Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tips for Finding the Perfect Blogger Template

Some of readers mailed to me ask for which template should they use for blog? or ask me the template they are using good or not ? In fact ,choosing a template is up to the blog owner ,not me ^^ Angela Quint from Ultrasound has some advice for you in this case .This is a guest post from Angela Quint



Did you know there are more than 10 million blogs online today? If you're a beginning blogger, there are probably almost that many questions going through your head. One of the first questions you probably have is how to choose the right blogging template. There are thousands of templates available, including ones that are free and ones for which you pay. It's a crucial decision, so here are a few tips that will help you pick the perfect template for your blog.

1,To Pay or Not to Pay?

Should you pay for your template? That depends on two things: how serious are you about your blog and how much computer experience do you have? If your blog is a business venture, you need it to look as professional as possible, especially if you want to monetize the site. Some premium templates are ad placement ready, which makes formatting easy.
Another big advantage of purchasing a template is that you normally get better support. If problems arise, you'll have help at the ready and you won't have to be a techie to keep the site functioning properly.
If you decide to buy a template, think of it as in investment in the future wellbeing of your blog.

2,Start with 2 Columns

Although there are many one and three column templates available, most bloggers agree that a two-column format is easiest to manage. One column is too simplistic and three columns gets complicated. Two columns allows you to keep the site clean but functional, with the current post on one side and the search, ads, and other elements on the other.

3,Make it Relevant to Your Niche

You have a few seconds to capture your reader's interest. That's why the header you use is vital. Think about the focus of your blog and the people you want to read it. Make the graphic in the heading relate to the topic. You might love kittens, but if your blog is about golf, that adorable kitty graphic isn't relevant. If your reader loves golf but isn't in to cats, you've lost him as soon as he clicks on the page.
After you have more experience, you may learn to change the heading picture, but when you're just starting out, it's wisest to pick a template with a relevant graphic.

4,Functionality is Key

Do you want your readers to be able to leave comments? Do you want to add pictures to each post? Is there a search function? You need to narrow down what features your blog needs and then eliminate templates that don't offer those elements. Make sure you test each of the features and check for broken links. Your blog needs to flow smoothly from page to page to keep readers happy.
Most importantly, know what the purpose of your blog is. By keying in on your goals, you'll be better prepared to select the perfect template for your blog.

About Author

Angela Quint is an
ultrasound technician by day and a blogger by night. She enjoys writing to share her love of health and wellness with others!

Simplex Eshop - Blogger template for shopping cart/ecommerce

Some of you asked me for Ecommerce /shopping cart in Blogger platform . My result is template SimplexEshop .This is a test template and need more time to finish because every shop has its own options in shipping/tax rate/price/promotion  ,and fill all needs with only Javascript is an impossible mission . But I want to show it here to get your feedback and hope I can make it better .



Live Demo | Download

How to install this template

1,Download the template file .

2,Open template file in a word editor .

3, To make a menu navigation

Find this code
<ul id="nav">   
                     <li><a href="http://simplexeshop.blogspot.com">Home</a></li>
                     <li><a href="http://simplexeshop.blogspot.com/search/label/shop">Store</a>
                          <ul class="children">
                             <li><a href="">Category</a></li>
                               <li><a href="">Category</a></li>
                         </ul>
                     </li>
                     <li><a href="http://simplexeshop.blogspot.com/search/label/blog">Blog</a></li>                 
                 </ul>
Add link to your categories like my other template . You can see on Simplex Enews or Simplex Transcript for more about this multi-level menu .

4,Basic Shop Setting
This template was built based on SimpleCart solution (Simplecartjs.com ) , what I did only integrated Simplecart to a blogger template . So all options /setting for shop ,you can see in simplecart documentation .

a,Payment method 
This Template support two payment methods : Paypal and Google Checkout . Default is Paypal ,and it was set in these line :

simpleCart.email = "brett@wojodesign.com";
simpleCart.checkoutTo = PayPal;


If you want to use Paypal ,you can replace brett@wojodesign.com to your paypal email .
If you want to use Google Checkout ,you can replace two lines above with

simpleCart.merchantId = "111111111111111";
simpleCart.checkoutTo = GoogleCheckout;

