Showing posts with label Getting started. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Getting started. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A quick tour through Blogger's brand new user interface

All Blogger accounts that haven’t yet made the switch will be upgraded to the new user interface. You will be able to opt-out at any time by clicking the “Switch back” link; however, all accounts will eventually be permanently upgraded, said on Google Buzz.

To help you get a better sense of what’s changed and how to navigate the new interface, check out the short video below.



If you’d like to switch to the new look at any time, you can easily do so by clicking the “Try the updated Blogger interface” link at the top of your dashboard.

Monday, February 21, 2011

If your blog contains adult content

If your blog contains adult themes or language, you may want to consider choosing to have a Content Warning page appear before readers can enter your blog. A Content Warning page will warn visitors that some may consider the material on your blog objectionable and will give them the chance to either continue to your blog or to cancel; this is especially useful if you would like to keep minors from accidentally stumbling upon your blog.

To add a Content Warning page to your blog, just toggle the setting titled, "Adult Content?" in your Settings | Basic tab.


* Please note that if your blog contains adult imagery, Blogger may apply the Content Warning page to your blog even if you haven't altered your settings.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

How to move a Blogger blog between accounts

The short answer is that you can do this by making the blog in question a team blog, with two members, then removing the original team member.

In detail, the process goes like this:
  1. Sign in to Blogger with Account 1, which we'll assume is the account containing the blog. Go to the Settings | Permissions tab.

  2. Click the Add Authors button and send an invitation to the owner of Account 2, the account to which you'd like to move the blog.
  3. Wait for the owner of Account 2 to accept the invitation. If you're sharing a computer, you'll need to sign out of Account 1 first, or each use a different browser.
  4. Once Account 2 has joined the blog, Account 1 can log in again and go back to the Settings | Permissions tab.
  5. Click the grand admin privileges link next to Account 2.

  6. Click the remove link next to Account 1.
Notes:
  • You'll still see any posts made on the blog by Account 1 with Account 1's display name. Account 2 can delete and repost these posts if they'd like to change the display name.
  • Account 1 cannot be removed until Account 2 has admin rights, since every blog must have at least one admin member at all times.
  • Photos uploaded with Account 1 will break if that account is deleted. If you want your old photos to display after adding Account 2, you'll have to leave Account 1 active.

Monday, March 8, 2010

How to create a team blog

Team blogs are quite useful when small groups of people wish to contribute to a single blog. Basically, one person initially creates the blog, then adds other people to it as members.

Team members can either be administrators or not. Administrators can edit all posts (not just their own), add and remove team members (and grant admin access), and modify the blog's settings and template. Non-admins can only create and edit their own posts.

Here's how to add members to your blog:

First, go to Settings | Permissions:


Then click Add Authors:
Next, type the email addresses of the people you're inviting to the blog, separating each address with a comma. They'll receive an email with a confirmation link soon. Note that they must have Google Accounts, and if they don't already, they'll be prompted to create one.
When you're ready to send the invitations, click Invite.

To remove a team member, go to the Settings | Permissions tab and click the "remove" link of person you want to remove:

Sunday, February 14, 2010

How Blogger autosaves your posts

When you create a new post, Blogger will start automatically saving it for you once a minute, without interrupting your typing. When it does this, you'll see a little note next to the "Save" button, like this:

If you want to make sure the saved copy is completely up to date, you can click the "Save" button yourself. You'll remain on the posting form and can continue typing, since the saving happens in the background. If you're done working on the post for now, you can either click "Publish Post" to convert the draft into a post, or click "Return to list of posts" if you want to leave it as a draft and go back to the Edit Posts page.


This autosave feature means that you have a safety net for the cases when you're working on a new post and the power goes out, or your browser crashes, or some other calamity occurs. All you have to do is log back in to Blogger and find your saved draft on the Edit Posts page. You can even do that from a different computer.

Note: Autosave does not occur when you are editing posts that have previously been published to your blog. This keeps your readers from seeing your edits until you're done with them. When editing a published post, you can click "Publish Post" to republish the changes to your blog, or click "Save as Draft" to unpublish the post and turn it into a draft.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

What are the limits on Blogger blog account?

Number of Blogs: You can have as many blogs as you like on one account.

Number of Posts: There is no limit on the number of posts you can have on one blog. They will all be saved on your account (unless you manually delete them) regardless of whether you are publishing archives or not.

Size of Posts: Individual posts do not have a specific size limit, but very large posts may run you up against the page size limit. (See the next item.)

Size of Pages: Individual pages (the main page of your blog, or your archive pages) are limited to 1 MB in size. This will allow for a few hundred pages of text, but it may be a problem if you are listing hundreds of posts on the front page of your blog. If you hit this limit, you will see an error message saying "006 Please contact Blogger Support." You can get around this error by lowering the number of posts on your main page, which will have the added benefit of making your page load faster as well.

