We see some concern about providing email subscriptions, from blog owners in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.
How do I provide email subscriptions for my blog? Neither Follow by Email or Subscription Links works, for email!
The blog in question is using a dynamic template. In some cases, even "Subscription Links" does not provide a "Subscribe by Email" option - and it appears that the blog owner is really out of luck.
The "Subscribe by Email" gadget does not work, with dynamic templates - and some dynamic templates don't support the "Subscription Links" gadget with "Subscribe by Email" added.
Add "Subscription Links" to a blog with a dynamic template - for some blogs.
In some cases, you may not even want to use "Subscription Links". You can, however, use a LinkList gadget, to do the same thing - and to make an improved "Subscription Links" gadget.
In this case, add "Subscribe by Email" as a linklist gadget.
Just add the "Subscription Link Code", in a linklist gadget. Here is the code, from the FeedBurner Publicize dashboard page, for my blog, Chucks Musings.
The "Subscription Management" page, and "Subscription Link Code".
Add the link caption as "New Site Name", and the link code as "New Site URL".
<a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ChucksMusings&loc=en_US">Subscribe to Chucks Musings by Email</a>
The "Subscription Link Code" caption, and link.
Just add a new LinkList gadget.
- New Site Name: Subscribe to Chucks Musings by Email
- New Site URL: https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ChucksMusings&loc=en_US
Copy into a LinkList.
Click "Add Link" - then "Save" - and finally, "Save arrangement".
And we have a new sidebar accessory.
And if you click on the link, you get the FeedBurner "Email Subscription Request" verification form.
So, either add "Subscription Links" - or make a custom LinkList accessory. One, or the other, will give you "Subscribe by Email", in a dynamic template.
Some #Blogger blogs, which use a dynamic template, won't display "Subscribe by Email" as an added option, in "Subscription Links". Or, in some cases, you may actually want a more robust "Subscribe by Email" - or "Subscribe" menu.
In this case, add a LinkList gadget - and add the subscription form as a FeedBurner hosted form, using "Subscription Link Code".
Even before Blogger added static pages as a blog feature, blog owners have been asking how to make hidden or separate pages for their blogs.
When static pages, and the Pages index gadget, were added, people started asking about indexing label searches and external links in the Pages gadget.
There are several solutions to the need to have a Pages gadget that indexes archive / label searches, and external URLs. Each solution has its advantages, and disadvantages.
If you want a Pages gadget for your blog, that indexes more than just static pages, you have two basic choices. Each choice gives you different possibilities.
- Replace the Pages gadget with a linklist. You can index any URLs that interest you, in a linklist.
- Use the Pages editor, in the dashboard Layout page, which lets you add URLs of your choice, directly to the Pages gadget.
I've been advising people for several years, how to make a horizontal index bar for the blog.
With most Blogger templates, the Tabs section contains CSS that displays any linklist positioned there, horizontally. This gives you the choice of using "Add a gadget", and creating a linklist as an XML based "Linklist" - or one created as an HTML based "HTML / JavaScript" gadget - and both choices have advantages.
Use an XML based linklist.
If you look at the menu bar on this blog, you'll see how the active menu button "lights up" when selected. The "Selected" feature is a CSS tweak - and requires that you use a linklist that's XML based.
I created the menu bar here, using "Add a gadget", and tweaked the template code. The default Pages gadget is XML based - and does not require the latter tweak.
Use the Blogger supplied Pages gadget.
As an alternate to using a linklist gadget, you could use the Pages gadget.
If you use the Pages Editor, and you position the Pages gadget in the proper position, your blog, when displayed using a dynamic template, will populate the black menu bar with your Pages list. When that happens, the dynamic view menu will be displayed as a drop-down list, at the far left of the menu bar.
Ever since static pages were released by Blogger, bloggers have been asking how to index non static pages in a static pages (aka "tabs") index. Questions like
How do I publish a label page with my static pages?
and
How do I link to another blog, in my Pages gadget?
andHow do I publish posts in pages?
are asked, fairly regularly.
The typical answer, to the question above, has been
You can't index anything but pages, in the Pages gadget. You have to make a custom index bar.
Posts are dynamic content, and pages are static content. Posts and pages are simply different blog content. And the standard Pages index gadget only indexes static pages.
Fortunately, a horizontal menu bar, to replace the Pages index gadget, isn't difficult to make. You can see one right now, in my home blog, Nitecruzr Dot Net.
