Some bloggers seem to treat dynamic Blogger blogs like static web sites.
They design their blogs so specific blog posts are consistently presented as part of the main page view. They overlook the basic design of blogs, where the main page simply contains the most currently published posts.
This attitude is merely eccentric, except in cases like the current controversy about Auto Pagination.I have chosen to display 12 posts, because mine is a listing of twelve exact posts which i update daily. I now have only nine of the posts showing regardless of how many - 12 or 50 or 500 - that I preset to display. I need them all to show, because I daily print out this entire list in an MS Word booklet format - and without having the entire blog display, I can no longer do this.
This is merely one example of the bloggers who are having trouble accepting the reality of Auto Pagination, and the consequently segmented archives, labels, and / or main page displays.
Let's look at how web sites are setup, for background.
The smallest unit of content in a web site is a page. Pages are structured hierarchically, where the main page indexes child pages, and the various child pages index other child pages. Each page in a web site is built statically - both content and links never change.
In the above example, the blogger wishes to display the 12 posts as one static page. Now, let's look at how blogs are setup.
The smallest unit of content in a blog is a post. Pages are structured based upon relationships of the various posts, on the pages, to each other. Each page in a blog is built dynamically, and is based upon the relationship of the posts being displayed in the page. Both content and links are dynamic, and change as the nature of the retrieval changes.
Posts are associated with other posts by date, and by subject. Posts associated by date are displayed in archive / main page retrievals, and posts associated by subject are displayed in label retrievals. Even when displayed by date or by subject, specific posts may or may not be displayed on the same physical page.
Displays are segmented, and various posts are displayed on different pages, when the amount of physical information in a given retrieval exceeds a given size.
This post, Auto Pagination And The Difference Between Blogs And Static Web Sites, may be part of a dynamic retrieval for Archive: March 2010, for a Label such as Auto Pagination, or Blogger, or maybe New Blogger Experiences, or - well, it was for a while - as part of the main page.
As I published a few more posts, this post dropped off the main page. That's a dynamic main page - you showcase your most current posts, archive your older posts, and keep the main page brief and clean. All of your posts are indexed, and can be found by your readers, using any index, or hyper text links, such as links in this post.
That's how blogs work best.
- Brief and clean main page display.
- Dynamic retrieval of all posts, as relevant and needed.
- Showcasing of new posts.
Why would you want anything different?
Auto Pagination moderates peak resource use, caused by excessively large archive, label, and main page displays. When appropriate, Auto Pagination segments large displays, and simply requires the blog reader to use the "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links to move between display segments. As implemented a month ago, it's been quite effective.
There are several issues, which are causing some confusion and ill will.
Besides these issues, the bloggers who design their blogs with static displays may need to rethink their actual needs. Some bloggers may be happier hosting their web sites with services outside Blogger - services that display content as static web site pages, instead of dynamic blog pages.
Auto Pagination And The Difference Between Blogs And Static Web Sites
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/03/auto-pagination-and-difference-between.html
Auto Pagination And Blogs Vs Static Web Sites
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/03/auto-pagination-and-blogs-vs-static-web.html
The Mercedes brand automobile is a marvel of efficiency, engineering, and safety (so I've heard). It's designed for comfort, and for speed. If you drive one in Germany, where it is designed and built, you can even enjoy its comfort at speed - whatever speed you desire - perfectly legally.
Get on the Autobahn, get in the fast lane, and use your headlight flashers when you approach someone from the rear. Keep an eye in the mirror, for someone using their flashers at you - and be prepared to move over, when someone uses their flashers.
In this country, Mercedes owners (and other drivers) have to obey the speed laws, just as everybody else does. Try telling the policemanMy car is safe at 90 MPH. I'll pay extra fuel tax, and use the premium lanes - and I can go 90 MPH, because I want to go 90 MPH.
and see what response you get.
In Blogger, we have some folks who publish blogs with lots of pictures, and who wish to display their entire blog as the main page. And until last month, they have been doing just that. They designed their blog to look good, using a large main page display.
A couple of weeks ago, that changed. Blogger started segmenting the main page displays, for blogs that have excessively heavy front pages. Predictably, this wasn't a popular change, for the owners of the blogs that now have segmented archives or main page, displays. Readers of blogs that do not have excessively heavy front pages won't see any difference, as those blogs won't need display segmentation.
Auto Pagination isn't arbitrary, nor is it excessively harsh. Your entire blog is still served - your readers simply use "Older Posts" / "Newer Posts" links, to navigate from page segment to page segment. "Older Posts" / "Newer Posts" links have been used, since Layouts Blogger was deployed, for reading an entire blog in sequence. And now, "Older Posts" / "Newer Posts" links are available for blogs with classic templates.
In order for Auto Pagination to have a consistent effect, every Blogger blog, including Blogger blogs published to non BlogSpot URLs, has to be subject to it. ReasoningMy ISP is providing unlimited bandwidth packages for normal users, so there won't be any bandwidth problem in my country.
would be valid, if you had a dedicated server, and dedicated Internet connection, used by your blog.
Unfortunately, your blog shares server space, and bandwidth, with millions of other Blogger blogs. When your blog requires excessive server space, or bandwidth, to display the main page, that's server space and / or bandwidth denied the readers of other Blogger blogs.
Blogger didn't terminate your blog, they just segmented the main page display size (when necessary) - and asks that your readers use the "Older Posts" / "Newer Posts" links, to access the main page in it's entirety.
Learn to share - slow down, and maybe save a few lives. An alternate solution would be to try the new, dynamic views, for your blog.
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Possibly the hottest issue this week, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, is the Auto Pagination feature, which was introduced last week. Auto Pagination automatically helps people to limit the sizes of their archive / label / main pages, as downloaded from Blogger servers.
