Using the new template editor.
It's exciting, isn't it? Getting to create your own Blogcast? You have something to say, and you know just how you want to say it. This guide is to help you say it the way you want in the environment that best reflects who you are.
We'll begin by assuming you are on the Templates/Colors page inside the Blogcast you want to customize. If you are setting up your Blogcast for the first time, you'll be directed to this page automatically once you complete the first steps of the wizard.
The first thing you need to do is see beyond the images and names. Just because a theme is named "Teenage Poetry" does not mean that it may not be a very good template for, say a Concrete Business. Likewise, Travel 2 may be a good choice if you are starting up "The Claustrophobe's Blog". What is key is to remember that almost all pictures, fonts, and backgrounds can be changed. What you are interested in is the flow and layout of the page. And if the background and font style and color appear similar to what you picture in your head, so much the better.
Take a minute to browse through the list of available themes. And remember, every theme has 6 different color combinations, providing over 450 possible combinations just to start from.
Let's run with the idea of "The Claustrophobe's Blog". While looking through them, you see Photo Gallery. It's nice and dark, and you think it would make a great theme. So you select that one, and see a larger view of the theme, as well as the six color options available for that theme. You decide none of them are quite what you are looking for, but it would make a good base if you can not find anything better. You continue scrolling through the templates, and after looking at them, you decide you like how the Yoga theme has a nice solid border. This makes it feel a little boxed in, but still provides enough contrast to make the blog pop, so you select that template. You also like how the sidebar is located on the right sideflows a little better that way, and the sidebar location is one thing you can't change in a template. You decide you like the first color best, so you click on the Next >> to continue the process.
After loading which may take a few seconds (the application is taking that time to save a private copy of all the pictures and files that consist of the theme so you can customize it to your heart's delight), you'll see the Customize Template Page. If you already have a couple entries published, you'll see the first two in the preview panel, to give you an idea what your blog will look like.
The first thing we'll do is type in The Claustrophobe's Blog into the Header Text bar, and, "Life within a box" will make a good subheader. We click on Update Preview and we see the change. Next we select Blog Image 2, and change the image to one that we have on our computer. After we click upload, we will see a small version of the image. We can specify the repeat if we want the image to repeat, but for this one we'll just accept it who it is, and click Update Preview. As a side note, even animated gifs work, if you want to add a little additional spice to your blog. We then change Header Wrapper Image's background the same way, and set the background color for both of those to Black using the Color Selector, so all the overflow around both pictures are Black. Now it is looking a lot more claustrophobic. At the same time, we notice the header and subheader font is a bit small, so we select those options using the Font Style and Size dropdown boxes. We'll set the Header to Georgia 20, and the Subheader to Fantasy 14. Once again, we click the Preview to see how our changes are going.
Now, the only thing we need is to make the whole thing a bit darker. So we Select Blog and Blog Body, and change their backgrounds to black, and for the font color we select the first template color. We decide to customize the font color, style and font for Entry Title, Entry Body, and Entry Byline to all have a black background, but we give the Entry Title a slightly larger size, making it Fantasy size 20, so it pops a little better. We also decide the entry body should have a very faint watermark, so we create an image, and upload it as the background of the Entry Body. Finally, once we are all done, we click the Publish Button, and within a few seconds our blog is visible for the whole world to see, looking just the way we wanted it to look. By having such a large selection of themes to pick from, and then being able to add background images, change font styles, colors, and sizes, we can completely change an existing template to reflect our blog.
i like this blog
Thank you
Regards
John
Quick Blogcast time.
The updates and changes you've made to this blog are great. The new colors and font sizes are easier on the eye.
How about a small post for those of us that already have a blog template chosen with plenty of posts. When I try to edit a header image or something, my whole blog gets shifted around with these new templates.
http://blog.acreativedesktop.com website blog
Thanks
Austin
Greetings Austin,
Thanks for your feedback with regards to the new Blogcast. other than providing an image the same size as the space vacated the templates should remain with the same relative spacing. The older templates did have different spacing for the images so resuse of the same item could cause this.
Regards
John
Quick Blog team.
My blogs continue to follow below the side bar. How I can get the blogs next go the side bar as shown on the display.
Greetings Pablo,
Some of the templates when used with IE6 display in the manner and it's an issue that we're aware of. We are in the process of resolving this per template. You would need to republish the template again once the fix is made. I'll be updating the blog with the information once this has been resolved over all templates.
Regards
John
Quick Blogcast
I'm looking for a template that will automatically list comments below a particular blog entry, as shown in several of your samples ... without the "trackback" portion ...
Greetings,
While the trackbacks being switched off prevents them from showing on the main pages they still show a status for the trackbacks.. e.g trackbacks are closed on this item. It's an inconsistency that I'd like to close since it makes no sense to always announce that Trackbacks/ comments are absent from a page or search result when none were ever there to find. The templates all share the same base elements so there's currently not a template that would behave in the manner requested.
Regards
John
Quick Blogcast.
Hi there. What I really want my blog for is for the announcements my company makes (much like some of the blog entries here). While it's all well and good to have the separate URL for full blog functionality, what I would like to do is pipe the most recent posts of the blog to the front page of the main website, http://www.idea-men.us Right now, I have just a mock-up there to show my partner. Right below the logo is where I would want to put the most recent blog entry, just so a visitor would know there's a new book out or an upcoming visit to a convention or the like. Obviously, since this information is stored somewhere, there must be a way to get at it... If you could respond to this, either here or more directly, that would be great! Of course, if it can't be done, I just won't keep the blog and I'll update the main page by hand, which won't be *as* great, but at least it'll be cheaper.