Number of Comments: A post can have any number of comments. As with archived posts, if you choose to hide comments on your blog, all pre-existing comments will remain saved on your account.

Number of Pictures: Up to 1 GB of total storage, shared with Picasa Web

Size of Pictures: If you are posting pictures through Blogger Mobile there is a limit of 250K per picture.

Team Members: There is a limit of 100 members per blog.

Number of Labels: Up to 2000 unique labels per blog and 20 per post.

Blog Description: Limited to 500 characters, with no HTML. Adding additional characters or HTML may cause it to revert to a previous setting.

"About Me" Profile Information: Maximum of 1,200 characters.

Profile Interests and Favorites: Maximum of 2,000 characters in each field.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Starting with a new post

Blogger offers an easy way to collaborate, discuss, or share your thoughts with others. After created a blog with your own name and URL. This guide will help you familiarize yourself with the main features of Blogger and get started writing your own blog.

Write your post

Once you've signed in to Blogger, you'll see your dashboard with your list of blogs. Here's what you need to do:
  1. Click the New Post button and enter anything you want to share with the world.
  2. Next, you'll see the Create New Post page. Start by giving your post a title (optional), then enter the post itself:
  3. When you're done, click the Preview button to make sure it's ready to go.
  4. Once you're satisfied with your post, click the Publish Post button. This will publish your new post.
Add an image

You can add an image from your computer or the Web to your blog. Click the image icon in the post editor toolbar. A window appears prompting you to browse for an image file on your computer, or enter the URL of an image on the Web.

Once you've selected your image, you can then choose a layout to determine how your image will appear in your post:
  • The 'Left', 'Center', and 'Right' options allow you to customize the way your blog text will flow around your image.
  • The 'Image size' options will determine how large the image will appear within your post.
  • The 'Ad caption' option will let you write captions for your photo.
Click UPLOAD IMAGES to add your image, and then click DONE when the notification window appears telling you that 'Your image has been added.' Blogger will then return you to the post editor, where you'll see your image ready to be published to your blog.

You can also publish images to your blog using your mobile device, Google's free photo software Picasa, or a third-party service like Flickr.

Add a video

To add a video to your blog post, click the film strip icon in the post editor toolbar above where you compose your blog text. A window appears prompting you to 'Add a Video.'

Click Browse to select the video file from your computer that you'd like to upload. Note that Blogger accepts AVI, MPEG, QuickTime, Real and Windows Media files and that your video must be less than 100MB in size.

Before uploading your video, you must agree to the Terms and Conditions (you'll only have to do this the first time that you upload a video with Blogger). Then click UPLOAD button.

While your video uploads, you'll see a placeholder in the post editor showing where your video will appear. You'll also see a status message below the post editor letting you know that your upload is in progress. Depending on the size of your video, this usually takes about five minutes. When it is complete, your video will appear in the post editor.


Blogger also let you add a video to your blog from YouTube easier with a 'YouTube search'  option, this will help you add any video from YouTube you want or your own video from your YouTube channel with a 'My YouTube video' option.

Customizing your layout

Your template is a fun way to customize your blog. When creating a new blog, you're first asked to choose a default template, this is the basic design of your blog. You can choose from customize your blog's design using the intuitive drag-and-drop interface. You can also add powerful gadgets such as slideshows, user polls, or even AdSense ads. Changing the fonts and colors on your blog is easy too. If you want more precise control over your blog's layout, you can also use the Edit HTML feature. To edit your blog's layout, follow these steps:
  1. Click the Design link from your dashboard below the blog you would like to customize.
  2. From the Page Elements sub-tab, click Edit to edit existing gadgets, or Add a Gadget to add new ones.
  3. To add a new gadget after you've clicked Add a Gadget, simply click the plus sign next to your desired gadget. You can choose from gadgets by category, or search for a specific gadget in the top right of the pop-up window.
  4. Once you've added the necessary information to your selected gadget, click SAVE. Your layout changes will appear instantly.

Privacy and permissions

By default, your blog is completely public, and can be read by anyone on the internet. However, if you want to keep it private, you can do that, too. You can change these settings on the Settings | Permissions tab.
  1. Under the 'Blog Readers' heading, you'll probably see 'Anybody' selected as the default. When you change this to 'Only readers I choose,' you'll get an Add Readers button.
  2. Click the Add Readers button and then enter the email address of a person to whom you'd like to grant access to your blog. To add multiple people, separate their addresses with commas.
  3. For each address entered, the Google Account associated with that address will be given access to view your blog. If an address is not associated with an account, that person will receive an invitation email with a link allowing them do one of three things:
  • Sign in to an existing account.
  • Create a new account.
  • View your blog as a guest (no account required).
Follow other blogs

