Expandable Posts

What is it?
The "Read more..." option (aka "expandable posts") allows you to show a shorter version of a longer post, or a summarized version, in the main page of the blog. The readers can then expand the post to its longer full version in the post-page by clicking the "Read more..." button. This option is great if you have posts that are too long to be shown on the main page.

For this code, the "Read more..." link will only show up for the posts that have been selected to show the link, which is a good thing. There are other versions of the code that won't function properly: the "Read more..." link shows up even if you don't want it to show up.

To get all the templates with this Expandable Posts function, make sure the templates are labeled with Expandable posts.

How to use it?
Most of the new templates here have been added with the 'Expandable Posts' code. You pretty much don't have to do anything much. The only thing you need to do is to separate each post you publish into two parts:

1. The summary part that will show up both in the shorter version and the full version.
2. The other part that shows up only in the full version in its post-page.
   

To do this, you first have to click the 'Edit Html' button, and add the following code (in red) into your post editor and separate your post according to the example below. You can continue writing in the 'Compose' mode but the fullpost-separator tags won't show up.

Type your summary here

Type rest of the post here

This is how it looks in the Post Editor (with the 'Edit Html' mode):


How to make it easier?
You can make it easier not to type the fullpost-separator tags everytime you post. To do this, go to the Settings --> Formatting tab. At the bottom is the Post Template form. Type in only the code in red above (the fullpost-separator tags) into the Post Template form.

You're done. The fullpost-separator tags will be automatically inserted in the Post Editor everytime you want to post. You can see the tags in the 'Edit HTML' mode to see where to place your posts accordingly.

How to change the "Read more..." text?
You can easily change the text to whatever you want, e.g. "Continue reading...", "[...]", and so on. Just go to the Layout --> Edit HTML tab and click the Expand Widget Templates box. Search for the "read more..." string (the red line below) in the XML code and simply change it to whatever you want. See the example below:


What if I don't want the "Read more..." code?
Delete it. Go to the Edit HTML tab and click the Expand Widget Templates box. Search for the "data:post.body" string (the red line below) in the XML code and delete the code in red only.

expr:id='"post-" data:post.id'>

Read more...

Read more...

Setting the Template Size

Setting the template size is probably one of the first things you need to do when starting to design a new template. The are two ways to set the size (basically the width) of a template:

1. Setting the size to be fixed with a certain width, say 800 pixels.
2. Setting the template to have a fluid size, which means the width changes with the browser or screen size.

Setting a fixed template size:

To set a template width, you actually have to set the width of a few large containers. The most common containers to set the widths are:

1. Body
2. Outer-wrapper
3. Header-wrapper
4. Content-wrapper
5. Footer-wrapper
6. Main-wrapper
   
7. Sidebar-wrapper*
   
8. Footer-wrapper

*Note: You can also just set the widths of sidebar1 and sidebar2 containers without setting the sidebar-wrapper width. Setting the sidebar-wrapper width is convenient if both sidebars have equal widths.

In most of my newest templates, I also set the widths in the containers just inside some of the wrapper containers (which is redundant) to avoid some minor alignment bugs that may appear. The widths of these containers are set equal to the widths of their parent wrapper containers. These containers are:

1. Header
2. Main

Here is a sample code from the Generic Blogger Template showing you all the container widths that are set to make sure the template width is properly set (only the part that concerns the width-setting are shown). In this sample, the template width is set at 800 pizels.

body {
min-width: 800px; }

#outer-wrapper {
margin: 0 auto; /* to make the template lays in the screen center */
min-width: 800px;
max-width: 800px; }

#content-wrapper {
min-width: 800px;
max-width: 800px; }

#header-wrapper {
min-width: 800px;
max-width: 800px; }

#main-wrapper {
min-width: 400px;
max-width: 400px; }

.sidebar {
padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
min-width: 180px;
max-width: 180px; }

#sidebar1 {.....}
#sidebar2 {.....}

#footer-wrapper {
min-width: 800px;
max-width: 800px; }


The body is set with a command min-width = 800px, which means that the smallest width it should have is 800px. If it's set with a command width = 800px only, then the template width might shrink in some situation. Setting it with a min-width guarantees the smallest size it will take.

The next container just inside the body is the outer-wrapper. It's usually common to set it with a command width = 800px only. But as I've explained about my strictness in setting the width to avoid any alignment bugs, it's becoming my habit to always set the container to have a min-width and max-width of the same value so that the container size is exactly that size - it will not shrink or widen to any different value. Another thing about the outer-wrapper is that this is where you set the command to either place your template at the center of screen or float to the left of it. In this case, setting margin: 0 auto will float the template to the center. Just writing margin: 0 will float it to the left as a default position.

The next 3 large containers, the header-wrapper, the content-wrapper, and the footer-wrapper is usually set to be the same size; in this case it's 800px. In any case, they can be set smaller than the outer-wrapper width but not any bigger than that because the outer-wrapper 'wraps' these 3 containers inside it. Another thing, if you add left and right borders, then you'll increase the width, and the outer-wrapper will just cut out whatever that's bigger than itself on the right side. So, if you do add borders, say 2px left and 2px right for the header-wrapper, then you have to set the header-wrapper width to be 796px so that the total would be 796+2+2 = 800px. The same goes for all the other containers.

The last 3 containers are the 2 sidebars and the main-wrapper. Because they sit side by side, you have to make sure the total width = 800px or less, but certainly not more. In this case, I set the main-wrapper to be 400px and both the 2 sidebars to be 200px. But because I added padding of 10px left and right of each sidebars, which pushes the sidebar border outward, I'd have to reduce the sidebar width to be 180px so that the total sum after adding the pads would be 200px. You have to note that the largest sidebar container is the sidebar-wrapper (not just the sidebar). I could have set the width of the sidebar-wrapper instead of the sidebar, but I prefer to set the sidebar width because sometimes I may set the 2 sidebars to have different widths. But, this is all just a matter of personal style; other template designers may have different way of setting this sidebar widths. As long as it works, that's all that matters.

Setting a fluid template size:

To set a template with width that changes with browser or screen size, please refer to W3Schools Tutorials for more details. In my templates, I haven't made any such templates and so my experience in setting a fluid sized template is not much. Once I have more experience in this, I'll post the tutorials on it.

Read more...

How to Change Background Opacity?

You can change the Blogger template opacity/transparency level easily by changing a few numbers in the code. Here's how to do it:

Click on the Layout: Edit HTML tab. Then, search for the code below:

#content-wrapper {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
padding: 0px 0px 3px 3px;
width: 805px;
position: relative;
text-align: left;
background: $blogbgColor;
border-right: 1px solid $blogBorderColor;
filter:alpha(opacity=75);
-moz-opacity:0.75;
opacity:0.75;
}

Change the transparency level by changing the numbers highlighted in red. Vary the numbers between 0 to 100 for the line 1, or 0 to 1.0 for the lines 2 and 3. All the numbers must be at the same level, for example 75 for line 1 is equal to 0.75 for lines 2 and 3. The lower the number, the more transparent your blog is. If you don't want it to be transparent, set the values to 100, or 1.0.

Read more...