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.
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.
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.
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
</span>
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.
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.
Some blog owners like to publish blogs that use custom colours, in the titles.
Carefully coordinated colours are important, in some blogs. Both the blog title, and the individual post titles, in many blogs, are clickable link captions. The blog title links to the blog home page, and / or the post titles link to the individual post pages.
Some blog owners get confused, when they try to set the colour of the titles, to a custom colour - and see link colours (which vary according to status), instead of the selected custom colours.
With some templates, both the blog title, and the post titles, may be captions for "smart" links.
A "Smart Link" is clickable, only when it leads to a different page.
With a smart link, the caption is clickable only when you are viewing a page not targeted by the link. When the link is clickable, it becomes subject to the "link" vs "visited link" colour combination.
With a blog that uses a custom colour title, and links in the titles, you will have 4 possible title colours.- Custom title colour.
- Link colour.
- Visited link colour.
- Hover colour.
The above colour settings are provided, for some templates, when one uses the Template Designer "Advanced" menu. All settings are not included on all templates - though you can add any needed setting, with a little work.
A post title is clickable, only when the post is viewed on an index page.
With a smart link, the title in question will be a link only when you are not viewing the page that's targeted by the link. The blog title smart link, for instance, will point to the blog home page - and each post title smart link will point to the individual post page.- When you are viewing the blog home page, the blog title will not be clickable. Each post title will be clickable link captions.
- When you are viewing an individual post, the blog title will be a clickable link caption, and the post title will not be clickable.
- When you are viewing an archive retrieval or label search, both the blog title and posts titles will be clickable link captions.
It appears that the post title smart links are enabled, when the post permalink is part of the published date / time, in the post footer. This option was common, with older templates; with some (but not all) Layout and Designer templates, it may also be available.
If the post permalink is not provided in the post footer link, it appears that "smart" links may not be an option.
If you don't want the "smart link" colour action, you can add a CSS rule, and make page / post titles a consistent colour.
h3.post-title {
color:#000000;
}
This will, for instance, make all titles black. Be observant, though - and make sure that this works, consistently, for you!
If I publish a blog in which I concentrate on content and information, I want to make the content and information easy (yet inviting) to read.
This blog, The Real Blogger Status, is marginally easy to read - and looked boring - before I upgraded to a Designer template, which has a more complex background. Then, I added my floating background, to make the text easier to read.
Recently, I redesigned this blog, and published using a new Blogger supplied Responsive template.
If I wanted something stylish, I might have chosen a template with a black background, such as in my Tech World blog. White on black is very elegant looking, yet reasonably easy to read.
Some people like elegant, but mysterious, colours - such as dark blue or red text, on a black background.
Search engine bots ignore colors - both background and text colors are ignored.
Going a step further, some folks will choose black text, on a black background. All three colour schemes are fine for search engine visibility, since search engines don't look at colours - they just look at text content.
People prefer to read blogs that can be read, easily.
Your readers, on the other hand, won't be so lucky. How easily can you read dark blue or red text, on a black background? Worse yet, black on black? You can't. If you're like me, and have seen this nonsense occasionally, and you watch what looks like an otherwise normal blog load, displaying large patches of blank space, you'll get curious.
Can you read this?
However intriguing the content, blogs that can't be read, easily, won't get as many readers - and may not qualify for AdSense.
Look at my "click and drag" demonstration.
How many readers will try click and drag where no text is visible, unless they see a "click and drag here" caption?
If you want readers, publish a blog that can be read.
Be kind to your readers, if you want readers. Choose text and background colours that complement each other. What may be elegant may not always be kind.
And if you see a blog or web site with an interesting colour combination, use "Red Alt: I Like Your Colors" to check out the colour palette used.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2009/11/be-kind-to-your-readers-choose-your.html
