The Featured Post Gadget, With Multiple Posts

The "Featured Post" gadget is a useful tool, for spotlighting individual posts.

One of the limitations of the gadget is that it, like many (though not all) Blogger supplied gadgets, allows only one copy on the blog, at any time. The gadget is, after all, called "Featured Post" - not "Featured Posts". Blogger does not give us the ability to feature multiple posts, simultaneously.

Given a little imagination, we can make the gadget work, for multiple posts. We can't feature multiple posts, simultaneously - but we can alternate featured posts, sequentially.

Combining the "Featured Post" gadget and labels, we can alternately feature multiple posts, in a daily or weekly sequence.

I added a label in this blog, "Featured Posts".

I identified a couple dozen posts, in this blog, which need to be featured - and gave each post the label "Featured Posts". My intention, once the Blogger Followers gadget rewrite effort is behind us, is to feature one different post in "Featured Posts", each day.

Just edit the "Featured Post" gadget, and select a different post - each day.

The "Featured Post" gadget is at the top of my blog.

I can edit the gadget, and open the label list.

And, select "Featured Posts".

That gives me a list of my posts, with the "Featured Posts" label.

And, I selected the currently featured post, "Dear Followers Of This Blog".



Next month, I may select a different post to be displayed as a Featured Post.

So I can't feature more than one post at a time - but I can alternately feature different posts. And with some planning, I can make it easy to alternately feature different posts.

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The #Blogger supplied "Featured Post" gadget can't be used with more than one such gadget on any blog, simultaneously. It is called "Featured Post" - maybe, for a reason.

With a little planning, though, you can organise the posts to be featured - and change the gadget, daily or weekly.

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Add A Fixed Location "Subscribe" Button To Your Blog

To encourage email subscriptions, and other social connections, some blog owners provide gadget toolbars, with useful links.

Some blog owners would like to position their gadgets in fixed screen positions.

I want to have a subscribe button hover at the top of the page, while people read my blog.

This blog has a hovering AddThis toolbar, which provides selected social sharing options. And, it has a hovering "Top of Page" button.

Adding a custom subscription gadget, in a fixed screen location, is not complicated.

AddThis has a large library of social sharing gadgets, with their icons - but they don't have any email subscription selections. But you can add an icon based "subscribe" button, "hovering" at the top of the page.

An occasional request suggests using a popup window, containing a subscription form. We don't recommend using a popup window - but a subscription form, on a FeedBurner hosted page, will provide the same function.

1. Add FeedBurner "Subscribe by Email".
2. Add a "Subscribe by Email" FeedBurner hosted form, and a link.
3. Add a suitable icon, containing the FeedBurner subscription link.
4. Try It.

See below "Try It.", for the detailed procedure.

Add FeedBurner "Subscribe by Email".

Using the dashboard Layout page, and "Add a Gadget", add a "Subscribe by Email" gadget. This creates a blog posts FeedBurner hosted feed.

FeedBurner provides the "Subscribe by Email" gadget, with the choice to display either an on screen form - or a simple link to a FeedBurner hosted form page.

Add a "Subscribe by Email" FeedBurner hosted form, and a link.

Once a "Subscribe by Email" gadget has been added, get the gadget link from the FeedBurner dashboard, at Publicize - "Email Subscriptions" - "Subscription Management" - "Preview Subscription Link…".

Start from the dashboard, at Publicize - "Email Subscriptions" - "Subscription Management".

The "Preview Subscription Link…" window contains the code, that we need.



Add a suitable icon, containing the FeedBurner subscription link.

Choose an attractive icon to contain the FeedBurner supplied link. Add an HTML gadget using "Add a Gadget", containing the icon with the link to the FeedBurner form - and displayed in a fixed location.


Try It.

I added a button, and a new subscription, to my test blog, "Chucks Tech World".

See the icon, in the top right margin?

See how the new icon floats?

See how it floats from the top - and from the right?



