Bloggeratto

I have decided that any Good Development Commentary from someone inside "The B", is worth a post here, so:

Just at the Hackosphere, Pete Hopkins Dropped By the Hackosphre to answer some questions by Ramani and here is the summary of what it was said:

(along with my own commentary of course)

1.- About Why Blogger v3.0 Backlins Don´t Work Properly:

I saw your post show up as a backlink on my Buzz post about the login box, so it's not all broken. I know that the super-restrictive robots.txt file that was (accidenally) in place early on played a bit of havoc w/ blog search engines (Google's included) that's still sorting out. Blog search indexing issues in general are something that's on our radar.

"search indexing being something prioritary to them should really comes as natural, and if there is one thing i always been happy with, is Blog indexing in the google search engine"

2.- About the handling of Asociated Post Data to Labels Code:

2. Sounds like a feature request! This may come up in the future.

"ok, fair enough, it seems it didn´t came up to them when they were coding them i guess, about that may, lets not get that optimistic"

3.-About Why General Comments Feeds Don´t Work
In Blogger v3.0

3. I've seen a few bug fixes on this front go by, and they'll be out soon. This is one of the "it's not you, it's us" things, which is why support couldn't help you.

Really?, it´s Blogger Fault?, i could neeeever would have imagined...good to know, but that is just one of the things that should have been ok from the let go, "beta" or no "beta". another reason why support cannot truly help anyone (up to this moment)is because it is a computer using a re-selector to generate answers on pre-designed responses,what am talking about?, just go here, so you can understand and also have a good laugh

So, there you go, straight from the B-side.

Now,don´t get me wrong, i like pete because he seems like a cool guy (even if he has such a sappy taste for music and movies) , i also like his blog (he should post more often to it)

I also would like to add that he sure is making Blogger look more responsive to users than ever before, and he was the one who suddenly went into the open and started to offering some light into blogger v3.0 development, where in pre v3.0 we,were completely left at darkness.

Another thing, he says the team is truly aware of the blog that talk about v3.0 right now, but i still must wonder, who watches the watchmen? :P


*Yep, this Blog has lot of cynic, sarcastic, unforgiving humor, thanks for noting it*

Once Again, Ramani goes for the gold, and he bring some of it.

So, if you were figuring out how you could add some hotlinks to you Blogger v3.0, here it is one way to do so:

Delicuous and Digg Hotlinks to your Beta Blog

This time around, it not only just a Mod, it is a completely reusable one, that means you can grab it and change it to your means using the same very code and steps behind it.

No, it´s not a Blogger feature, it´s a name, and yeah, the name is Hans.

Hans just decided recently that since he like how stuff works, he would/should open a blog dedicated to learn how Blogger v3.0 works , and that is what this blog is about in a very focused way, looking at the details behind it with a pretty fresh view on it, wich is why it is worth buzzing, he can offer stuff that i know will be useful to the Bloggerosphere, so Hans, the stage is your pal, rock on, i know you can do it.

So far here are the interesting posts that deserve to be buzzed:

1.- Editor Bugs

Noting some common bugs in the v3.0 Html Editor that you should be aware off

2.- Changing The Color Scheme

With some useful Tips to use when you are playing with your Template

3.- Adding a second sidebar to your template

His own Mod and tutorial so you too can add a second Sidebar and get the 3 column configuration that lots of Blogger users love.

And as beauty is in the eye of the beholder,hans even dared to name his blog Beautiful Beta.

So,lets be polite and say hello.

For those times when you need a screenshot for a reviewin your blog and don´t want to have to take the photo youserlf and upload it to your favorite photo service and then link it back.

With WebShotsPro.com you only have to either search for the screenshot or add it to the database and then link back to make use of it.

That should be a good tool for those that do a lot of website reviews, however i must make the observation that it is better to use with commercial websites, becuase it uses IE6 engineand that unfortunately it has a timer set for the screenshot to be taken.