Change 111111111111111 to your Google Checkout merchant ID .

b,Currency

This template support GBP,USD ,and EUR . Default is USD and it was set in this line

simpleCart.currency = USD;

if you want to change the currency ,you can change USD in the line above (marked in bold) to GBP or EUR .

c,Tax rate

The default tax rate was set in this line

simpleCart.taxRate  = 0.08;

You can change the value from 0.08 to another rate . If you don't want to add the tax rate ,you can delete this line

d,Shipping

There are many ways to calculating the shipping cost for an order :
-Add a flat rate to the entire order .This is the default method in template and it was set in this line

simpleCart.shippingFlatRate = 5.25;

(an amount 5.25 shipping cost will be added to the entire order )
You can change 5.25 to the value you want .

-Add a shipping cost to every item in the cart : if you want to use this method ,you can delete simpleCart.shippingFlatRate = 5.25;
and use this line
simpleCart.shippingQuantityRate = 3.00;
This line will add an amount 3.00 to every item in the cart .Of course ,you can change 3.00 to other value .

-Add a shipping cost as percentage of total cost : to use this method ,you can delete the default simpleCart.shippingFlatRate = 5.25;
and use this :
simpleCart.shippingTotalRate = 0.05;

This line will add a shipping cost as 5% to the total cost .You can change this rate to another value .

If you require some advanced calculations for shipping, you can delete the default line and use the prototype object for CartItems:

CartItem.prototype.shipping=function(){
// we are using a 'size' field to calculate the shipping,
// so we first make sure the item has a size
if(this.size){
if( this.size == 'small' ){
return this.quantity*5.00;
} else if( this.size == 'large') {
return this.quantity*7.50;
} else {
return this.quantity*10.00;
}
} else {
// use a default of $2.00 per item if there is no 'size' field
return this.quantity*2.00;
}
}

The 'this' here refers to the item, and we are using a 'size' field and the item 'quantity' to calculate the shipping. Because an item may or may not have a size, we check to make sure it does with the 'if(this.size)'. If there is a size field, we use a different rate for each size and return a value based on the item quantity. Otherwise, we use a base rate of 2.00. simpleCart(js) will use the global shipping rates, and then add the shipping value for each item in the cart.


5,When you finish editing ,upload template to Blogger . Go to Dashboard ->Design ->Page elements

6,To add logo

click on logo widget

add logo as this image bellow

7,There are many places that you can add your own widget . For example ,you can add link list widget for making category menu ,subscription widget ,page list widget ...

8,That's all for install this template .

How to use this template

It's a little bit difficult when using this template .

To post product to shop : Go to Dashboard -> Posting -> New Post .Click on Edit HTML and made a post with this structure
<div id="description">
<img src="image url goes here">
<img src="image url goes here">
<img src="image url goes here">

PRODUCT INFORMATION..........
........................

</div>
<div class="simpleCart_shelfItem">
<span class="item_name">item name ...</span>
Price : <span class="item_price">price .........</span>
Quatity : <input class="item_quantity" type="text" value="1" />
<a href="javascript:;" class="item_add" title="Add to Cart">Add to Cart</a>
 </div>

In structure above , this is the product information section :
<div id="description">
<img src="image url goes here">
<img src="image url goes here">
<img src="image url goes here">

PRODUCT INFORMATION GOES HERE..........
........................

</div>

you can add image by using <img src="image url goes here"> and add product description bellow (in the text product information goes here )
After the product information section ,we move to add to cart section :

<div class="simpleCart_shelfItem">
<span class="item_name">item name ...</span>
Price : <span class="item_price">price .........</span>
Quatity : <input class="item_quantity" type="text" value="1" />
<a href="javascript:;" class="item_add" title="Add to Cart">Add to Cart</a>
 </div>

in this section ,add the item name in where I marked item name .... ,add the price in where I marked price ... and change the quatity from '1' to another value .

