Blogger Magic - Links And Colors

We see an occasional question in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue about blog links - and the captions that change colour, mysteriously.

Some blog owners seem to regard the colour changes as one more Blogger pecadillo - ignoring the fact that colour changing link captions have been part of Internet design, since the early days.

In most blogs, you can change link colours - and prevent the colour changes - using the Blogger dashboard Template Designer.

You can change any color using the color code, or a color chart, part of any colour wizard.



To access the Template Designer, start from the dashboard Template page.

The Template Designer is behind the "Customize" button, on the dashboard Template page.

From the dashboard Template page, click on the "Customize" button.

Start with the Template Designer main page.

Click on Advanced - and look for "Links".

On my blog, I can adjust "Link Color", "Visited Color", and "Hover Color".



Template Designer menu and wizard combinations may vary.

The Template Designer menu / display can be adjusted according to the decision of the template designer.

Your template, when customized, using Template Designer, may have a "Links" section, with "Link Color", "Visited Color", and "Hover Color". It may have additional colours - or colours and fonts may be combined. All of this is as setup in the template "Variable definitions" section.

You can change any colour using the colour code - or a color chart.



If you want your links - including titles - to remain one colour constantly, change the 3 colours (or whatever your blog has) to one common value.

My blog uses "Link Color" = "2d25ce", "Visited Color" = "ce25c5", and "Hover Color" = "583fff". Your blog may use a different colour combination.

For a useful color number / visual chart, you can use W3Schools: HTML Color Picker.

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Not all #Blogger blog owners understand link captions - and how the caption colours change, to indicate pages that have been visited from a given browser. Some think the colour changes are a Blogger novelty.

In reality, link caption colours have been a feature, since browsers were first used in the Internet.

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Now, You See It - Now, You Don't

Some blog owners create a post, with content that should be visible, only when required.

The post contains a question - accompanied by the answer to the question. The question should be viewed, without the answer being visible, to make the reader think about the answer. This is called, by many, a "spoiler".

Not everybody knows how to construct a spoiler. Some blogs use JavaScript - painful to construct, and maybe not effective for every reader. Security conscious blog readers may block scripts from Blogger blogs - and either your spoiler is visible, immediately - or never becomes visible.

Neither of the latter scenarios make the post a lot of fun to read.

You don't need JavaScript, to make a spoiler.

This is fortunate, because not every reader is going to allow scripts, from every blog. Personally, I block JavaScript, in general - and enable only for my own blogs - and for specific websites, like the Blogger dashboard and most Google pages.

If the blog posts have a solid white background, you make the post text white.

Examine a post, in my text blog.

Two spoilers - both blank.

Click and drag across the first spoiler - and see the first answer.

Click and drag across the second spoiler - and see the second answer.



The spoiler code is not complicated.

What would YOU do?

What Lancelot chose is hidden. But - make <span style="font-weight:bold;">your</span> choice before peeking. To see the answer, highlight the area indicated, by clicking the mouse and dragging the cursor between the arrows.

The answer is here ==><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Noble Lancelot said that he would allow <span style="font-weight:bold;">her</span> to make the choice herself. Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.</span><==

Now - what is the moral to this story? To see the answer, highlight the area indicated.

The answer is here ==><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If you don't let a woman have her own way, things are going to get <span style="font-weight:bold;">ugly</span>.</span>==

Hoping that your blog does not use a semi transparent floating background over a multi colour background, just make the text the same color as the background. Then, instruct the reader to click and drag the cursor, to highlight and make the spoiler visible.

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A #Blogger blog post which contains a question and answer section is fun to read - but not every blog reader will benefit, with posts that use JavaScript, to hide text content.

An easy way to hide content is to make the text the color of the background. The reader can click and drag, to highlight the text, when then is visible.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2011/10/cookies-vs-scripts-two-types-of-server.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2009/04/many-faces-of-google.html

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Some bX Codes Caused By Zero Alpha ("rgba") Value

We're seeing a few reports of bX codes, that are not solved by simply resetting the template - and do not involve the mysterious "500 Internal Server Error".

In some cases, the blog owner may see a bX code when trying to use "Configure Blog Posts", or another Layout gadget wizard. If the blog itself can be viewed, and Template HTML Editor is usable, the bX error may come from use of a "0" Alpha color setting.

Blogger Engineering is aware of the problem, and has suggested that a fix is being developed. While we await the necessary fix, we may need to work around the problem.

The suggestion by Blogger Engineering is that we use a "Transparent" option, instead of "0" alpha value.

It seems that this issue is triggered by color variables with a value that has zero alpha, e.g. 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)'.

Some gadgets, and template sections, have the "transparent" selection in their color setup. Not all have this option, however. Some template CSS rules are not so easily edited.

The problem here is the "rgba" 4th value of "0" - ie, the "alpha" "0" value. The simplest solution is to change the "0" to a non zero value - without changing the "rgb" values.

The simplest solution, to get "Configure Blog Posts" or any other affected gadget usable, may be to use Template Editor, and change the values, directly. Look at every CSS rule, that has an "rgba" setting - and look for a 4th value of "0".

• For "rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" - Change to "rgba(0, 0, 0, .1)".
• For "rgba(255, 255, 0, 0)" - Change to "rgba(255, 255, 0, .1)".
• For "rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)" - Change to "rgba(255, 255, 255, .1)".

A transparency setting of ".1" should be visually close to "0" - and should get the blog in question back online and updatable. And after Blogger Engineering fixes their gadget / template editor code, to accept the "0" value - and if the ".1" creates a noticeably unacceptable condition - this can be corrected, when necessary.

It's possible that this error, being seen, is part of a larger problem. You may need a persistent solution.

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Some #Blogger bX codes, being seen in the forums right now, do not appear to involve terminal template corruption, and the mysterious "500 Internal Server Error". Some bX codes can be easily corrected, when they involve a "0 alpha" value (a CSS color rule involving an "rgba" setting).

When the Template Editor is usable, a simple search and replace for "rgba(nn, nn, nn, 0)" to "rgba(nn, nn, nn, .1)" may be sufficient to correct the error.

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