If your blog has a new Designer Template, you may wish to go a bit further, and make a custom Pages Index. With a Designer Template, we simply position a linklist in the Pages Tab Index space, and we get a horizontal menu bar / tabs index with the look and feel of a Pages gadget.
- First (should you ask?), backup your template.
- Go to "Page Elements", and look below the page header space, in the Tabs section. If you do not see a space just below the page header, upgrade your template. The picture below shows what you will want to see. If you have an old blog, with a template created before static pages were released, you'll want to use the Template Designer, and give the blog a nice Designer Template.
- If you have a Pages Index gadget already installed in the template, delete it.
- Create a linklist, and put some links into it. You can add or change any links that you put into your new linklist, whenever you feel the need. If you want to index posts, use labels, and index label searches. In some cases, you may be better off creating an HTML based linklist, using raw linklist code copied into an HTML / JavaScript gadget.
- Position your new linklist where the Pages gadget was (or would be).
- Save.
- Backup the template, again (yes, do it again)!
- Test.
- Add more links to the linklist, when you feel the need. It's a linklist, and you hopefully know how to add links to a linklist.
See the "Add a Gadget" space below the header ("Nitecruzr Designer Template")? If you don't see that space there, you need to get an updated template.
You can see my demonstration in Nitecruzr Buzz. I just took the linklist out of the sidebar, repositioned it as I discuss above, and voila. It took me 2 minutes.
Of course, there are details which should be attended to, any time you tweak a new Blogger feature.
For more detail, see Roberto's Report: New Designer Template and the Tabs Index.
(Update 2011/08): The pages editor, in the New Blogger GUI (2011), now provides us with this option.
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When we want to connect our blogs to our friends blogs, and vice versa, the first thing we think about is a linklist. Taking a basic list, and attaching a link to each list member, gives a nice structured list of links, called in some cases a BlogRoll, and called by Blogger a LinkList. That's simple, and that's boring.
So Blogger went one better, replacing the links with blog feeds, and voila - the BlogList. For each LinkList entry, you provide a caption, and a link (URL). For each BlogList entry, you provide only a URL. Blogger does the rest, and you have a list of feeds.
You can display the feeds in several different formats. For each feeds, you can choose to display- The FavIcon of the blog.
- Title of most recent item.
- Snippet of most recent item.
- Thumbnail of most recent item.
- Date of last update.
THis gives you a nice set of choices what you want your BlogList to look like.
Want to see one in action? Look at the bottom of my sidebar, for my current BlogList (subject to change).- Roberto's Report.
- Blogger Developers Network.
- Blogger Error Codes.
Use your imagination, and enjoy the results with your readers.
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Along with several key fixes to Blogger this week, the release contained one useful new page element - the Blog List. A Blog List is a combination of a Linklist (aka BlogRoll) and a Feed Reader, where you specify a series of feeds, and it generates a linklist with each feed as a separate item in the linklist.The Blog List improves on our Link List page element by using blogs’ RSS and Atom feeds to show update times, post titles, and snippets.
You have several options that let you decide what you want to show in each Blog List.- Icon. When available, you can present a favicon from each site in the list.
- Title. You can present the title of the most recent item, in each feed.
- Snippet. You can present a snippet of the most recent item, in each feed.
- Update Date. You can present the date of last update, of each feed.
With all of that said, there is a key difference between a Blog List and a Link List.- A Blog List is a list of blog posts feeds. Each item in a blog list will be the URL of the posts feed for one blog, though you can enter a URL of any blog component, with the feed URL apparently derived from what you enter. You can have only 1 entry for any blog, in a blog list.
- A Link List is a list of URLs. Each item in a link list may depict a single, unique blog. Each item can be any URL that you wish.
If you leave off the Snippet and Update Date selections from a Blog List, you'll end up with what looks like a Linklist. And it appears that the rollout of the Blog List gadget, from Draft to Operational status, involved converting some Blog List items into what look like Linklist items. If your blog has what looks like a new linklist, which contains items with feed URLs, that is what happened. If you edit this page element, you'll see a series of feeds listed, with some apparently corrupt, possibly depicted with red Xs. These are URLs that do not lead to a valid feed. You'll have to delete and re add each URL so listed, if any one represents an item that you intended to lead to a feed.
And that illustrates another key difference between a Blog List and a Linklist. The linklist wizard lets you edit the label, or the link URL, for any item in the list. The blog list wizard lets you only edit the label of an item ("rename") - if you wish to change the link URL, you have to delete and re add the entry.
Just don't confuse the Blog List page element with the Linklist page element. Each has its own place in your blog.
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