If you want to set a special shipping cost for this item only ,you can add this line to the add to cart section
<input class="item_shipping" value="xxx" type="hidden">
replace xxx to the shipping cost of this item
and the code of Add to cart section will become :
<div class="simpleCart_shelfItem">
<span class="item_name">item name ...</span>
Price : <span class="item_price">price .........</span>
Quatity : <input class="item_quantity" type="text" value="1" />
<input class="item_shipping" value="xxx" type="hidden">
<a href="javascript:;" class="item_add" title="Add to Cart">Add to Cart</a>
 </div>


When you set shipping cost for an item ,the method which used to calculate shipping fee in step 4 will be overide .

After finish editing the post with structure above ,add a label 'shop' at the end of post ,and the product will be added to shop with sliders ,price and add to cart function

To post to Blog : to post to blog ,you can make a normal post ,and add a label 'blog' at the end of post .

It's similar to my older template Simplex Portfolio ,in Simplex Portfolio ,we have two display mode : display a post as a post in gallery ,and display a post as a normal blog post .In this template ,we also have two display mode : display a post as product in shop and display a post as a normal blog post .

For the page : you can make pages as normal .

That's all for this template . I think it is not easy to use and handle .If you familliar with the code ,you can take a try ^^ For detail shopping cart settings ,you can see more in simplecartjs 
Feel free to leave me feedbacks

SimplexMag - a template for magazine or portfolio

This is my latest template ,I think it can be used for a blog ,or a portfolio ...

How to install this template

1,Download this template

2,Open  template file in a word editor ( wordpad ,notepad,notepad ++ ... )

3,To edit the main menu navigation


Find this code
<div class="menu-header">
                     <ul class="menu" id="menu-main-nav">
                         <li><a href="/search/label/test">Test</a>
                             <ul class="sub-menu">
                                 <li><a href="">Sub Category</a></li>
                                 <li><a href="">Sub Category</a></li>
                                 <li><a href="">Sub Category</a></li>
                             </ul>
                         </li>
                         <li><a href="">Career</a></li>
                         <li><a href="">Category</a></li>                       
                     </ul>
                 </div>

Add link to your categories in this code like this one
<li><a href="link_to_category">Category name</a></li>
link to a category in blogger has structure
http://your_blog.blogspot.com/search/label/category_name

4,To set the number of post showed in pages :

This template use numbered pagination script ,so you have to set number of posts per page in pagination script
Go to Blogger Dashboard ->Settings ->Formatting
in the box Show at most ....on the main page you will see the number of post showed in the main page . For example ,in the picture bellow ,the number of post in main page is 6

You can set another number .
Now ,back to template file ,find this code
<script type="text/javascript">
                                         var pageNaviConf = {
                                             perPage: 2,
                                             numPages: 2,
                                             firstText: "First",
                                             lastText: "Last",
                                             nextText: "Next",
                                             prevText: "Prev"
                                             }
                                     </script>

And change the value of perPage variable from 2 to the number we set at Show at most ...on the main page box .If we set the number of post in main page in Show at most ... on the main page 6 ,change the value of perPage from 2 to 6 .
Why we need this step ? To make sure the number of post per page exactly as we set . If you skip this step ,number of post on homepage is the number we set at Show at most ... box ,but click on the next page ,the number of post is only 2 (the value we set in perPage ) .

5,To add your social network accounts

find this code

<div class="social_media">
             <script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4c873bb26489d97f" type="text/javascript"></script>
                <a class="addthis_button_compact sharethis i_share at300m" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4c873bb26489d97f">
                 <span class="at300bs at15nc at15t_compact"></span>
             </a>                    
             <a class="i_rss" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/Simplex"></a>
             <a class="i_twitter" href="http://twitter.com/dinhquanghuy"></a>    
             <a class="i_facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/simplexdesignblog"></a>  
             <a class="i_flicker" href="#"></a>     
             <a class="top_btn" href="#"></a>
         </div>

and change link to your social network accounts

6,Upload template to Blogger .Then go to Dashboard -> Design ->Page Elements

7,To add logo

Click on edit link in header widget

In this widget , you can upload your logo image ,use text ...

8,To add the top ads

Click on edit link in Topads widget

Add the ad code to widget content

Do the same for Advertise widget in sidebar .

9,There are two widgets "latest resource" at the footer ,you can set these widget to show latest posts in a specific category .