Start with an icon, uploaded:

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH-R3uaQFsSkF7azHhm7XAnONPpN0QRrpZ0hhW9S0Y5AqdP3Ar3iopGgFViycf75jvJ-tcpRgd_sSJsGrdb-qHCRsJtyMcq_1dQ7RfZnlhbEveDjdAYj16U6TrBivx0ym6VfzLJwQtT9Fk/s1600/Subscribe+Icon.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH-R3uaQFsSkF7azHhm7XAnONPpN0QRrpZ0hhW9S0Y5AqdP3Ar3iopGgFViycf75jvJ-tcpRgd_sSJsGrdb-qHCRsJtyMcq_1dQ7RfZnlhbEveDjdAYj16U6TrBivx0ym6VfzLJwQtT9Fk/s320/Subscribe+Icon.png" /></a>

Here's the FeedBurner Subscription Link:

<a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ChucksTechWorld&loc=en_US">Subscribe to Chucks Tech World by Email</a>

Here's the Floating Top Of Page Button:

<a style="display:scroll;position:fixed;bottom:20px;right:60px;" href="#" title="Top"><img border="0" height="60" width="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2HLf375pL7ukmgwXSv3ti2luCRyGVIsZEL5d6FGjrsfaN_HYL8vy8Jr1BNRzB6cRoLeBP_JSX5r6FX8l7tjV5fkOdQU3ISmbtwLORtbbwnHACD1QWmEPawWFylh4lCixVTPGc2tpaRhA/s320/Up+Arrow+4.jpg" /></a>

And put them all together:

<a style="display:scroll;position:fixed;top:40px;right:60px;" href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ChucksTechWorld&loc=en_US" title="Subscribe by Email" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="60" width="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH-R3uaQFsSkF7azHhm7XAnONPpN0QRrpZ0hhW9S0Y5AqdP3Ar3iopGgFViycf75jvJ-tcpRgd_sSJsGrdb-qHCRsJtyMcq_1dQ7RfZnlhbEveDjdAYj16U6TrBivx0ym6VfzLJwQtT9Fk/s320/Subscribe+Icon.png" /></a>

And that's it.

I now have a hovering subscription icon, in my test blog. Given a collection of icons, carefully arranged, you can have a hovering toolbar - to maybe complement a social media button toolbar.

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Some #Blogger blog owners would like a hovering button or toolbar, to provide an email subscription form. This is an accessory that is not difficult to add.

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Put A Notice, To Your Followers, On Your Blog

Thanks to the Followers rewrite - and the Followers database cleanup - this blog has lost over 500 Followers.

Blogger Support suggests that we should publish a notice to our Followers, letting them know what is going on - and why some might be no longer Following.

The notice, if published as a post, will go out to everybody subscribed to the posts newsfeed.

People who were affected by the Followers cleanup weren't subscribed to the newsfeed, using the Reading List - and did not lose a newsfeed subscription (nor did we lose a subscriber).

If they are subscribed, they will be using a third party newsfeed display - and any third party display won't be affected by the cleanup. Basically, the only thing that your blog (or mine) lost is somebody's photo, on our blogs.

Any ex Follower should see the notice, at the top of the page.

If an ex Follower was subscribed to a blog using a third party newsfeed display, that subscription still exists. If they view the blog, as a normal reader, the notice at the top of the blog should catch their eye. You can do the same, on your blog.

Look at the top of the page, here. Do you see the gadget, directly under the header?

Dear Followers Of This Blog ...

"If you did not use a Blogger / Google account when you Followed this blog, years ago, you are probably not Following now."

I think that says enough.

That is simply a Featured Posts gadget, displaying my post from January 2016, Dear Followers Of This Blog ....

The notice is simply a Featured Posts gadget, displaying last week's post.

When I installed my Featured Posts gadget, I positioned it at the top of the posts column ("Main"). Having selected "Dear Followers Of This Blog ..." as my Featured Post for the near future (probably the next month or so, anyway), I renamed the gadget to "AN IMPORTANT UPDATE".

And that's all that I had to do. I actually installed the Featured Posts gadget several weeks ago, shortly after Blogger Engineering released it. I had been changing it daily - and showing a different older post, each day.

