Recent Posts with Thumbnails for Blogger

This is an updated version of my Recent Posts Gadget.As the name suggests, this Gadget will help you to display the most Recent Posts on your Blog’s Sidebar. The Gadget has an options panel and can be configured to meet your needs. The Gadget inherits styles from your Blog. But you can override the colors if you want(this was done to support third party templates which doesn’t have the skin variables properly defined).
Note : - For all those who complain that the Gadget doesn't show the thumbnails,please please see the Gadget Options and read about the various options here in this post.

 

 

Gadget Settings

Some Previews of the Gadget with  different configurations

About the Various Options

Pull Posts From – By default, the recent posts will be fetched from the blog to which you have added the gadget. If you want to fetch the posts from another Blogger Blog, then you can change this option
External Blogger URL – You need to fill out this field only if you are trying to pull posts from another blogger blog.
Maximum Length of Post Title – Your post titles can be too long. In that case you can limit the title to x  number of characters using this parameter.
Snippet Style – You can display the snippet with Post Summary, Post Thumbnail , or both or none.
Snippet Thumbnail – When you upload photos from your PC to blogger using the Blogger Post Editor, Blogger generates a Media Thumbnail of size 72 X 72 px. If you add external images to your blog posts, then Media Thumbnails will be generated. If media thumbnails are not present, the post will be scanned for images or YouTube videos. You can specify which images to use by using this option. The No Image Thumb is a default image which will be used if post has no images or videos(you can turn this off) .
Note:- If you want to grab the images or YouTube thumbnails, then you should have “Site Feeds” set to Full. If you opt for the Media Thumbnail only, then the short feed will be used by default.
Thumbnail Dimensions – Size of the Thumbnail in pixels. The gadget doesn’t generate any Thumbnail. It just uses the media thumbnail,YouTube thumbnail , or any image in the post and scales it to the specified dimensions
Summary Length  -  If you have opted to display the post Summary, then you can control the length of the summary(in characters)
Post Meta Style – You can display the Post Date, Comment Count and a Read More Link.You can choose any combination of these three.
Font  and Font Size– By Default, the container’s font  and Font Size is inherited into the Gadget. But if you are using a 3rd party template, then these might not be properly inherited. In that case you can use this Option to over ride these parameters.
Extra Styling – Allows you to specify the position of the Thumbnail, and whether to underline the links or not.
Border Color – If your specify a border color, and if the posts need separation, then a dotted border will be applied between the posts. If you don’t specify a color or if you specify an invalid color, then the border wont be drawn. You can use Hex Color Codes(eg: #000000) or  or normal colors (eg : red )
Link Color and Text Color – By default, the link and text colors will be inherited from the blog. But if you want to override this, then you can specify the color in any of the two formats.
Read More Text – This field was intentionally added to help blogs which are not written in English. Initially i used  “More »” as the Read more text without taking any user Input. Seeing this on a non- English Blog is a little awkward. So i added this new field :)

Note : - Those who are using the older version of this gadget, please remove it and add the new one.

Add The Gadget to your Blog

Check out the Demo and Sample Configurations to see what  the Gadget can do. 

Your Suggestions and feedback are always welcome.

8 Reasons Why Lists are Good for Getting Traffic to your Blog

8 Reasons Why Lists are Good for Getting Traffic to your Blog

Here’s a tip for how to get people to link to your blog.

Write lists!

I’ve been reminded by this again today by seeing just how many people are linking up to Piaras Kelly’s list of Tips on writing content for your blog. I must have seen 10 or 15 people link to it in the last few hours (including me). Even though I don’t agree with all of it there is something about a list that bloggers and blog readers love. Here’s a list of reasons why lists can be good for your blog:

1. Lists are Scannable – online readers are notoriously lazy. A list helps communicate a number of points quickly and easily
2. Lists keep posts succinct - there is something about a list that keeps you from rambling
3. Lists look ‘neat’ - I don’t know about you but when I surf onto a site that is full of messily formatted text – I don’t tend to stick around long. Lists on the other hand can be quite visually pleasing 4. Lists are easy to link to – most of the links to the link above simply summarize the list (giving the keypoints) – bloggers seem to like linking up in this manner
5. Lists can be comprehensive – Piaras covered 12 points in the above list
6. Lists are persuasive – if you want to mount a case for something quickly presenting numerous arguments in a list can be quite convincing
7. Lists can add to the ease of writing – I like writing in lists because they break down my thoughts into bite sized pieces which is good not only for readers but me as a writer as I consider how to express myself
8. Lists as Memes – I’m not quite sure how to describe this – but lists can start epidemics of ideas. For the above reasons (and others – bloggers seem to love linking to lists and as a result they have the ability to spread quickly

There is obviously a pretty good case for using lists in your blog writing. Of course you can use them too much – sometimes a topic calls for something a little more meaty and in depth than a list – but overall I’d recommend that using lists on your blog as part of your writing mix is an worthwhile strategy.

