Bloggeratto

Last week after I buzzed the Blogger JS Pagination Hack I had a gmail conversation with Mike Smullin about it and just a day and a half later, he updated his post and added a sample to it.

After this, if you still think that is not enough I will make a re-tutorialization of it and add a testblog to it.

Ok, this is a continuation from the GM Categorization Helper UserScript Post

I have nagged Aditya to Release it as a Fx extension too. so here you can download the extension or allow it for direct install.

Delicious Tag Reference Adder v0.1

Tagging your blog huh? You have several posts and you are just tagging your blog... I could see myself working for more than one day tagging my posts.

Not anymore, at most it will be done in a day and that makes me very happy :) Becuase a Slacker like me should not be put to work more that strictly needed.

So Aditya thought about it, reflected upon it, asked me what would be cool and he cooked up one tasty solution in the form of a Greasemonkey UserScript you can grab here

With this userscript you can enter your blog and go and create a new post. When you do so, this script will ask for your Delicious Username, and will load a column bar with the tags you have in your account, place the cursor where you want them and they will get written down with one click. Presto, Slacker Style!

This userscript will also do some extra naughty things for you if you are using The Hybrid Link or Johan´s Blogger/del.icio.us publisher and categorizer helper script and for final funtionality it will add cuteness to your HTML field when you create a new post.

So, go visit Aditya and see what he has to say about this:


Categorizing Helper Greasemonkey Script

The script will be added even more work prevention features becuase as I said, "Aditya, I demand satisfaction...!" ;)

Who says that I am not a good influence to the young crowd?

I did this Mod long time ago, just after seeing someone using the Post Page Categories that of course will also get the post here.

There were two versions of the Post Page Categories, and there are also two versions of this Mod.

They are very easy to have and mantain and here it is the tutorial:


This aproach is better suited for personal blogs and not intensely updated blogs.

In this version of Blogger Categories, we part ways with the post page categories and take it to a new level creating a Archive rule(you can do it in the way you want) for the categories. in this case lets have them monthly, you must create posts in different months, that way it will always remain in one sole month rule in the archive.

For every different month we will have a category where you can place your categorized posts.

In this categories you must remove the $dateheader$ that is after your Blogger $Tag$ in your template and always input the date below your post title like this:

Title
[Date]

making sure the publish date match with the month of the category your are using. The solution to the hassle of having to remember the dates for your categories is very simple, you only need to use the post template and put the dates there with the category they go with. so you will have not to remember them everytime and it will make easier.

You can also put your date in a date wrapper, in a predefined style or even encoded so when your feed reader takes your posts this will be added by date like if you had not removed the date from your template.you can also store it in the post template so you don´t have to pay no mind after doing it once.

You can now let the blogger system generate the month archives, and then selecting them to take out the link location of them.

After that you only need to do your category sidebar with the link to each category, erase the archive blogger $Tag$ of the sidebar, save and republish.

You have categories that work like a charm everytime and without more effort that channging a template style or adjusting your settings.

See a working example of it in this testblog: Archive Categories

I don´t remember seeing this hack listed anywhere else, but this is actually a pretty simple hack, if you want a pagination effect for your blog that can be adjusted to your liking and know your way around your template, this is perfect for you then.

This is a hack that Mike Smullin released back in early May that don´t really got the atention of the Bloggerosphere.

I can guess it was because of the lack of tutorial in his site about it. i will step into that after i test this in another blog but in the meantime visit Mike and check it out.


This a screenshot from the example blog provided by Mike.

Blogger JS Pagination Hack v1.0

I have decided that before we get to see Blogger upgrades this year (we can only hope categories is the main feature rolled out), i will do a extensive review of Category Methods, Hacks and services that have passed from the start of the platform until today.

Why doing it if we are actually getting categories this year?

That is not a Cold Fact yet, and some of the Categories that have been tried in Blogger will be still valid even if Blogger rolls out Categories for the simple fact that some of them can be used as Sub Categories or be converted back to its original use in the case of those that used Tagging to provide a Category Index.

I will start right away later today, so stay tuned.

There is not as much link field use as it should be by Blogger users, but some of us have been using it for category, tagging or label related features.

So if you like to use the link field for your external linking and also would like to try one of the user made categories for Blogger, now you can have both features in your blog at the same time.

So, lets check this out!.

By now you must have the link field activated by the setting in your blog, there you will put two kinds of info. a external link, and/or the category name the post is going be filed in. you must separate them by commas like this:

http://link.com, category-one,.

