"In the beginning"

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The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily the views of the blog management, (on the other hand, they are not necessarily not the views of the blog management).

No effort has been made to stay within the bounds of the truth in this blog as it has always been the view of the management that the truth should never be allowed to stand in the way of a good story.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Blog editing problems



Am I and my select band of blogging friends and family the only
ones experiencing editing difficulties, somehow I doubt it.

Do you get sidebar intrusion? sidebar slipping to the bottom of your
page? HUGE print in compose when you are trying to edit a post?
does the finished post look like your preview showed you? no?
I thought not.

I have been experiencing these sorts of problems for about a year
now; in this time I have come to some conclusions that may help
others to overcome some problems.

First up though, let me assure you I am not a qualified Geek, I
stumble around the cyber world, often in a daze, but I am
reasonably persistent and on that score alone I have found a few
solutions that work for me, that’s not to say they will work for
everyone though.


First let’s look at sidebar problems;

Mine started to become more prevalent as I added more little
trinkets to my sidebar, but hey, it’s my blog and I wanted to keep
the things that made it mine.

That seems to work fine unless you try to include something that
exceeds the allocated width of your sidebar, (this is preset in your
blog template), often I have found with things like digital clocks
there are various widths available, choose small !!

Even something as simple as a line of characters like **********
(these will not word wrap as there are no spaces to seperate them)
can be a problem if they exceed the width of your pages boundaries,
(also set in the template.)

The content of your post can also impinge, I had a case in point with
the post containing the cartoon The Seven Dwarfs of Menopause, I
had cut and pasted this from an existing file which I failed to notice
needed to be cropped to fit my page, this caused sidebar intrusion
in some cases, Thanks for pointing this out Raggedy, BTW when I
cropped the cartoon and reposted it I lost the comments that had
gone with it…. Sorry.


Editing of posts;

When I cut and paste text from Word to my blog I find it’s essential
to ensure that the print size and font is the same for all material, I
sometimes use stuff I type with bits of an article or an email etc.
these may not be all the same size and font, STANDARDISE THEM.

When editing if you find the type has become HUGE in the compose
window, but not in the preview, highlight all the oversize text, then
go to the size icon and select “tiny”, now select “normal” again, you
may need to repeat and select a different font as well, should work.

If you are getting a word or two on a separate line of your post, go
back to edit, then preview note the word that ends the line in
preview and change the line in compose so that it agrees with
preview, as you scroll down while in compose anything that exceeds
the line length of the one you’ve changed should be changed too.


Posting photos;

I have a preference for selecting, “Center” and “Large” for my
photos, even though I would select them in the order I wanted to
display them blogger would often mix them up, I now find that,
provided I create a space above or below a photo I want to move,
I can drag a photo to it’s correct position, thus resetting my chosen
order, (if you happen to lose a pic doing this, hit the recover post
button and you should get it back, I did say
should.

Difference in browsers;

I don't know whether this comes under the same category as "size
is important" or not, but different browsers read things differently
I use Mozilla Firefox and very much prefer it to Internet Explorer,
one of the main reasons being that it has far better protection
from the gremlins that just love IE.
Having praised Firefox I must admit there is one site on my links
that opens much clearer with IE, that's Mikes don't ask me why??
My advice would be, if you are using IE and having trouble, try
Firefox, it's free and it's good.


Text too small to read easily in a favourite post?

Go to “view” - text size – increase, repeat if necessary, as an
alternative use Ctrl + or ++ if necessary. these only work on web
pages by the way.


There are many more tricks of the trade out there I’m certain, if
anyone has found these helpful I am pleased, if anyone can add
more to them I will be delighted to host a forum which just might
make our blogging lives easier.


Any good ideas?



19 comments:

Miss Cellania said...

My suggestion: Leave Blogger. I had all those problems and lots more. But I wouldn't trade the experience for anything! I sure did learn a lot about html... and about problem-solving. Can't rely on support at Blogger!

Granny said...

