Blog Template - Upgrade
Alright, I've pretty much finished the Blog upgrade. This new template is a bit different than the old one but I think it's a little better looking.
So, the benefits of going fully "Blogger Beta" are that updating the template should be easier now. Hacks are also available and relatively easy to implement.
The first hack was written by Gabriel Lau over at Freeyasoul Adventure. This is a Random Rotating Banner Hack. Each time you visit the blog, a different banner should show at the top; of course, there will be repeats as I've only made seven banners. To quote Gabriel, "If you don't get what I mean, press "F5" on your keyboard and a different banner should appear, if it happen to be the same banner then press again till you see a new one."
Just so you are not pressing F5 forever, I've included the banners below. Most are using pictures I took while on hikes or trips.
The original zp4 banner; taken from the top of Mt Pilchuck looking west to the San Juan Islands:
The next two were taken on the Olympic Peninsula at Third Beach (Pacific Ocean):
This one was taken up by the Washington/British Columbia border at a little resort called Semiahmoo:
The following were (obviously) not taken by me; they come via the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Eagle Nebula:
The Orion Nebula:
The next Hack comes from phydeaux3. A new feature in Blogger Beta is the use of labels. This is one way to sort out the posts you don't care to read. Phydeaux3 has provided a way to list the labels in "cloud" form instead of a standard list. On zp4, the cloud can be found to the right near the top of the page. The more times a label is used, the larger its font is in the cloud. Now there's a surprise, "Politics" has the largest font in mine.
The final hack I've used was found over at the Digital Inspirations blog. This adds language translation capabilities to the top of my blog (the country flags just under the banner). Each will translate this blog into its respective language. The cool thing about this is that while in the translated page, you can navigate the links and still maintain your language of choice.
The only problem I have found with this is that the first translation does not load all of the images. The way around it is to click on the "Remove Frame" text in the Google frame at the top. This should reload all images.
If any of you are multilingual, let me know how well Google does on its translations.
An honorable mention is Hackosphere. It was from this blog that I found the cloud hack.
No comments:
Post a Comment