So, I know I keep bitching about how much blogger sux and i really need to get my shit together, move to WP or my own domain, and *eventually* i may even actually take action. (this is my classic pattern: bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch okay FINALLY i'm doing something).
meanwhile, though, moving is a hassle, but i still would like to redecorate a tad.
i know some of y'all have been doing stuff with blogger like changing the background color and putting up banners and so forth. any quick and dirty guide available to doing such things? bear in mind that i know about as much html as will fill an ant eyedropper and get easily bent out of shape when it comes to things technical, on account of the prospect of OH MY GOD I FUCKED IT UP PERMANENTLY/ERASED IT ALTOGETHER/SHUT DOWN THE POWER GRID FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTY/JUST BROUGHT ABOUT THE RISE OF SKYNET, RUN FOR THE FALLOUT SHELTER.
thanks!!
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16 comments:
whatever you do, ALWAYS save a copy of your original template before you start messing around with it. you can even save it is a rtf file or word document.
also, there a number of sites that gave free blogger templates. just do a google search, some of them are actually pretty darn nice too.
good luck!
oh, crap, did i delete more comments? looked like it was empty when i got rid of the dupe.
which, anyway, gonna say: y'know, and then along comes blogger to remind me that yep! still sucks! it's been fucked up all day.
anyway, thanks guys.
and yeah, actually i did save a copy of my template, which i keep fairly up to date. did it -after- like the fourth time blogger screwed up something when i saved what i -thought- i was changing and ended up, like, cutting off the bottom -half-, links, code and all. only retyped i don't know how many dozens of links by hand how many times? before i wised up.
gah.
This is a good idea, BD. I'm in pretty much the same boat; I haven't even figured out how to do a cut-tag yet.
dude, i don't even know what a cut-tag -is.-
i mean i bet i'm doing it, maybe? but i don't speak that crazy moon language...
belledame,
just had mine done by Miss Zoot--i like it and, as technology-phobe, I even paid her to change it for me. totally reasonable rates...
http://www.zootsdesigns.com/
thanks, elle.
1) Make a new blog and copy over your template from here. This new blog is gonna be your testbed.
2) Notepad sucks ass, you need a good text editor. I use the freeware version of NoteTab Light. It's a pretty robust text editor that has libraries of code snippets; choose the HTML library, double-click on something and it'll throw that tag into your document. It also remembers what documents you were working on in a Firefox-like tab bar. I use it for all my blog drafts and HTML/CSS editing.
3)If you want general basic HTML help, W3Schools or Webmonkey aren't too bad. You know how web colors are written in hex values? There's a couple of good web color generators here and here.
4) Unfortunately, most blog templates are based on stylesheets, so 'quick and dirty' doesn't really apply. When I was learning this stuff, if I wanted to change, for instance, the banner, I would search your source for ...we've all got something to grind., 'cause that's where the banner would go - okay, it's contained in a blog-header div, so now I search up near the top of your source for blog-header - and now I see two things that say blog-header... well, without getting too into it, now I would play around with those two background colors and images and see what happens. And hey, testbed, so break it all you want.
4) You can't throw a brick at your blogroll without hitting twelve kajillion web designers, and probably a lot of them, including me, could help you out with questions or whatever. That's probably the best way to figure out how to change something specific.
...I'm a paranoid fuck, so back when I was on blogger I had my template saved:
•in the blog
•in my testblog
•in my other testblog
•on my computer
•in emails sent to various webmail accounts
Redundancy > Skynet.
I'm really happy to find some of these free templates, but how do you actually use them? Any way to get a quick tutorial? Especially the site that nanette linked to. Thanks, from another technophobe.
You're on blogger, right? When you click on 'Download' from a template in nanette's link, it pops open the source file. Just copy everything, then open up your template, delete everything and paste the new one in there.
Again, backup your original template to a text file somewhere before you mess with it.
wow, thanks for such a quick response, zwrk! I'll try that right now--and belledame, if you go to that link I've got dibs on the purple, hehe.
done--and done! Only thing I noticed after I changed the template is that there's no place for a profile. Would it be possible to get the profile html from my previous template and copy and paste it in there?
never mind--I figured it out. Sorry for hijacking your thread, belledame :)
dammit! i wanted purple!...
heh.
thanks, zwrk, everyone.
i will get to this eventually, i swear. no, i mean it: gonna do it.
hey, zwrk, anyone: would you bother to update to Beta Blogger, or does that just complicate matters, do you know? i hear not so good things.
see, that feature list actually looks kind of decent, but i don't know that i trust blogger not to fuck it up.
eh. try it, but don't burn down this place yet.
Well, I used the purple and it looked fine on my pc, but everybody else told me they coudln't see it right. The background was either all purple or gray and couldn't read the words, just see the pix, so I've switched back to my previous template. Damn. I really liked that template, too.
Watch out on Blogger, if you just load up a new template, it will erase your links.
It may be easier to just tweak your current template, following the advice of zwrk. Do NOT fear HTML/XML - they are no harder than fooling around with
the tabs, pull down menus, and other options in a piece of software with a graphic user interface.
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