After Dynamic Views (Technical Tuesday)

Life after NaNoWriMo is finally getting back to some kind of normal. I'll be posting a few of my thoughts on NaNo later, but for this Technical Tuesday I'm going to report on my other grand experiment: Dynamic Views.

I switched my blog over a few months ago. During that time I tried most of the different views. In the end, I decided to go back to my previous template. Here's why.

Stats

From the moment I switched to Dynamic Views my page count skyrocketed. I expected this.

Take a look at a normal template. When you visit the main page it shows the latest 10 posts all at once. This counts as 1 page view. You see, Blogger doesn't know if you read one post or all 10. It just knows you loaded the page.

Dynmic Views are different. They only load what they need to. As the user scrolls down, it loads more and more posts. Each of these count as a page view. This means that if the person scrolled down through your first 7 posts, Blogger would count 7 page views.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble if you thought your blog became 10x more popular after switching to Dynamic Views. It probably didn't.

The real problem for me was the stats for individual posts didn't work the same. In other words, Blogger was counting how many total page views, but not which ones belonged to which post. This was annoying because I like to see which of my posts are most popular, but I couldn't figure out a way to do that.

For example, I had several thousand page views in October, but my most popular post was visited only 85 times. Really? Compound that with the fact that I had less than 40 posts published and you begin to see the problem. Where were all those "total page views" going?

Sidebar

I'm not a big fan of sidebars, but they do serve a purpose.

It may surprise you, but I don't blog just to see myself write. (Okay, maybe that wasn't a big surprise.) I want to build a platform I can use for other pursuits. I use the sidebar for that. My sidebar has an overview of the blog and information about me.

Also, my sidebar is used to spotlight posts and other places I think deserve a little extra attention. I have a place for my most popular posts, my friends and followers. In the future, I plan on featuring books and articles I've written.

The Dynamic Views didn't have any of this. They allowed my posts to be front-and-center, but they didn't allow for much else.

Confusion

The Dynamic Views didn't look enough like a blog. Sure they looked cool, but they were different enough that some people had a hard time figuring out what they could click on and what they couldn't. 

Sometimes readers had to click to read the entire post. A lot of people didn't do that. I know, that's mostly my fault. I could write posts better to have a hook "above the fold", but I didn't.

Conclusion

There you have my biggest concerns with the Dynamic Views.

From a technology perspective, I thought they were pretty cool. I like the dynamic loading, and if the stats issue could be resolved that would be a great thing. I think I could live without the sidebar if there were more ways to customize the layout and the look.

All in all, I enjoyed this little experiment and I hope to try more things like this in the future.

* I can see why this castle is in ruins. Who knew it was built on such a slope? Babak Fakhamzadeh did a great job of "framing" it though. You can find this and other photos with frames on Flickr. 

I Have Dynamic Views (Technical Tuesday - Special)

My initial impression: Dynamic Views aren't quite ready for everyone.

In this post, I'll walk you through the switch-over and some of the hurdles I encountered. There's a fair number of them and I don't want this post to become negative. I'm going to keep working on finding a way over each of them and will post my suggestions as I figure things out.

The Big Switch

Switching to Dynamic Views is very easy. Here's what my blog looked like before:

1. Login to your Blogger Dashboard and go to the Templates section.
2. Make a backup of your current template. I posted instructions for doing this a couple days ago.
3. Select one of the Dynamic Views and apply it to your blog.
4. Done.

I decided to use the Classic view mostly because it was the first one in the list. Here's my blog after the switch.

The Hurdles

The new view is simple, clean, and worked like a charm. All my posts showed up and were formatted well. I don't use a lot of fancy formatting in my posts, so I didn't expect any problems with this.

Hurdle #1: Branding

I like the new look and how it makes it easy to read posts, but I want to make it a bit more my own. Right now, there aren't a lot of people using the new views, but as more people use them my blog will blend into the sea of simple black & white.

The new views are all about the content. They push everything else to the background and put the posts in the spotlight. I think this is a good thing.

Still, I want to put my own spin on it, and this is hard to do right now.

Hurdle #2: Who Am I?

As you can tell, my sidebar is gone along with all the gadgets. So, how are people supposed to know who I am? How can they find my profile? How can they find me on Twitter or Facebook or Google+?

Hurdle #3: I Lost My Friends

I haven't really lost my blog followers, but you can't see them anymore.

Honestly, this doesn't bother me much. I know there are many people who put a lot of emphasis on how many Followers they have. The problem is that there are so many other ways to follow a blog than clicking on the "Follow" link.

If you're a reader who uses the Follow button to keep up on blogs then you're out of luck.