Before the Blogger post editor "Jump Break" solution was provided, there were at least 3 known variants, for auto summarising posts. One was provided in Blogger Help: How can I create expandable post summaries?; and at least 2 others were provided as third party suggestions. It's possible that any of these 3 variants are present in some blogs, where the owner has not seen fit to remove them, in favour of deploying the "Jump Break" in new post editor.
Cloud Strife, in Blogger Help Forum: Problem Rollup: Auto Pagination for blogs with Layouts templates suggests an obvious solution - replacing use of all early "Read More" variants, with the new post editor "Jump Break".The problem as I explained earlier is that with the older solution, the blog post still had all the content sent to the viewers' browser while just making the post look smaller by not showing all the content. This will solve the aesthetics problem but not the slow-ness problem. The perceived slowness differs much more to the person who has cached everything in the browser (mostly us who view our own blog) than those who view it first time or rarely.
The new feature which is as simple as adding an extra <!-- more --> in the HTML or rather simply using the new editor, keeps the look and feel as good and makes your website much faster to load. Which I am sure your readers will appreciate. And once the site loads faster for your viewers they are more likely to visit the pages you have there.
I'll add the advice that adding the "Jump Break" option to your posts will have to be done on a post by post basis, but the individual post update is fairly simple to do. And, taking the advice from Cloud Strifewith the older solution, the blog post still had all the content sent to the viewers' browser while just making the post look smaller by not showing all the content
it appears that not all "Read More" solutions actually reduce page size when loading.
The bottom line - if you replace the old "Read More" with the new "Jump Break", your readers will see a significantly faster main page download. Or, if you wish, you will be able to load more (abbreviated) posts total, and stay within Auto Pagination induced page sizes.
As Blogger continues to resolve the problems associated with Auto Pagination, its not a certainty that all 3 earlier used variants of "Read More" will continue to operate. If your blog uses an out of date "Read More" variant, and you're unable to replace it with the recommended "Jump Break", you might want to watch the display of your blog carefully, during the next week or so.
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The latest significant change to Blogger - Auto Pagination - is causing some concerns in the blogger community. Early reports were focused on inability for readers or search engines to find all postsI need to display 12 posts on the every page. Please give a way to disable auto pagination. Not everyone needs this feature.
andAuto Pagination doesn't help me!
As you can see in my blog, "Auto Pagination" doesn't help. I need at least 45 post in my front page. Doesn't help people reading my posts. Can anyone help me with this?
are probably among the more objective problem reports seen this morning.
Looking at the problem reports in detail, we can see at least 3 classes of problems.- People with blogs with classic templates, who need to move to layouts and use "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts".
- People who are using "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts", and simply perceive the need to decide their own page size.
- People who are seeing badly calculated page size, as in one post / page. A large number of these reports may be connected with use of the "Jump Break" / "Read More ..." option.
So, I setup 2 rollup questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.
As noted, Blogger has admitted to blogs using the "Jump Break" / "Read More ..." option as being one possible problem cause. Until Blogger fixes all of the problems, and there are no more complaints, I'll suggest that anybody still seeing any problem involving Auto Pagination should continue to supply details, objectively and politely, to the rollup questions. It's always possible that the "Jump Break" / "Read More ..." option is not the only cause of the problems being experienced - and your report might provide the needed diagnostic detail to help Blogger identify another problem.
If you're seeing a problem with your blog, which involves Auto Pagination, please observe some basic guidelines.- Post in the right question. If you have any doubt about whether your blog uses a classic or a layouts template, read here.
- Read the instructions at the top of the question, and provide the details about your problem. The requested details vary by question, and will change as this problem continues to be explored.
- Blogger will decide whether the change was necessary, what the problems are, and how to fix the problems. The more facts that you provide about your problem, the more chance that Blogger will find the cause of your problem, and will fix your problem first. The more opinion that you provide, the more chance that Blogger will look at somebody else's problem report, and fix their problem first.
- Be patient.
- When this is over, review and trim your main page size.
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For Christmas (End Of Year) 2009, I went back to Virginia again, for a brief visit. What I found, besides the snow (and there was too much of that) were some positive notes. The State Of Virginia USA really is moving into the future. For us Californians (Yes, I consider myself a Californian) they now have a Frys Electronics, a Trader Joes (2 of them in the Richmond area!), and an In-N-Out Burger (No, they don't have that yet!). OK, I'll settle for 2 out of 3.
The point is, Virginia really is moving ahead, into the future. And this month, some bloggers are feeling the need to do that. Two changes in Blogger - Auto Pagination, and the approaching end to FTP Publishing, will both hasten the end to classic templates, and make the move to layout templates more natural.
Owners of blogs with classic templates have, for a long time, been asking about how to get "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links for their blogs. That's not a feature that can be provided, in HTML, unfortunately. The "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links have to be dynamically generated, so they can't be part of HTML based templates.
This week, we're seeing a new need for the "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links. Owners of blogs subject to restriction in archive or main page size, thanks to Auto Pagination, report inability to get all posts indexed by the search engines, or viewed by their readers. Neither main page view, nor individual archive page views, will consistently display all posts in a single page. Without "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links, all posts can't be indexed or viewed.
Without the dynamic display that's part of a blog with a layouts template, your blog won't have "Newer Posts" / "Older Posts" links, and won't provide indexing or viewing of all posts in an archive or main page. Nor will the blog have a dynamic labels index.
Now, blogs that use classic templates, and have large or complex posts, are just broken. When support for FTP publishing ends next month, there will be no more blogs that absolutely must use classic templates.
No support for FTP published blogs = no need to support classic templates.
XML based layouts templates are now reality, in Blogger blogging. It's time to move ahead, Virginian bloggers.
That said, I am suggesting that you provide details about your problems, so Blogger may be able to fix your problems.
