gripe I have is that you cannot do this for AdSense for Search. So you will still have to configure AdSense for Search yourself and copy the code to the HTML/JavaScript gadget. Let’s hope that Blogger introduces an AdSense version soon.

Technorati Tags: Gadgets,Search,Customising

 

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