Blog Site Redesign
I've just uploaded some template changes to my blog. The changes are mostly to the sidebar and a new "Save to del.icio.us" link for each article. Here are the details about the changes.
Sidebar:
I really didn't like the way the sidebar was getting longer and longer and I still wanted to add some content to it. I found some great code over on DynamicDrive for menus that drop down when the headers are clicked. I then made some CSS modifications so the 'Subscribe' header is orange in keeping with the general web theme for RSS links.
Categories:
Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't provide us with categories. I've always wanted that feature and now that they have the new BlogSearch feature I was able to create pseudo-categories. Since I tag my blog posts I just created a list of categories I use often and built search URLs around them that look like: http://search.blogger.com/?ui=blg&q=site%3Atechlifeblogged.blogspot.com+
tag%5CGoogle&scoring=d
tag%5CGoogle&scoring=d
The URL feeds the search engine my site:techlifeblogged.blogspot.com name and then tag\NameOfTag (in this example, Google). The scoring=d bit returns the results by date. Harder to say than to do actually. In that example, anytime I use a Technorati tag for Google that article will become part of the result set. Only slight downside here is that I'll have to edit my template to include a new category but I generally post about the same things and site search can handle the occasional other posting.
Popular Posts:
Sometimes I write a longer article or how-tos that I might want people to see again when they stop by my site. Again, native Blogger doesn't really have a method for doing this. I could edit the template but thats just too much of a pain for something like this. RSS mashups to my rescue once again.
What I do now is post a link to the article in del.icio.us and tag it 'mypop'. The tag name doesn't matter as long as you are consistent. I chose a tag name that wasn't something I'd use in ordinary tagging so that I had to be deliberate that I wanted the article to show up in the RSS feed for that tag.
Next, I found the del.icio.us RSS feed for my tag and then went to the awesome service FeedJumbler to create a little javascript that I could put into my template. With some added switches the code feeds just the titles of my links from del.icio.us. You'll find the output under the new 'Popular' section in the sidebar.
Technorati Tags : blogger, blogging, google, search, feedjumbler, blogsearch, technorati, dynamicdrive
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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29, 2005 at 10/29/2005 11:53:00 PM. 
3 Comments:
Pseudo categories? How about real one.
By
Amit, at 2/12/2006 10:28:00 PM
Looks interesting ... too bad it's not open for registration.
By
Scott, at 3/30/2006 08:04:00 AM
I have another idea for categories on blogger.(is by making archives. Look at my blog: Stupid Stuff, you will understand) The only drawback I care is this: the posts on the manin page are not categorised and when I categorise them I have to change their date, with this I lose some links. I think this can be solved with some javascript that can let me choose which posts to apear on the main page.Anyone who know how to do that please email me.
This is my blog: http://stupid-ideas.blogspot.com/
and this my email: ionut.ro at gmail.com
P.S. excuse my english, is not my first language
By
Stupid, at 5/04/2006 02:03:00 AM
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