Click on edit link in Latest resource widget

Add the title in Widget title ,and add the name of category which you want to show posts in widget content .

10,You can add your own widget in sidebar ,or in footer .

11,Save changes .

That's all for this template . I think it's very easy to install and use . Hope it helpful to you ,and feel free to give me feedbacks.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Blogger, Redesigned

Posted by Jinwoo Lee, Blogger tech lead

As we
shared before, our team has been hard at work on a brand new, next generation design for Blogger. After doing a sneak preview at the South by Southwest conference back in March, we received some great feedback from the media:


Today, we're thrilled to announce the public launch of our redesign! But please wait a second before you go check out your Blogger dashboard, because we're planning a gradual rollout that will start with a limited set of users who visit our new feature testing ground, Blogger in Draft. At the start, only some of you (lucky draws!) can see the new design on Blogger in Draft. Over the course of the next few days and weeks we'll be ramping up to support all Draft users. There is no sign-up or activation process required from your side; just wait, and you'll notice your dashboard has changed to the new design when you log in to Blogger in Draft

Although our team has been hard at work cranking out tons of new features over the last year or so, it's been a while since our user interface has had a major update so we're very excited about Blogger's fresh new look. However, there's much more to the redesign than shiny new graphics and pages—we've essentially rewritten the entire application from scratch, using the latest web technologies that will enable us to make future updates in more agile and flexible ways.

We decided to make the new UI available to our loyal Blogger users as quickly as possible. We realize there might be some 'rough edges' (see this page for the known issues)
but fear not, we'll be continually updating and improving the experience until it's ready to graduate from Blogger in Draft. Our team is also very eager to hear your feedback, so please don't hesitate to let us know of any bugs or suggestions by clicking on the "Send feedback" link in the navigation bar (or directly on this form).

This is only the beginning of many exciting updates that we're planning for Blogger this year, so stay tuned!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Make credit box for each author in a multi-author blog

You have a blog with many authors who contribute content ,and you want to show their short bio in credit box at the end of each post . This idea was in Wordpress for a long time ,but not in Blogger . I tried several times ,but none of them work . Thanks to comment of ابن الملكـة

He gave me a code that work in a comment ,and now I want to share this code here .Both of me and ابن الملكـة hope this code helpful to you all ,and make Blogger to be the best of blogging platform .


 Here is what we need to do :

1,First ,you find this line <data:post.body/>
and then paste the following code right after the line above.
<div style='clear:both'/>        
                                    
                                      <div id='creditbox'>
                                          <!-- Author Bio info start-->
                                          <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
                                       
  <!-- First Author Info -->
                                             <b:if cond='data:post.author == "NAME OF FIRST AUTHOR"'>
                                                 <img class='authoravatar' height='39' src='IMAGE URL FOR FIRST AUTHOR' width='39'/>
                                                 <div class='postauthor'>                                                     
                                                     <h3><a href='FIRST AUTHOR'S URL'>NAME OF FIRST AUTHOR </a></h3>
                                                     <p> NOTES ABOUT FIRST AUTHOR </p>
                                                 </div>
                                                 <div style='clear:both'/>        
                                             </b:if>

<!-- Second Author Info -->
                                             <b:if cond='data:post.author == "NAME OF SECOND AUTHOR"'>
                                                 <img class='authoravatar' height='39' src='IMAGE URL FOR SECOND AUTHOR' width='39'/>
                                                 <div class='postauthor'>                                                     
                                                     <h3><a href='SECOND AUTHOR'S URL'>NAME OF SECOND AUTHOR </a></h3>
                                                     <p> NOTES ABOUT SECOND AUTHOR </p>
                                                 </div>
                                                 <div style='clear:both'/>        
                                             </b:if>

.......................
                                         </b:if>
                                         <!-- Author Bio info End-->
                                     </div>
<div style='clear:both'/>       

Notes :
1- NAME OF FIRST AUTHOR : replace this with name of your first author . Name of author must be as exact as name showed in profile .
2- NAME OF second AUTHOR :replace this with name of your second author
3- IMAGE URL FOR FIRST AUTHOR :Replace this with the link to your first author avatar or image .
4- IMAGE URL FOR second AUTHOR :Replace this with the link to your first author avatar or image.
5- NOTES ABOUT FIRST AUTHOR : Replace this with author short bio ,profile ...
6- NOTES ABOUT second AUTHOR : Replace this with author short bio ,profile ...
7- FIRST AUTHOR'S URL :Replace this with link to author profile page or link to a social network account.
8- SECOND AUTHOR'S URL :Replace this with link to author profile page or link to a social network account.

