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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The new online Blogger community feature - Following - is now over a week old. Most of us who are using it actively, on our blogs, know the euphoria when loading our blog and seeing a new, unfamiliar faceAll right - a new Follower!
But check those profiles closely, boys and girls - not all of them are the real thing. I've removed one bogie from my list already, and I'm looking at another 2 which look a bit dodgy.
What better way to pimp your splog, then to Follow a well known blog? What you get, when you Follow another blog, is an automatic backlink, through your profile, to your blog. Talk about a great target for sploggers.
And there are other downsides to the craze. When you add a blog to your Reading List, it's also added to your Google Reader subscription list. If the blog is already on the subscription list, it's now there twice. And conversely, when you remove a blog from your Reading List, it's still there on the subscription list - and it's there twice, if it was there before you started Following it.
So enjoy Following, and being Followed. But watch your followers, and your Google Reader subscription list, carefully.
>> (Update 9/11 17:00): Blogger is slowly improving the Following - Google Reader interaction.
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In the spirit of meshed online communities like FaceBook, MySpace, and Orkut, Blogger now gives us a new accessory: Following. With a single mouse click, you can subscribe to any Blogger blog by its news feed, and create a link from that blog back to your profile. You can read the contents of Blogger blogs that you Follow either in your Following Reading List, or in Google Reader.
Do you see the "Follow Me" gadget, in the sidebar? There you can see two components of Following.
- A link to add this blog to your Following Reading List.
- A grid of thumbnail profile photos, showing who most recently decided to Follow this blog.
Two more components are on your Dashboard, as your account gets the Following feature.
- For each Followed blog, a link to a list of who is Following that blog.
- Your Following Reading List, showing blog content (snippets of ~150 posts), at the bottom of the dashboard.
And look in the navbar (for any blog that has not hidden the navbar), for a "Follow" this blog link.
If a blog that interests you has the "Followers" ("Follow Me") gadget, just click on the "Follow This Blog" link, to add this blog to your Reading List, at the bottom of your dashboard. If there's no "Followers" gadget, but the blog is public and has a working feed, just go to your Reading List, and click on the "Add" button. You may also be able to use the "Follow" link in the navbar. Either way, you'll become a Follower of that blog (though the latter choices won't be as much fun).
If you want Followers for your public blog, be sure to enable the blog feed. Once that's done, add a Followers gadget to your sidebar, and make it visible (near the top is best). Encourage people to Follow your blog, and you'll get more Followers - and hopefully other people, who Follow blogs published by those who Follow your blog, will decide to Follow your blog too.
What use is it to Follow, and to be Followed, if you can't tell the world (selectively, as you wish) what you're doing? But you need to protect yourself, your blog, and your Followers.Involve yourself, and involve others, in your community.
For a more descriptive and pictorial evaluation of Following, you might want to check out Roberto's Following - A new Gadget. You may also benefit from Blogger: What is Following?. And I'll explore new and ongoing Following issues, from time to time.
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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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A new feature just previously introduced to Draft Blogger, the Blog Posts Star Ratings, which lets your readers rate each post, appears to have been released into Normal Blogger.
Not everybody seems thrilled by the new feature, and interestingly, not everybody has it outside of a Blogger In Draft setup. It was apparently released to a portion of the Blogosphere today. If you have this new item on your blog, and wish to remove it, it's a post template item, and you can de select it from the Blog Posts widget in Page Elements.
Then, and need I say this for every template related issue, clear cache in your browser.
Presumably, Blogger will reverse the change tonight, and by tomorrow it will again be available only in Blogger In Draft.
>> (Update 5/8): This feature is now, as before, available only from Blogger In Draft.
>> (Update 18:00): Blogger has acknowledged the mistake, in Google Blogger Help: How Do I?: Star Ratings: Blogger Goofed!So we goofed up a bit and accidentally enabled an experimental feature that was supposed to remain only on Blogger in Draft :P
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