Hurdle #4: No Preview

I don't know if this is related to switching to Dynamic Views but since switching over I can't Preview my blog posts. The button is grayed out.

Hurdle #5: Tags and Archives


This isn't really a hurdle. It's just different. The new search feature is way cool. Just start typing in the box and it will filter the posts like magic.

Hurdle #6: Money, money, money, mo-ney

If you use your sidebar, header, or footer for ad space, then it's gone.

Hurdle #7: Platform

Most blogs use their sidebar as a platform to promote products, other blogs/websites, events, and show off their awards. The sidebar is gone, so how can people see the cover of your latest book and purchase it? Or see your most recent blogging awards?

To be completely honest, most people don't see those things anyway. When was the last time you visited a blog and just perused down the sidebar looking for something interesting? Even if your answer was "just five minutes ago" ask yourself how many time a week do you do that? Not often.

People aren't looking at your sidebar much at all. And if your visitors are like me they rarely see your sidebar ever. I read blog posts in Google Reader. This means that I only see your posts formatted the way I like to read them, nothing more.

Still, I think the sidebar images are like billboards. Marketers learned long ago that billboards rarely drive sales directly. Instead, they reinforce a brand. When you see a billboard over and over again, you form a subconscious relationship with that company. Then when it comes down to making a sales decision, your familiarity will give them an upper hand.

The new views have torn down all the billboards. Great for people who think they are eyesores, not so great for people who want to promote their brand.

Hurdle #8: Copyright

I try to be a stickler for copyright. I make sure I only use images and quotes with permission and I try to give proper attribution. For example, my header image is based on the Night Sky theme by Ray Creations. In my old template, I added this attribution to the footer. The new view doesn't have a footer, so where do I put this?

Also, everything I post on my blog (unless otherwise noted) is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This means that anyone can use any quote, image, or whole posts from my blog without asking as long as they give me proper attribution. This information used to be in my footer.

Hurdle #9: Javascript is Broken

This won't apply to many of you, but I use custom javascript in several of my posts. For example, the tool I made to create image buttons. It doesn't work anymore, and I'm sad about that. I know that it's possible to make it work because one of the Google blogs did it. I just need to figure out how.

The Finish Line

Whew! That's a lot of hurdles, but I'm planning on finding a way over each of them. If you have any suggestions put them in the comments. Or if you want to add a hurdle or two--feel free.

How do you like the new view?

* The hurdles photo was taken by David Morris and can be found on Flickr. I'm short, so this is pretty much exactly how I envision skyscrapers hurdles.

How to Backup Your Blogger Template (Technical Tuesday - Special)

I enjoy reading Nathan Hale's blog. He's an incredible artist/illustrator and often tells stories, a page at a time, on his blog. He shares tips, advice, and events from his life. He also runs some really fun contests. You should follow him.

A couple months back he re-designed his blog. That sounds boring, but he allowed his readers to see each step and even participate in the decisions. He'd  post some new artwork and get feedback, then we'd see the blog change. Sometimes the changes didn't work out the first time and he'd try again. It was a lot of fun and I learned from it, too.

I hope that this journey will also be entertaining and educational. I don't think I can compete with Nathan's illustrations, but I'll do the best I can.

With that high bar to clear, let's get started.

Step Numero Uno

The first step on our Dynamic Views journey is to create a backup. I've put a lot of work into my current setup and I don't want to lose it. Also, if I don't like my changes I want an easy way out. In this post, I'll walk you through creating a backup of your Blogger template.

Official Backup

Blogger provides a way to download a file with all your template information. You have to be using the updated version of the Blogger Dashboard, because the backup option doesn't appear to be in the old interface.

1. Go to your Blogger Dashboard.
2. If you see a link near the top of the screen that says "Try the updated blogger interface" then click it. If not, you're good.
3. Go to the Template section of the Dashboard.
4. Click the "Backup/Restore" button on the top-right.
5. Then click "Download full template" and save the file to your computer.

Fail-Safe

One of my rules for backups is that I need to be able to understand them. The file Blogger creates is nice and easy, but I like to have a fail-safe--something that I can understand without a lot of technology. In this case, I'm mostly interested in recording how my blog looks, so a screenshot will do the trick.

The backup file Blogger creates is an XML file. I work with these all the time, so I could probably recreate everything from that if I had to, but a little more insurance is a good thing. Especially when it won't cost that much.

I took four screenshots of my blog to get the header, sidebar, and footer information. I also copied the text and html out of a few of my sidebar widgets and pasted them into a text document for safe keeping.

I saved all the files in a single directory.

Simple Test

We're done, right? Wrong.