In case of there are more than one <data:post.body/> in the search result ,you can paste this code right after all the results  .
If you have more than two authors ,you can duplicate the code of first author's information or second author's information and then change the name,link,bio...

2,Add this CSS code before <body> to decorate the credit box :
<style>
                                     #creditbox {
                                       background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #EDEDED;
                                       padding: 10px;
                                       margin-top:10px;}
                                       .authoravatar {float:left;margin-right:10px;padding:4px;background:#fff;border:1px solid #f0f0f0;}
                                       .postauthor {float:left;}
                                     </style>

This is an example .You can add more CSS tags to make the credit box display as you want .
 Here is my credit box in Simplex Celebrity template



That's all for making credit box in a multi-author blog .Thanks ابن الملكـة again for this helpful tip .

Friday, April 8, 2011

Beyond Design: 5 Tips for Making Your Blog More Reader-Friendly



This guest post was written by Alvina Lopez of
accredited online colleges

For those of you bloggers who are knowledgeable about the ins and outs of website design, you definitely have a leg up in the blogosphere, as most bloggers aren't completely aware how much a blog's layout and color scheme affects a reader's attention. At the same time, however, there are a few other considerations that design-centric bloggers might want to keep in mind, especially in terms of writing. Here are just a few:

1. The title is more important than you think.

Titles are something that some bloggers put more emphasis on than others. But we could all do with placing a particular importance on making each title something special. It is, after all the first thing our readers lay their eyes on. When thinking of titles, consider your own browsing history. When you read the news online, which articles do you tend to click on? How are their respective titles worded? Checking articles that top the most popular lists is also a good way to improve your blog titles.

2. Paragraphs and blog posts that are too long turn off lots of net readers.

Paragraphs and articles that are too short make you look lazy.
Obviously, most bloggers know that writing paragraphs that are too long can tire readers out. Remember, the Internet is a veritable breeding ground for ADHD. At the same time, however, articles or paragraphs that are super short make your material look skimpy. Find a happy medium, and remember that most Internet readers especially like list posts.

3. Justified paragraphs are pleasing to the eye.

Some may disagree with me on this one, but having justified paragraphs like they do in newspapers is an aesthetic consideration that makes things easier to read. You can do this by hitting the "justify" button on Word if you do take write your first drafts on a word processor. It gives your blog articles a cleaner appearance. Off-setting quoted material in a different-colored box works well, too.

4. The placement of good hyperlinks is absolutely instrumental in drawing and keeping a reader's attention.

Hyperlinks that link out to related material are one of the hallmarks of good blog posts and Internet writing in general. But be careful. Placing too many hyperlinks can overwhelm your readers, and placing too few makes your blog post come off as not very authoritative and lacking supporting sources. Be sure to include links to quality material (i.e. stay away from content farm type stuff).

5. Cycling between the pyramid and inverted pyramid, depending on circumstances, keeps things fun and unpredictable.

Traditional journalists hew to the inverted pyramid when it comes to structuring their articles. That is, they place all the most relevant and important information in the first paragraph, and put unnecessary details further down the article. While this is a good practice for news stories, with blog posts you can shake things up a bit. By doing a right-side up pyramid, in which you tease readers with the more important info toward the bottom, you can effectively get your audience to read with bated breath till the very end. Be careful with this style, however, because it can easily turn into an exercise in boredom. Be sure to make each paragraph interesting and suspenseful in its own right.

About Author

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Blogger offer five dynamic views for readers

Blogger has offered five dynamic views for readers . Now ,we can browse a blog with not only normal blog design ,but also in five different views .With the latest in web technology, including AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3 ,in these views we can :
-Read more posts without having to reload or click to a second page .
-Read posts in different layout (flipcard,sidebar,mosaic,snapshot and timeslide )
-Browse a page faster because images only load when we view ,not all at once .
......
When seeing my blog in these views ,I have to say "Oh,that's so cool"  .