I had the sinking side bar and another Australian friend of a friend fixed it.

My post area was a little wide. She fiddled around and it was corrected. I didn't have a clue.

One useful thing I learned was the difference between IE and Firefox. My sidebar looked okay in Firefox.

Strange.

Carolyn said...

I edit a lot in HTML. Kind of learned it on my own, and don't know a lot of it. I had that sidebar issue a few times too. Thanks for the tips :)

Granny said...

I missed your whole paragraph on IE and Firefox. A kid must have been talking in my ear.

DellaB said...

Thanks for the tips, Peter... like Carolyn I use the HTML feature to fiddle. I decided I wanted a third column and tried to make it work using FLOAT - I have spent a lot of time the last 2 weeks in the blogger help groups; it's not easy to find answers .., then I wanted to list more previous posts than the blogger allows, in the sidebar. It's been FUN - but at least now I am happy and can stop fiddling (today anyway!.

I have heard that Word can be a nusiance, it adds code to the HTML that blogger doesn't recognise, you are right - especially if you have used text changes!

A quick tip about picture size and location - once you have uploaded the picture - if you go to the HTML tag - you will see a whole bunch of code that looks like this:

"img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; src="http://www.turningsixty.com.au/tsblog/images/sedgwaypolo.jpg" border="0" /"

You can simply change the WIDTH:320px; to whatever you want it to be... saves having to load and load again testing sizes, and it means you are not limited to their pre-set sizes.

Same with FLOAT:right, you can change that to FLOAT:left, or :center

and... to move the pictures about in the window.. blogger always adds the pics at the top - you can cut and paste the whole 'img' code to wherever you want it on the page.

I love all this stuff, it gives me something to do with my time ::smiles::

Val said...

Well, I'm not surprised you are having trouble with your sidebar, what with all the bells and whistles you've put there. I found that by just adding a clock my whole sidebar was pushed down so I gave it away.

Re copying and pasting from Word: I read somewhere recently that you should first paste into something like Notepad to get rid of all the hidden Word formatting, and then paste into your blog.

I really can't complain about Blogger, and anyway, it's free!

Jim said...

Thanks, Peter, for those tips. Yes, too wide a text causes the sidebar to go to the bottom, the part after the width problem goes down.
That cut place will give you a hint what is too wide in the post, more likely than not, it will be an link. I always do a carriage return before putting in a link.

Pictures can be resized by grabbing a corner and pulling it towards the center (keep the proportions correct).

Sometime moving pictures around wipes out the 'click to enlarge' feature. You can fix that by going into the html.

If a picture won't upload, most of the time it actually did. Grab the html from another recent post, then change your desired picture (lost) tag out for the once you had pasted in from the previous post.

You can replace your picture link designation with '100_2748.jpg' in both places in your own html and get my infamous foot picture (now on today's post).
Just Peter has permission to use it though.
..

Merle said...

Hi Peter ~~ Lots of info there in your post and also in the comments. I will print them for future reference.
What we all go through to amuse ourselves and others. Take care, Merle.

Raggedy said...

Thanks for the tips. I am still learning too!
Have a wonderful day!
Hugs

Anonymous said...

Since i dont use blogger i cannot contribute to the tips - but i do enjoy seeing your different add ons! They are fun and it gives me ideas on things i might want to try....

Meow (aka Connie) said...

Hey Peter, thanks for all the tips. I also find that the sidebar drops on some blogs on my IE as I always have my favorites on the left side ... If I were to close the favorites, then the sidebar returns, sometimes.
I like Blogger, so will put up with it's weirdness, like many others, I guess.
Hope you are having a great day.
Take care, Meow

Merle said...

Hi Peter ~~ If ever I needed editing it is now. My post looks terrible, and I have been to Edit Posts 5 times and no change at all. Back to Windows tomorrow. If you have time, and if you can please fix it. Cheers, Merle.

Jacqui said...

My eyes just glaze over after the first few lines of that technical stuff, so I'll just keep my site plain and simple.