Until the Followers rewrite is finished, and my "missing" Followers start returning, I'll probably leave that featured post in place.

You can do something similar, with your blog.

You can do something similar with your blog, if you like. Just note, as I did by experimenting, that the post content, as displayed in the gadget, has a limited length. You'll do best with a short and carefully phrased opening sentence.

Oh Yes, I did tweak the gadget Title line!

.widget .post-summary h3 {
font-size: 28px;
font-weight: normal;
}

I'll probably go back to "22px" after this episode is over - but for right now, "28px" makes the title "Dear Followers Of This Blog ..." stand out a bit. Hopefully, some former Followers will see and react.

You could do the same, with a Text gadget, if you wish - though again, using a post puts the notice into the posts newsfeed - as this post will go. I just found the Featured Posts gadget to be the natural medium for an advice to my (former) Followers. As always - YMMV.

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Thanks to the #Blogger Followers gadget cleanup / rewrite, this blog (and many others) have lost a significant amount of Followers. It's possible that the people who were dropped may re Follow - if they are aware that they need to so so.

You may notice my advice, at the top of my blog page, "AN IMPORTANT UPDATE". Hopefully, some people who are now not Following will read the advice, either on the blog, or in their newsfeed reader.

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Removing The "/p/" From the URL

Ever since Blogger (finally) gave us the option to add static pages to our blogs, blog owners started asking

How do I make my pages URLs cleaner? The "/p/" in the URL is so messy looking.

Our typical response would be simple.

Sorry, you're stuck with the URL, as is, for a static page.

And, that was that.

Later, Blogger gave us the ability to redirect URLs within the blog - and that changed.

This is the URL of the topics index in this blog ("labels", to use the Blogger native term).

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/p/topics.html

Here are two alternate URLs, which also reference the topic index.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/topicindex

and

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/topic-index

Click on each link, and note where you go.

To make the alternate URLs work, all that I did was use "Custom Redirects", and add two entries.

From: /topicindex
To: /p/topics.html

and

From: /topic-index
To: /p/topics.html

Of course, the address displayed will be the address published - not the address entered into the browser. You can't change the address displayed - you can only simplify what has to be entered. And, to maintain proper spam mitigation policy, you can only redirect within the base URL of the blog.

Other than that, the possibilities are almost endless.

>> Top

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Add A Simple "Recent Comments" / "Recent Posts" Gadget To Your Blog

The recently observed problems with some third party gadgets, previously added by many blog owners to their blogs, leaves these blogs lacking various accessories.

One of the gadgets identified is the "Recent Comments" / "Recent Posts" gadget pair. For many blog owners, this gadget is not impossible to replace.

Blogger provides us with a native accessory, called a "Blog Feed" gadget, which will provide acceptable "Recent Comments" and "Recent Posts" functionality, for many blog owners.

Look at the sidebar of this blog, for "The Real Blogger Status - Comments", and "The Real Blogger Status - Posts". Those are "Recent Comments" and "Recent Posts" gadgets, which are based on the Blogger supplied "Feed" gadget - which is not a third party accessory, and is not subject to future third party peccadilloes.

To make your new gadget, start with the URL of the blog feed desired.

Add a Blogger supplied Feed gadget, using the "Add a gadget" wizard, in the dashboard Layout display.

This is the URL of this blog.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net

This is the URL of the blog comments feed.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/comments/default

This is the URL of the blog posts feed.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default

Setting up a "Blog Feed" gadget is simple enough.

1. Add a "Feed" gadget (Only select the "Feed" gadget, "By Blogger"!!!), using the "Add a gadget" wizard.
2. Plug in the Feed URL (see my examples above), and Continue.
3. Review / change the options offered, and Save.
4. Test your new blog accessory - provided by Blogger - with no future hacking activity anticipated.

Avoid any similarly named gadget not "By Blogger" - distributed from "Add a Gadget", or from a private blog or non Google website.

And, you're done. Wasn't that simple?

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