With the Blogger Following feature you can keep track of the blogs you follow via your Reading List on the Blogger dashboard. There are several ways to become a follower of a blog. One of the easiest ways is to visit a blog that has added the 'Following' widget, ad then follow these steps:
  1. Click the FOLLOW THIS BLOG link under the 'Followers' widget.
  2. You'll then see a pop-up window with the options to either follow publicly or anonymously.
  3. Select how you'd like to follow the blog, then click the orange FOLLOW button. You're now a follower of the blog! If you chose to follow the blog publicly, your profile picture will be displayed on the blog with a link to your Blogger profile.
  4. When you become a follower of a blog, the blog will also be added to your Reading List on your Blogger dashboard. Additionally, you can become a follower of any blog or URL (even if the blog doesn't have the 'Followers' widget) by adding the blog to your Reading List on the dashboard.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Getting started with Blogger

Blogger.com homepage
Blogger is a free, fast, and easy-to-use blog publishing tool available from Google. Because getting started is so easy, Blogger helps you discover how blogging works without having to invest a lot of time and energy in Web servers and complicated installation processes.

Create a Blogger account to get started.
Before signing up with Blogger, you need login information (a username and password). If you have an account with one of Google’s services, such as Gmail, you can log in to Blogger by using that account information. If you don’t have a Google account, you get one when you sign up with Blogger.

If you started an account with Blogger before Google acquired it back in 2002, click the Claim Your Old Blogger Account link at the top of the Blogger home page.

Name your blog.
If you’re creating a blog you really plan to use (rather than just test), you should give a lot of thought to choosing a name that will portray your tone and content well. If you plan to use this blog as a test space, don’t worry too much about choosing a name with meaning.

Choose a template for your blog.
Blogger offers several fun templates to use for your blog. The template determines both the look and feel of your blog and also how the blog elements are laid out on the page. You can change the template later if your first choice no longer looks as fresh in six months.

What is a blog?

A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.

Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.

In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not.

Since Blogger was launched in 1999, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others.

And we're pretty sure the whole deal is just getting started.

Publish your thoughts

A blog gives you your own voice on the web. It's a place to collect and share things that you find interesting— whether it's your political commentary, a personal diary, or links to web sites you want to remember.

Many people use a blog just to organize their own thoughts, while others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while personal journalers reveal inner thoughts.

Whatever you have to say, Blogger can help you say it.

Engage your friends

Blogging is about more than just putting your thoughts on the web. It's about connecting with and hearing from anyone who reads your work and cares to respond. With Blogger, you control who can read and write to your blog — let just a few friends or the entire world see what you have to say!

Blogger Comments let anyone, anywhere, offer feedback on your posts. You can choose whether you want to allow comments on a post-by-post basis, and you can delete any comments you don't like.

Access Controls let you decide who can read and who can write to your blog. You can use a group blog with multiple authors as an excellent communication tool for small teams, families and other groups. Or as a single author, you can create a private online space for collecting news, links, and ideas, to keep to yourself or share with as many readers as you want.

Blogger Profiles let you find people and blogs that share your interests. Your Blogger Profile, where you can list your blogs, your interests, and more, lets people find you (but only if you want to be found).

Design your blog

Whether you're starting your blog or just think it's time to give your existing blog a facelift, Blogger's user-friendly editing tools help you easily design a great-looking page.

Templates — Our collection of templates will get you started with an attractive site right away without you having to learn any HTML, though Blogger also allows you to edit your blog's HTML code whenever you want.

Custom colors and fonts — When you're ready to take the next step, you can further customize our templates to create a design that perfectly reflects you and your blog.

Drag-and-drop page elements — Blogger's simple drag-and-drop system lets you easily decide exactly where your posts, profiles, archives and other parts of your blog should live on the page.

Post photos

Sometimes you just want to share a photo. There's a button for uploading photos in the Blogger interface. Just click the photo button to upload a photo from your computer. If the photo you'd like to put on your blog is already on the web that's fine too. Just tell us where it is.

You can also send camera phone photos straight to your blog while you're on-the-go with Blogger Mobile.

Go Mobile

Blogger Mobile lets you send photos and text straight to your blog while you're on-the-go. All you need to do is send a message to go@blogger.com from your phone. You don't even need a Blogger account. The message itself is enough to create a brand new blog and post whatever photo and text you've sent.

Later, if your want to claim your mobile blog or switch your posts to another blog, just sign in to go.blogger.com and use the claim code Blogger sent to your phone.

We support most popular mobile carriers in the US and worldwide. If Blogger Mobile is unavailable from your provider, you can still send posts to your blog using Mail-to-Blogger.

Get started

The fastest way to understand blogging is to try it out. We've worked really hard to make it really easy for you. Just click the link below, and you can be part of the phenomenon that's transforming web and media to a participatory activity in less than five minutes. Seriously.

What will happen then? Who knows. It might be fun, though.

And remember: Blogger is totally free, and if you have trouble, just click the Help button from any screen, and you can find the answer you're looking for—or even ask our dedicated support staff.

[via Blogger.com]