How To Make a Sticky Post in Your Blogger With a Simple Trick.

Sticky posts in blogger blogs

are like featured posts in wordpress. By default your blog

homepage shows recently published posts but you can keep a certain post as your sticky post and which will stay above all other blog posts. This is great to highlight your best or an important post. This sticky post will be there above all posts no matter how many new posts you publish. All your new posts will get arranged below that sticky post automatically.
Earlier bloggers used to publish a post on a future date to activate this sticky post on their blogger blogs. For an example if you schedule a post to get published on 13-12-2009, this post will be there as the sticky till 13th december 2009. Blogger was not supporting scheduled posts and as a result that post would be there till that scheduled date. But Blogger fixed this bug a while ago and this trick is not working anymore.
So, we have to follow any alternative method to make a post sticky post. Well, we can’t call this a sticky post exactly, because this will not be a post though it will stay above all your blog posts. This can be done with a simple HTML edit. You can also change that sticky contents frequently. You will be having total control over that. Lets discuss about it in details.
1. Navigate to Page Elements >> Edit Template
2. Search for the following code in your template

<div id='main-wrapper'>
<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'/>
</b:section></div>

3. Now inside the above code you can find a code
<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>.
This code is for the post section. We can edit this code to add another gadget on our post body.

4. You have to change NO to Yes in the above code. That means after editing the code it should look like
<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='yes'>
Save the template.
5. Now navigate to Page Elements and you can notice a new Add a Gadget option there above your post contents. Check out the below screenshot

.

6. You can use either TEXT or HTML/Javascript gadget to write your post and then save. This will show your text above all your blog posts.
7. You are done.
This is how you can make a sticky post on blogger blogs.

Add The "Add a Gadget" on Header and Blog Posts of Blogger Page Elements

Add The "Add a Gadget" on Header and Blog Posts of Blogger Page Elements

 

As well as another Content Management System (CMS) base sites (ie : Wordpress, Joomla, Mambo, Drupal etc) Blogger Template consist of Page Elements (header, main, sidebar and footer) and Each element of this page, usually also composed of a few gadgets (the name may be different on each CMS).
Pege Elements are very important. In addition to its function, Elements (Widget) of the page and Gadgets, also affect to the overall look of the pages of our blog.
One of the advantages of a CMS base sites is the Flexibility, In these CMS sites, we could cange the Elements, add or less the Gadgets and also set the appereance (display) of the Page..

When we first create a Blog in Blogger, the Default Templates consisting of 4 page elements: Header, Blog Posts, Sidebar (which consists of About Me, Blog Archive and the Follower), and a Blank Page Elements at the bottom of blog pages (usually filled with Footer). From the above picture seen that the Header and Blog Posts does not have the facility to add gadgets. To optimize the blog and to be able to add various functions (gadgets) in it, then the Header and Blog Posts must be change.

Let's do it by following this steps:

1 . As usually Log in to Blogger
2. On your Dashboard, select the Layout menu, than click the Edit HTML. Under the Edit Template you can see your Blog's HTML. (please Back up first...!)
3. To have an “Add a Gadget” option, under “Header”, Check the "Expand Widgets Templates" then Scroll down and towards the bottom, you will see these lines (use Ctrl+F to find):

<div id='header-wrapper'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='Blogger Test Result (Header)' type='Header'>
<b:includable id='main'>

Change with this :

<div id='header-wrapper'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='2' showaddelement='yes'>
<b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='Blogger Test Result (Header)' type='Header'>
<b:includable id='main'>

This will give you 1 more Page Element in your Header. You can add it more by change the number of maxwidgets="..."

4. To add "Add a Gadget" on the Blog Posts, find these lines

<div id='main-wrapper'>
<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'>

Than change with this:

<div id='main-wrapper'>
<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='yes'>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'>

Once You have done, don't forget to Save Template... And You will have :

Finnaly we have a "New" Blogger Page Element ready to optimized...

Simple isn't it...?