I was able to notice it while looking at the screenshot from this very blog:

Bloggeratto Screenshot

So, i do hope there would be a way for the service to improve on that, other than that,it´s all set to use.

In not so breaking but interesting news, Pete from Blogger Buzz stopped by Ramani´s Hackosphere to clarify that a change in the labels code was to comply to the rel-tag microformat convention.

Said change in the code as follows..

From:

http://Bloggeratto.blogspot.com/search?label=xxx

To:

http://Bloggeratto.blogspot.com/search/label/xxx

This will alow that Technorati and others can "see" the tags in Blogger v3.0 and also facilitates coming Tag related developments, so, lets see what it turns out of it.

The Blogger Holy grail in terms of templates has always been the 3 Column Template, and in this case Ramani decided to do something about its,so he is not only giving a great tutorial on how to convert your Official Blogger v3.0 Template if you already have some customization so you can add a third column to it.

But with the goodness of his Blogger heart (heh), he is giving out 3 already converted v3.0 3-column templates for you to download and use away.

3-Columns Templates For Blogger Beta

So, Don´t be rude and grab that free stuff away from him.

A few days back when Blogger decided to finally activate the Html Editor it seems they didn´t had the time to complete the Documentation on the code, so they only released a part of it.

But now, the Documentation is pretty much complete and ready to be read and use.

Blogger v3.0 Help Pages

Now, you will not find any info on porting your template to v3.0 from v2.0, so that will be the Bleet part of the job.

Recently i posted a look into the code from Scott at Banana Stew where he guided it directly from the template.

But now i bring your atention to a new look into the Code of Blogger v3.0 from the view of Johan Sundström At Ecmanaut who take a completely academic and theoric road into it (wich is a good thing, belive me) and in true Johan fashion offers nothing but a rock solid post about it:

Blogger Beta Templates

So, if you are up for it, it is a must read.

it´s not everyday that you get a actual apology from Blogger,but that is what the last post in Blogger buzz is, and such event deserves a post in Bloggeratto, also because is about something i was really angry about:

The Merged Blogger Sign In

I guess the feedback was on fire about how frustrating that login box was.

Lets Remember the frustrating factors it had, just for the sake of it don´t it?

1.-The password manager would not auto-fill you pre saved passwords
2.-The password manager would auto-fill your google account in the box.
3.-If you had gmail open and you entered the google accout you were logged off
4.-If were in gmail and opened blogger, blogger will redirect you to Blogger v3.0
5.-Sometimes your account suddenly failed to load at all (either Gmail or Blogger)

But gladly noted,this is the past:



And this is the Now and the Inmediate Future:

I.-

A) Choosing Blogger v2.0:



B) Choosing Blogger v3.0:



And now that i think of it,the only place where you could see Blogger giving one word apologies were in Blogger Status and even there, it is something rare...

This new Blogger really seems that is going to be more responsive to users, so there you have it, please give it another chance.

Blogger

There i was checking my gmail when saw that Ramani who as you know and if you don´t runs that fine Blog called "Hackosphere" so if you don´t have visited him, you really should, i mean he is from the Bleet!...anyway, i said hello to him and then he just said "i was just about to write you about my new hack", he did, so here i am telling all of you about it.

This new hack, is a extension from his Drop Down Labels hack.

The drive to do it so quickly was that Ramani was in a roll today and becuase someone gave him direct feedback to about it, that someone was my friend Ricardo Santos that pointed the suggestion to Ramani about having the labels to just display a Index and not the entire post as it normaly does so it don´t gets to cumbersome to manage when you get to have lots of posts in one label.

This makes the label to pull a Retro and then displaying the index just like two of the best v2.0 hacks that are Aditya own ABC Index or the Original In Main Index Hack done by Phydeaux3 called D2B



Now, the only left to do in this post is that you follow this link:

New hack to improve your label/search pages