Everything else will be sorted out by the script, as usual the implementation requires you going to your template and pasting code into it. the code is here:

the this part of the codes goes inside the <head> tags in your template

<script>

function extlink_tags(text, job, title){
text=text.replace(/\s/ig, "");
var part = text.split(',');
var tags = new Array();
var output="";

if(job=='title'){

for(var i=0;i<part.length;i++){
if(part[i].match('http')) {output='<a href=\"'+part[i]+'\">'+title+'<\/a>'; break;}
else {output=title; break;}
}
return document.write(output);
}
else{
for(var i=0;i<part.length;i++){
if(!part[i].match('http')){
output+="<a onclick=\"javascript:tags_s(\'"+part[i]+"\');\" title=\"View posts filed under "+part[i]+"\">"+part[i]+"<\/a> ";
}
}

return document.write('Posted Under: '+output);
}

}

</script>

There is another extension to it, if you are already using The ABC Index
the script will generate links every time you put a category name.

Here is the code for where you want your post title to show:

<BlogItemTitle>
<script>var link<$BlogItemNumber$>="";</script>

<BlogItemURL><script>var link<$BlogItemNumber$>='<$BlogItemURL$>';</script></BlogItemURL>

<script>
if(link<$BlogItemNumber$>=="") document.write(" <script>$BlogItemTitle$>");
else extlink_tags(link<$BlogItemNumber$>, 'title', "<$BlogItemTitle$>");
</script>
</BlogItemTitle>

It is also posible to put this code in div tags to put your own personal adjustments in anyway you want (Css, Classes, Etc)

After placing this script you must go into your dashboard and edit your links in the link field.

And to end this implementation you only need to put in this code for where you want your be linked in:

<BlogItemURL><div class="categ"><script>extlink_tags(link<$BlogItemNumber$>, 'tags', 'tags');</script></div></BlogItemURL>


It is a little extensive but more than worht to have. i hope you like it.


All thanks to Aditya, that you can find the original post for this in here:

Hybrid Link Field

*Updated at 15/06/06 with implentation code

I want to give out a quick apologize for the erratic behavior of the blogger beyond Blogger Downtime, that caused feed entries going nuts.

This has been resolved and also the mistakes in the blog caused by blogger slowdown while the system was recovering it´s speed.

I remember when i longed for the day i could have not only the comments inline with the blog but being able to post to the blog without leaving the page and seeing how the page reloaded the comments, showing the new comments right into the peek-a-boo comment display.

NO MORE, that day is is finally today.

Thanks to a Aditya inspired momment when he figured out how to do just that and just after thinking of it he told Stephen about it, wich then sparked the implementation of such a hack and some short time after the complete hack was born and is now ready for everyone to use.

Just go into Stephen Blog entry and follow the instructions to have them displaying in your blog. this hack will be implemented in Bloggeratto so you can also check how it works even before having to go to see the instructions.

So without further delay, here is the link:

Asynchronous Comment Form

I can sense further exploration of this hack,but right now, just go and have a go at it!.

In a joint venture by Aditya and Stephen, they have worked on a hack to offer you the same new feature your readers will enjoy if you are now offering them the just released Blogger RSS Feed.

This hack will give you the latest updated posts from your new RSS feed and it will allow you to notify your regular visiting reader when a entry in your blog has been updated in any way. This will seem at first as a too simple a feature to add, but it is so great that I can even see blogger releasing a new function <$TAG$> for the official version of it in the future, simply because it eliminates a lot of hassles and it will also increase the awareness of anyone who visits your blog, giving you a better readership.

The hack comes in two flavors: Static (synchronous) or Dynamic (asynchronous). Meaning you can choose to have it load with the blog or load after the blog.

In my recomendation Ii would say go for the static version. This is something you want to show from the moment someone enters your blog, unless you are way too script heavy and don't want to sacrifice the extra second your blog will take to load.

So, what are you waiting for?, go check it out in Stephen's Blog: Singapolyma-Tech and install it in your blog, because this feature is just not a matter of taste or having a better egde, this featue is a essential for your blog.

And while you are at it go check what Aditya rants in his own entry about it in The Last Word .

In the recent Development of Blogger Upgrading (as i like to think about it), the system has now available RSS Feeds for you to have and burn if you need the stats or to let them be, giving you more choice and option for you to use in your Blogger Blog.

If you have not heard about this, you can easily find your RSS Feed in the same kind of url your atom feed has and it will look like this:

Http://_"BLOGNAME"_.blogspot.com/rss.xml

The Blogger Rss Feed has the quality of having a Dynamic Status Display, that means that if you edit a post this will change the order of the Feed entries Display.