See SimplexDesign blog in different views here



To enable different views to blog:
-Your blog is public. Your readers don't need to sign in to view your blog.
-Your blog has feeds fully enabled. In the Settings | Site feed tab, you have enabled either Full or Jump Break for your Post Feed.
-You have not disabled dynamic views. In the Setting | Formatting tab, the option for Enable Dynamic Views is set to Yes.

To see a blog in different views , simply add a  /view at the end of blog url . For example ,to see SimplexDesign blog in additional views ,you can go to this address : http://simplexdesign.blogspot.com/view

In all views, search is available in the upper right hand corner. Clicking on the ">" arrow in the very top left of the header bar will slide the header bar across and allow you to choose different views for the current blog as well as type in a new blog URL.

An important thing that these views require modern browsers such as Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox 3.5+, Chrome or Safari. Many elements of these views will not work if you have an older browser.

Please note that these views do not currently support many of the features your original blog may have, including displaying advertisements. Blogger team said that they will let user personalize these views, including providing an option to set a particular view as the default and displaying advertisements over the coming months.

Here is SimplexDesign blog in new views

Sidebar view

Flipcard view

Timeslide view

Mosaic view

Snapshot view

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Use Google web font to styling header and text in your blog

If you are using default Blogspot templates ,you can use Template Designer to set special fonts for header and text .But this function is not available if you are using a custom template . So how can we embed special fonts to blog ?


As you may know ,Template Designer in Blogspot use Google font for applying special fonts to blog .In this post ,I will show you how to use Google Font for styling text in blog without Template Designer ,just need some lines of code .

You can see demo here ( my template Simplex Newspro )

Here are steps :

1,Go to this site ,and select the font you like .

2,When move your mouse over the font ,you will see the text "Click here to embed...." .Click on this text .A new page appear . Click on Use this font tab



3,You will see two lines :



The first line is something like this  :
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=xxxxx' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
xxxxx is the font name . Copy this line and paste right before <b:skin><![CDATA[/* in template file . An important thing : you must add an slash ( / ) at the end of this line ,like that
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=xxxxx' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
If not ,you will see an error message .

The second line you get in Google web font page is something like this :
h1 { font-family: 'xxxx',xxxxx; }
xxx are font name and style of the font .
 This line illustrate how the font you choose applied to h1 tag .

To applied the font you choose to an element in blog ,find CSS code of this element , and add the attribute  font-family: 'xxxx',xxxxx; into element's CSS attributes

For example ,in my live demo I applied new font to post title in template Simplex Newspro .
Here are steps I did :
First ,I go to this website ,and choose the font Indie Flower
 
Click on "click here to embed Indie Flower"
 
Second ,I go to Dashboard - > Design ->Edit HTML ->Checked on Expand widget templates
Add the first line to embed font Indie Flower



After that ,add the font-family attribute to element I want to apply new font in CSS section


That's all .Save template and new font will be appeared .

In this post ,I just want to show you how to use Google font to embed new fonts to blog . It's very easy if you are familliar with CSS ,work with CSS or customize templates before . If you are a newbie and don't know where to insert font-family attributes to applied new font for an element,you can make a comment . I can help if possible .

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Should we use Disqus or not ?

In renewed version of templates ,I always make two file ,one template file with Blogger default comment system and the other with Disqus comment system . You might ask me what we should chose for our blog ? In this post ,I will write something about them and I hope it helpful to your decision .




Disqus is a modern comment system for website and blog .It enhance the commenting system on your blog and designed to make commenting more exciting and interesting. It's a realtime comment system and you can see your comment show up immediately . With Disqus ,you can reply to an existed comment and interact with comments by votes ,keep tracks on comments with email notification ,you can also link to media files in your comments ,embed video,audio ... in comment ,and you can use Gravatar . Disqus allow you to comment in mobile ,sharing comments in social networks,and build a good community with commnunity box and comment profile .And I have to say that it really easy to install and using ,I can import export comments,moderate them in Dashboard and prevent spam with their anti-spam technology . If you use Blogger and install Disqus comment system ,you blog look really professional .