--Michael
Greetings Michael,
I've posted here , and replied to you separately. This kind of feature is exactly the kind of re use blogs are there for. There are several ways in which to accomplish this but without knowing what you're going to be constructing the site with / programs used I can't be too specifc.
Basically you can build an RSS reader into the page and then use www.yoururl.com/rss2.aspx to feed that reader. (most have parameters allowing you to change the number of posts / design to suit the page. You can also use neat services from Feedburner to create a graphic that has your last five post titles shown on the screen accessed by the same method.
Regards
John,
Quick Blogcast Team
As you have, I would like to have the feature:
"What Did You Think of This Article"
* Liked
* Disliked
* No Opinion
Vote & See the Results
How do I put this on my blog?
Greetings,
You can turn this item by within your settings. Go to Manage blog> settings> entry settings and check Gather user feedback: Save this. It should be active on your site within a few minutes.
Regards
John
QBC Team
The only changes I can make in the "customize template" page are: Header Text: Header Link URL:(not required) Subheader Text: Footer Text.
I have had no success at anything else.
I am using Deco Living Room, I have selected every element in the list and the photograph never appear in the select background field as I think it is supposed to.
I have tried changing the font, changing the image, changing the background color...
Obviously I am doing something wrong, and I have literally spent all afternoon doing it.
I know it's not your fault. I just expected this to be easier.
L. Snyder
Greetings Lon,
It's our fault
Blog Image 2 in the dropdown should be the one you are looking for , give it a couple of seconds to display. If it's still absent let me know and I'll work with you to get the image you want in place.
Regards
John
QBC team.
Hey, I just wanted to know if there will be any templates with three columns? Meaning a post area and two sidebars. I have some things that I want put on my sidebar but would like to split them up so I won't have one verylong sidebar. I want visitors to see more things on screen at one time.
I to am looking for a 3 coumn template. Anything in the works?
Andrew,
We apologize for the delay in responding to you comment. There are plans to expand the template offerings in that direction. We don't have a time line for their inclusion at present your suggestion helps us keep it in mind . regards.
QBC team
I agree with the 3 columns--this will be a great addition. I would also like to see a 'contact us' form that can be included in the sidebar. I have tried copying code from free html sites (for the form) but they are too big and awkward for Quick Blogcast's smaller sidebar.
Thanks,
Melinda Tyler
Hi,
I've been fiddling with the code on my blog (http://blog2.jhmeyer.net/) in order to improve it. For instance, I was able to center the blog, which I think makes it look a lot nicer. Anyway, I'd really like to change the color scheme a bit. In particular, I want to change the white background (outside the orange) to a color, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. Frankly, godaddy's support hasn't been very helpful in this regard, as I have simply been pointed to the element menu in the customize template tab. I've gone through every element on the menu several times, and there seems to be absolutely nothing to help with the background (there are 'background' color options, but it is for some reason impossible to select them). Do you think you could help me with this? I think the blog looks rather ugly and primitive with all of the white around it, and I'd really like to change it.
Hi Jim,
I see that your background outside the orange is now red. You do have a customized css entry of:
BODY { FONT-SIZE: 12px; MARGIN: 0px; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #990000}
The "BACKGROUND-COLOR: #990000", sets the body background outside the orange background to this dark red color.
Now, if you want to change the white background behind your entries, you will want to add this to your custom.css on the Customize page, under the CSS Styles tab:
div.sf_blog_entry td { background-color: Transparent !important; }
This one is a bit more tricky because you are using an older template that has hard coded background colors rather than them being in the actual css file. If you add the above style to your custom.css, this will get rid of the white background behind your entries.
Let me know if you have any problem adding this to your blog. Thanks.
This is awesome advice.....
div.sf_blog_entry td { background-color: Transparent !important; }
You guys should have a whole library of these 'custom GoDaddy CSS tips'.
At the very least why is there no commenting inside the code so we can see what does what?
For each class, include a brief description.
For each method, include a description of its purpose, functions, parameters and results.
If the code was commented we (Godaddy customers) would be able to take our blogs so much farther......and your job would become a little bit easier.
I would really love to be able to have more flexibility with the templates. I know you have the CSS editor but I am not comfortable using it and don't want to mess up my blog. I like the current template I am using because I was able to switch the image with one that is individualo to my blog but I would love to be able to easily switch the colors of the background, font, etc. Apparently the template I am now using is one of your 'new' ones yet there are very few options for being able to customize font, background, etc.
What I would love is to have more options for changing the color of the background, the font style, the sidebar background and font--without using the CSS editor (believe me, the 'this is for advanced users scares me off right away).
I really would like to see an option for 3 columns, also.
I love that Quick Blogcast is quick and easy--but we don't have that much flexibility with it.
Hi Melinda,
I will bring up your suggestion to our team and see if we can add more ways to customize the colors and text on your blog. We also have 3 column templates (templates with 2 sidebars) on the way. These will be out in the upcoming month. Keep posted to our blog, as we will add a post once these new templates are live. Thanks. -Tim