Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Dynamic templates: turning them on in your blog

This article is about the 2nd version of dynamic templates that Blogger have released:  what they are, how to add them to your blog, and what restrictions they have.


Announcing Dynamic Templates, part II

In March 2011, Blogger announced Dynamic Views, and I posted describing them, and telling you how to give your readers the ability to see your blog in dynamic views.

Today, they've announced them again (without acknowledging the previous announcement!).  This time with a few differences:
  • There are seven templates (instead of five)
  • Some templates allow for blogs that don't have great photos in every post
  • You can set your blog up so that visitors automatically see it using one of the dynamic-view templates:  it's just another option in the template designer (see Setting up your Blog to use a Dynamic Template, below).
  • Most (all?) templates include some gadgets: search, RSS feed link, link to Blogger, and regular sized +1, Tweet and Like buttons (instead of the anorexic ones in regular designer templates at the moment)

There are still restrictions:  blogs must be public, with RSS site feeds enabled.

And there are still lots of things missing:   for example, blog-owners have no control over gadgets or layout, fonts or color scheme (even though the announcement says this is coming, I cannot find where to access it).



You cannot add gadgets to a blog with a dynamic template.   So you cannot install Google Analytics, or AdSense or any other sort of advertising.  That said, this help article does say that Blogger will continue to support AdSense for blogs that already have it, so the work around may be to use a regular designer template, put in some ads, and then switch to a dynamic template.


Setting up your Blog to use a Dynamic Template

To make a dynamic view the default option for your blog:

1)  Check that it is public,

2)  Check that the RSS site feeds is switched to full or jump-break

2)  Choose Design > Template Designer (pre-Sept-11 interface), or Template from the dashboard drop-down (post-Sept-11 Blogger)

3)  Choose Dynamic from the list of options   (if it's not in the list, then post probably your blog doesn't meet one of the conditions above.

4)  From the row underneath, choose which of the options (ie dynamic template types) you would like as a default.




Next

Removing a dynamic template from your blog - be careful, don't lose your gadgets!



Related Articles

Dynamic templates, version I

Letting your readers the ability to see your blog in dynamic views.

Changing the colours in your blog

Why RSS matters, and how to enable it

Installing Google Analytics into Blogger

Setting up AdSense for your blog

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2 comments:

  1. hey, do you know how to remove the different styles of the digital view once you have applied it to your blog? I want my labels to be shown in the horizontal bar, under the blog name.- instead it shows the different types of views like magazine, snapshot, classic etc.

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    Replies
    1. As far as I know there is now way to customize the structure of dynamic templates. BUT I believe that if you use Pages and have the Pages gadget enabled, it will be shown as a horizontal menu bar. (ref: http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-gadget-menu-bar-for-your-blog-with.html)

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