Disable The Mobile Template, On Your Blog - As A Default View

Over a year ago, Blogger introduced a useful template option for our blogs - mobile templates.

Blogger mobile templates are mobile-optimized versions of our Template Designer templates. If you are using one of these templates, when you enable the mobile template option your blog will begin rendering using the mobile version of the same variant. Even if you are not using a Template Designer template, or using a heavily-customized version of one, you can still enable this feature to have your blog start rendering in a generic default mobile template that we have created.

The mobile templates let computers with lower display size / resolution - aka PDAs, mobile phones, and smart phones - display the content of our blogs, without the unnecessary overhead which may be a part of our normal blog formatting.

If you are viewing this post on your smart phone, it's likely that you are viewing it using a mobile template. As exciting as the mobile templates are, however, they will not replace the normal, full feature templates - on every blog, or on every mobile computer.

Not every blog owner, nor every visitor, wants to view any given blog using a mobile template. Some tablet computers have display units which rival normal desktop displays from a few years ago - and low feature, mobile templates are unnecessary. Fortunately, there are a number of options - for the blog owner, and for the blog visitor.

If you are a blog owner, you can disable the mobile template, as a default, for your blog. For those blog owners who have forgotten how they set the mobile template on their blog, you use the "Template - Choose mobile template" wizard, from the gear icon beneath Template - Mobile. Simply select "No. Show desktop template on mobile devices.", and Save - and that's it.

If your blog has a Classic Template, you can disable the default mobile template from your blog, with a little extra bit of effort.

1. Start with the Template wizard, and select "Upgrade template".
2. Once your blog has an upgraded template, you can use the "Choose mobile template" wizard, and select "No.".
3. Go back to the Template wizard, and at the bottom find "Revert to classic templates".
4. Selecting the latter link, your blog will be back to the previous, Classic template.
5. But now, the default Mobile template will be disabled.

Upgrade your blog, to a Designer template.

Return your blog, to a Classic template.

Having set - or un set - the default mobile template for your blog, your visitors have the final say, how they want to view your blog. If you are the visitor, you can choose, with a little effort.

Any time you are viewing a Blogger blog, from any computer, you can select - or de select - the mobile template for the blog which you are viewing. Just use the appropriate mobile template URL suffix.

• To de select the mobile template, use "/?m=0". http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/?m=0
• To select the mobile template, use "/?m=1". http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/?m=1

You can view a blog using a mobile template on your desktop computer - or a blog using a full feature template on your mobile computer. It's now your choice.

This blog, viewed from this computer, using a Mobile template.
Unfortunately, it's your choice, when you use your mobile computer, only. You have only two choices, for your blog.

• Don't enable the mobile template.
• Enable the mobile template.

Each of your readers have to choose how to view your blog - if you choose to offer the mobile template.

>> Top

Read More

Template Designer Upgrades Require Supporting Updates To The Individual Blog Templates

This week, we're seeing a small flood of problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about problems with the Template Designer.

Every time I change something, I have to refresh the page in order for it to show up. It won't "Save" when I try to save the layout changes. It just says "Saving..." at the top of the page and fades away, but doesn't actually save any changes.

Many problems involve changes made to the template, using the Designer, which aren't being saved - or are broken when saved. Most of the people reporting these problems have made changes to the template, previously - some are so experienced at making changes, they can't believe that their latest changes could ever have problems.

Interestingly, this history of changes is not a coincidence - and it's likely that some of the changes helps to cause these problems.

Take a look at the template code in your blog, some time. You'll notice a lot of code which doesn't look like CSS, HTML, or XML. Some of it is code which supports the various blog features that are adjusted or configured using the Template Designer.

Many template features involve two sets of code.

1. The Template Designer wizard, part of the Blogger dashboard, is common code used by all blog owners.
2. The blog template, post template, and / or widget template, is part of the individual blogs. Some template code does nothing but support the Template Designer - and let you configure your blog layout,

Every time Blogger Engineering adds or updates template features, they have to make changes to both sets of code.

Blogger Engineering does not edit each individual blog, after they upgrade the Template Designer. They make changes to the master template code - and their changes replicate into the individual blog templates. These changes replicate much more consistently, when the individual templates have not been changed.

The more custom a template is, with changes applied by the blog owner, or possibly in a third party template, the less likely it is to properly update, to support each succeeding Template Designer update.

Any time Blogger Engineering updates the Template Designer, to add a new feature, or maybe to support a new browser version, their updates may require changes which are not properly applied to all blogs - and the Template Designer stops working, in some blogs.

When the Template Designer stops working, the usual recommendation is to refresh the post or widget template - or maybe to upgrade the blog template - and things start rolling again. And the blog owner goes back to tweaking the template, until something breaks again.

>> Top

Read More

The New GUI Is Here

Several people are reporting seeing the New Blogger GUI in their dashboard - even when they did not intentionally upgrade. Possibly, this was forced by the necessary Custom Domain Authentication Feature, which is now operational - on the New GUI only.

I am expecting my Blogger account to change, soon. Let's see if I get a "Your blog post published successfully!" display. So far, I am in Virginia - though I am thinking of a procedural workaround for that shortcoming. I realise that everybody won't have a workaround for their dislikes - though we have to be contemplative, and accept the changes.

If you wish to make your feelings known, please post in the latest Problem Rollup: V4 I do not like the New Blogger Interface because ...

>> Top

Read More