I don't want any of my friends shot at dawn, whether she approves or not.

Merle said...

Hello again Peter, If you did something, thanks. But it still shows up the same on my computer. I agree it is late, and I have not been around the blogs, but must go to bed. May have a day off tomorrow. There was no colour options in Notepad and that helps to show the start and end of things. cya, Merle.

Laurie said...

I think you sell yourself short. You sound like quite the geek...qualified or not. :)

Jim said...

Peter, Hi.
More about yesterdays photo pasting stuff. This probably isn't for posting.
To knap someone else's photo, copy the HTML of your own from a previous post for a picture of you own. (HTML compose mode after you do an edit)
When you have copied it, leave things as they were by going up and pushing 'Edit.' Blogger will tell you that if you leave your changes won't be save. Don't save anything, just do it. Nothing with your old post you copied from will change.
Paste this HTML for the old picture into your new post (HTML compose mode again).

Now exchange the URL address in the two places for the URL of the blogger picture you want to change out for.
Get that HTML for the URL by right clicking on the picture you want, at the bottom of the new pop-up click 'properties.'
There in the middle will be the URL for you to copy, then paste into your new post, replacing your old picture URL.
For my infamous foot picture it is
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6963/1929/400/100_2748.jpg
Pasting it into both places is necessary. One makes the picture on your post, the other is for a full size picture to show up when you click on the picture.
Go back to 'Compose' mode and finish up your blog. You will be able to see the picture you changed out again.

Yesterday I was talking about a missing picture, when it seems Blogger isn't uploading. Most times it is, the picture just doesn't get transfered into your compostion.
Do the process above for a recently uploaded picture.
Using my foot URL for an example, replace the actual photo name with the name for the new one you think should have uplaoded.
In the foot picture URL it is
'100_2748.jpg'
That is how it is filed in My Pictures.
Say my newly uploaded picture was filed with the name
'100_2907.jpg'
I'll copy that into the new post, HTML mode, in the two places that the #2748 shows up.
You probably will now have the picture you were trying to upload. Check in 'Compose' mode.
Now do the same for all the others that would not show up.
Otherwise you will have used up bandwidth and picture space for pictures you can never get hold of.

One more thing. You could have just downloaded into your post my picture directly by entering the URL you found for the picture earlier.
When uploading the picture, go to the right hand side and copy mine from blogger by pasting the URL into the 'add an image from the web' window.
It will use my allocation again and when you run it will get it from my account.
With Blogger, I won't easily know that is happening. But a lot of Web sites have better tracking than Site Meter and you will get caught quickly.
I have done that and have been asked to get if off my blog.
It uses their bandwidth, which sometimes is very limited, every time my blog is pulled up.

Hope this might work for you in the future.
You should alway ask permission because everyone's blog is copyrighted under International Law unless credit is given to the source, with their permission of course.
I got caught one time. One of my blogs has a lot of chain type e-mail funnies pasted in.
One, "If my body was a car," is in a published book and the author (could have been an agent, but she said she was the author) asked my to take if off as she had the copyright.
Sure enough, I Googled and she did. Those chain e-mails I just post with no questions asked, but I do have a disclaimer in my side-bar of that blog. The disclaimer says I will take if off if I am notified it belongs to XYZ and if I can verify that.
..

Big Dave T said...

I hate to say this, but when I'm on my computer at home (ole tyrannasaurus rex) I see problems like this. But only on your blog and maybe one or two others.

That's why I never tamper with my template.

Hale McKay said...

My sidebar sometimes pos down to the bottom. But after four or five new posts, it pops back to the top. I just live with it.
...That's a lot info in your tips to help people. Also. there is good advice from the commenters.

DellaB said...

Hi Peter - thanks for the idea of a forum for this topic - it looks like we have some good ideas already.

I have set up on turningsixty forums; I will add a click to the forums bar at the turningsixty blog.

Or direct access at:
http://www.turningsixty.com.au/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=24

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