For example if you edit a old post of your blog it will appear as if it were a new feed entry and will change its place in your Feed List.

This is the right way to go because it will mean that now you get something extra if your are following the blog with a Feed Reader.

Finally, there is some excepticism about this new Rss Feeds Blogger is giving out becuase they are not confirmed anywhere, but we must remember that even the audio captcha took alsmot a week to be introduced in a official form by Blogger Buzz so we have a few days to spare before start wondering if they are here to stay and if the Dynamic Status Display is a bug or not as some bloggers think right now.

There is a serious misuse of words in the bloggerosphere and the internet in general.

Sometimes a word becomes popular, and has such a inmediate Buzz into it that we end using it more that we should or for naming things the wrong way.

In this case, it is both things.

There are a lot of Hacks for the Bloggerosphere to use and to implement, but are they all of them really HACKS?.

Nope, sorry. that is just not the case.

Take just my own mistake, many people didn´t even notice it becuase i am known for editing almost every post i publish shortly afterwards i wrote them, unless Aditya is wearing his EDITOR hat that day and edits me before i get to it.

(makes me remember why a writer needs a editor)

My mistake was stating that the Comment Count In Previous Post List entry was refering to Hack and not a Mod as it should be. i corrected it a day later but that don´t makes me less wrong at the time i posted it like that.

So, lets dive into what is what:

HACK :

A Hack is when you breach through a system/software/code security or integrity changing it´s functioning in any way impossing your code into that matrix of data to make it work/do how/what you want it to work/do for things it was not intended at first.

Example

You have learned to code and get curious what code can work into a Blogger blog and start writing function for the blog to perform, in that case lets take a zone of a Blogger blog that needs to be hacked to be extended: the comments, every single new feature you make in them is a hack. a perfect example would be how you can post video and images in the comments of this blog. that is done forcing the comments to display video and images through custom written code.

MOD :

The term Mod was born in the PC gaming scene and it meant you had changed/extended a normal feature to display differently using the own system tools to do it. but you are bound by the rules of what you are playing with. so you bend the rules to yor favor without breaking them.

Then in the car tunning scene, a mod is just about changing a original piece to a custom piece that looks different or do different things than the original piece. in either way you are still bounded by rules, if you just make whatever you want up, it stops being the game/car you are modding and that cannot happen becuase it will then be something else entirely.

So finally, in blogger terms it meant playing with what the system offers you to change features looks and displays.

Example

Take once againg the "Comment Count In Previous Post List" as a perfect example. it was done by the input of a blogger function $TAG$ into a default feature making it display in a different way without forcing anything with custom code or by using a external service

METHOD :

A Method is like a tutorial with the main difference it will show you not only how to do something but with what to do it and it will involve second party and third party external services to do it.

It is about someone taking a service and making out a not intended add-on of it into a specif platform and documenting how he did it for general future use.

There is never code written for the method to work, the effect must be codeless.

Example

lets say you go to another platform / service and you see a widget or feature there. check out the code and transplant it to Blogger and then it works out!, you decide to share it with people writing how you made it work, then it is a method, becuase you didn´t wrote code or used system code and you need a external service to provide the feature into the blog

"They seem almost the same"

That almost is what made me write it.

One would think that by now the discussion of what a blog is would have died years ago but no. not even with a wikipedia entry available for everyone to read in several languagues.

For me the answer comes down to one word: Format.

Format is what determines how a blog works and is going to be percived by the user and the maker, it goes around with the tools that are used to update it, the interfase is displayed into and the schedule it follows.

Is like when someone say that a sitcom and a soap is the same thing. is not. its format determines that. a sitcom script could not be more different to write from the script of a soap opera, the same goes for a tele series, etc.

And this is the very same thing. we already know by the wikipedia entry what and how a blog must be. and that is the thing. the perception of how something must be is what determines to the user what a blog is and should be from the start. but the most important factor a blog has is that is carries a voice(s) and a concept from a personal vision.

That is why the blogs got popular, because everyone can have a opinion in his own blog and then by de facto everyone can have their own opinion about that opinion.

You don´t carry that out from a common website, when there is only a action to be followed on, you follow steps to access the information you want and what you are dealing with is not a voice but simple cold data.

It of course can carry also a personal vision and purpose but that representation is not as direct as a blog, simply becuase a website puts up a show for the user to follow and blog can only rely on the input of that vision in a constant schedule

That is what the blog changed forever, it took voice up front and made internet interaction a true democracy. because before the coming of blogging to the mainstream, not everyone-everyone could have their own internet space. you had to put up only with content representation that could be or could be not static. right now, you don´t have to put up with your opinions to be erased by time in a forum or in someone else website. now you CAN have the option to state othewise with a blog.