This is the step people skip. They think, "I've got a backup, now I'm safe." But you don't know that until you try it.

1. Go back to your Dashboard -> Templates.
2. Click on "Backup/Restore" again.
3. This time Choose your backup file and Upload it.
4. Now, check out your blog and make sure everything still looks good.

If everything worked, nothing will change on your blog. It should look exactly like it did before. If there is a problem, then you can either use the screenshots (our fail-safe) to put everything back. Or you can keep moving ahead with the knowledge that you don't have a good backup. It's up to you.

Full Test

My next test was to switch my blog over to a Dynamic View and then restore it back again. I wanted to make double-sure I could go back if I needed to. This may seem like overkill, but I would rather know that I'm working without a safety net instead of believing that there is a safety net protecting me.

Note: Please read all the steps before trying this. I ran into problems part way through this test.

1. Go back to your Dashboard -> Templates.
2. Select one of the Dynamic Views and Apply it on your blog.
3. Visit your blog and make sure the new view works.
4. Go back to your Dashboard -> Templates.

I know what you're thinking, "Just click on Backup/Restore and upload the backup file." Well, I tried that and it didn't work. Agh! It appeared to work , but my blog never changed.

See? This is why it's good to test each piece as you go.

I did discover a work-around. You're mileage may vary.

5. I chose one of the "Simple" templates and applied it to my blog.
6. Then I was able to click on Backup/Restore and Upload my file.

My blog looked the same, so the backup worked. Hooray!

I suspect there is a bug that doesn't allow the older templates to be uploaded when a Dynamic View is active. If Blogger fixes this then you won't need the work around.

Now that we have a backup and we know it works, we're ready to embark on the Dynamic Views journey.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I know this post was a bit dry. I felt it was important to cover--not only for this journey, but also for any time you want to make big changes to your Blogger template. I hope you find it useful.

Tomorrow, I switch to using a Dynamic View. Which one do you think I should try first?

* They don't make night deposit boxes like that anymore. This photo by Mira Hartford can be found on Flickr.

Blogger Dynamic Views (Technical Tuesday - Special)

Blogger just announced a new template feature called Dynamic Views. They change the way your readers can see and use your blog in some dramatic ways. Here's a video trailer Blogger put together that gives you a quick introduction:

Over the next few days, I'm going to try out each of the views and give you my thoughts. I'll also post the steps I used to get each one working.

I'm sure some of the views won't be right for this style of blog, but I'm going to try them anyway--for science. Okay, maybe not for science, but it should be fun.

Try It Out Now

Blogger has a way to try out the new views without changing anything on your blog. You can go right ahead and see what yours will look like if you switched. I don't know if it's completely accurate, but it's worth a shot.

Just type the URL of your blog (or anyone else's) and click Preview to see.

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A Quick Warning

If you use a custom template (like Cutest Blog on the Block or Hot Bliggety Blog) then you might have some problems. I tried previewing couple blogs and they mostly worked, but some of the views had problems. I don't know if this is because of the custom template or because of stray codes in their posts.

The new views won't have any of your cool themes (background, colors, etc). I'll be researching how to make that happen.

Why It's  Cool

Before I get into the technical pieces over the next several posts, I thought I'd share a couple points that I think make these new views cool.

First, "Infinite Scrolling". This is what Blogger is calling it, but it means that your readers will be able to keep scrolling through your posts without having to click a "See previous posts" link. Your visitor can scroll all the way back to your first post if they want to.

When I find a blog I like, I typically scan through until I get to the bottom of the page then move on. Now, I could keep scrolling and scrolling. This will allow me to see a lot more content before I visit someone else. Cool.

Second, "More Content". The new views allow for more of your posts to be accessible faster. Currently, blogs fill the front screen with the latest post. You might see the top of the next post if the first one is short.

With the new views more of your posts will be visible "above the fold". I hope this leads to visitors clicking on more than one post. It can also lead to your popular posts getting more visits. Cool.

Why It May Not Be Cool

It's not all singing birds and happy elves. I can think of a couple problems with the new layouts.

First, "Where's the sidebar and gadgets?" A standard feature of many blogs is the sidebar. Some blogs have multiple sidebars that go on and on and on. But I don't see that feature with the new templates. Maybe it's there. I'll have to let you know when I try them out.

Second, "Pictures, pictures, pictures". Many of the new views put a heavy emphasis on the images you include in your posts. If you don't have a lot of images, or your images are low quality, this could adversely affect your visitors. The new views will even pull images out of old posts to show, so if you have a bunch of old, blurry images it might not be pretty.

Aaaaand We're Off

Stay tuned for my experiments with the different views, and if you have any questions put them in the comments and I'll work them into my research.