But Disqus is not perfect ,it's an embeded comment system ,and work base on Ajax and javascript ,so it make your blog load slower or can not load if there's error in connection .Sometime ,Disqus script can conflict with other scripts ,therefore,they can't work . Another important thing I see that Disqus is not good for SEO . All comments in blog using Disqus can't be indexed by Google . Disqus said their system are SEO friendly ,but I do not think so .

Blogger default comment system is on other side . It's really a boring comment system . Look simple and straight,no interaction ,no sharing tool ,no connection to other networks and no threaded comment . But it load fast and good for SEO . SEO here mean I can make a search in Google and see comment in search result . And we can customize it,make it display as we want with a little CSS and  code .Not so good but acceptable (as my templates ^^)

Here is list of good and bad for Blogger and Disqus that I see . I hope you can share your own experience with these comment systems and give advice to choose one for blog to others . Thanks in advance

Monday, March 14, 2011

Update for Subscription pop-up

In comments of my previous post "Using Jquery to make an one-time subscription pop-up" ,YellOblog said that he want the pop-up appear after an amount of time and the pop-up is always at the center of viewport .Thanks YellOblog for the suggestion . Here is the complete code for your request :


Live Demo

To make a Subscription Pop-up ,you can read my post  "Using Jquery to make an one-time subscription pop-up" and follow steps from 1 to 3 .

For the step 4 - Jquery code ,replace the code in the post "Using Jquery to make an one-time subscription pop-up"
with this one

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>  
<script src="http://dinhquanghuy.110mb.com/jquery.cookie.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
         var popupStatus = 0;

//loading popup with jQuery magic!
function loadPopup(){
    centerPopup();
    //loads popup only if it is disabled
    if(popupStatus==0){
        $("#backgroundPopup").css({
            "opacity": "0.7"
        });
        $("#backgroundPopup").fadeIn("slow");
        $("#popupContact").fadeIn("slow");
        popupStatus = 1;
    }
}

//disabling popup with jQuery magic!
function disablePopup(){
    //disables popup only if it is enabled
    if(popupStatus==1){
        $("#backgroundPopup").fadeOut("slow");
        $("#popupContact").fadeOut("slow");
        popupStatus = 0;
    }
}

//centering popup
function centerPopup(){
    //request data for centering
    var windowWidth = document.documentElement.clientWidth; 
    var windowHeight = document.documentElement.clientHeight; 
    var windowscrolltop = document.documentElement.scrollTop;
    var windowscrollleft = document.documentElement.scrollLeft;
    var popupHeight = $("#popupContact").height();
    var popupWidth = $("#popupContact").width();
    var toppos = windowHeight/2-popupHeight/2+windowscrolltop;
    var leftpos = windowWidth/2-popupWidth/2+windowscrollleft;
    //centering
    $("#popupContact").css({
        "position": "absolute",
        "top": toppos,
        "left": leftpos
    });
    //only need force for IE6
   
    $("#backgroundPopup").css({
        "height": windowHeight
    });
   
}


//CONTROLLING EVENTS IN jQuery
$(document).ready(function(){
    if ($.cookie("anewsletter") != 1) {   
       
        //load popup
        setTimeout("loadPopup()",5000);   
    }       
    //CLOSING POPUP
    //Click the x event!
    $("#popupContactClose").click(function(){
        disablePopup();
        $.cookie("anewsletter", "1", { expires: 7 });
    });
    //Click out event!
    $("#backgroundPopup").click(function(){
        disablePopup();
        $.cookie("anewsletter", "1", { expires: 7 });
    });
    //Press Escape event!
    $(document).keypress(function(e){
        if(e.keyCode==27 && popupStatus==1){
            disablePopup();
            $.cookie("anewsletter", "1", { expires: 7 });
        }
    });

});
</script>

pay attention to this line setTimeout("loadPopup()",5000);
5000 is the delay time in millisecond . You can set another value if you want .
That's all . I hope this update can fill your requests and make the subscription pop-up more profesional. You can check it out yourself and see the result .