And that is the main difference with a website: Personal Voice- Personal Feedback = Personal Interaction - Idea Interaction - Vision Interaction.

That is a direct display of anything you have in mind that is going to be carried on by your Identity.

When a Blog converts into a Blogsite?

That is where Blog and Website collide.

Lets see the core concept of them besides their respective Formats:

A website is about Representation.

The website will always have a Theme and Concept from were to make its content of, and will follow that theme and concept to the letter. be it for commercial or personal purposes, it will also offer the content with a single purpose: Consumption, Use, and/or Promotion

A blog is about the Direct Interaction.

A Blog carries always a personal vision of a blogger(or the founder in the case of Team-blogs)and offers the content as a opinion, reflexion, review, etc. and that is done with the single purpose of expressing and spreading a point(idea, opinion, etc) to a reader.

When a Blog has a theme or concept that is not directly about personal life tribulations and opinions and the format has been altered to be multi-threaded then you are in Blogsite. be it commercial or non-commercial.

I know the discussion will go on, but i wanted to give my 2 cents on the matter.

No better way to start a new category in this blog that a very simple and funtional Mod, with something as simple and pretty as Bloggeratto own Hovering Peek-A-Boo Blogger Navbar Hack. well the idea is very simple, if your post display is limited and you really don´t want to have a recent comments track in your sidebar you can depend on this Mod as the perfect solution to give your readers the hint of wich one(s) of the lastest post(s) have comments in them.

Or you want to have them just becuase you want to have them and can have them.

The solution:


Comment Count In Previous Posts List

With this you will be able to have one more indicator of how cool your posts are:

And as they are that cool, let me link you to them without anymore interruptions:

Add <$BlogItemCommentCount$> besides Previous Post Links

All thanks to ChorusLine from ChorusLinea1qms

So, go and have a look and tell her i say hello.

Bloggeratto is now at version 0.1 of what it will be later on and the end of its first year when it reaches 1.0, and even with the 2 scripts bugs the blog has, this has been a great experience so far.

What other bloggger blog or blog from the blogosphere can say they have a comments System like we do now?, and there are 9 new hacks for them to come later that will make them something truly great to behold and experience.

I also can say that i have a unique look for the blog, great functions with a lot more of them to come that i will share with all of you.

So, i am not complaning at all, every comment that has been left here is read and answered as well as the E-mails and with the comments and the E-mails recived i can say i have replied to more than 200 feedbacks.

This second month is going to be a blast, more milestones to be made and to be recived i am sure, , this blog will speed up it´s posting pace, debugging, promotion and upgrading, in just 2 weeks or so the first Bloggeratto Proyect Blogsite will be released and funtional to everyone that wants to use it and finally at the end of the month an important anouncement will be made once again.

Thanks to Everyone.

If you have been around enough time to read some of my previous posts in this blog you will notice i have a thing for Feeds, any kind of them, Atom, RSS, RDF, and now JSON feeds.

I remember the first time i saw the proof of concept of a feed signal in a reader. back then it was a RDF signal (also called RSS 1.0) and i was shocked by it, by the potential.

I thought seconds after: "THIS IS THE NEXT BIG THING" and since that day i have been following the Feed Scene very very closely.

Right now we are in RSS 2.0 and there are a lot of Feed Related Services and a whole industry is rising up for the grabs of what will come.

I predict a full blown explosion for it in the 2007 when it will reach the front mainstream and goes Global, i predict it will be a huge industry in its own right of two digits in the billion scale for the end of the decade.

Why i am talking about this here?, well, for the Blogosphere and Bloggerosphere alike, Feeds will become more and more important too as how someone with a blog broadcasts and publish his entries.

So, if you really have not bothered into looking into Feeds, i think right now is still a good time to catch on pretty well and to evolve with them.

You can visit the posts i have made in the Resources Category so far to know more about services that use feeds to enhance your blogging experience.

There a lot of Methods, Mods and Tips i have to share with you yet that use Feeds as the base for them so please stay tuned to Bloggeratto, becuase i really will improve every month so you can get the best stuff i can produce, get and find about for you to use.

However you can look into TWO Great Aditya Hacks That were introduced to you here in Bloggeratto that use Feeding as the engine to power them:

Native Blog Search
The ABC Index

And remember that no better way to start using feed that grabbing Bloggeratto Feed For your convenience reading!.


This Post Complements very well with Aditya´s post Using Feeds To Your Advantage