Damn this template!

Arghhh! So my frustration with the template right now is the damn Blogger Font and Color tool. Changing the styles in the the Edit HTML section seems easy, but Blogger Elements such as Search and Blog List include their own css styles referencing the stylesheet.

This would be fine except they reference the same textColor style but I want them to have different colors. No worries, just change the style reference in the respective widgets, but alas, I want the template to work without people having to modify every little detail in each widget they may or may not want.

Solution, I can override the style by adding specific css in the style sheet section and adding the !important declaration to it. So for the Blog List element the css should look like this:

/* Apply custom colors for Blog List found in widget. */

.blog-list-container a:link {
color: $linkColor !important;
}

.blog-list-container .item-title {
color: $Hcolor1 !important;
}

.blog-list-container .item-snippet {
color: $bottomtextcolor !important;
}

.blog-list-container .item-time {
color: $Hcolor3 !important;
}

Japanese Cherry Blossom Blogger Template

Not quite true to the original Wordpress theme, my Blogger template for this site is now available for download. To use this template, download it to your computer then upload it to blogger under Edit HTML. Then make the following tweaks.

1.a. Add <span class="fullpost"> hidden text here </span> to the last two and all future posts.
1.b. Optionally, add <span class="fullpost"></span> to post template under Settings:Formatting:Post Template
2. Under Layout, edit Blog Posts to only display only 2 posts on main page.
3. Under Layout, edit Search This Blog and delete element title Search This Blog.
4. Under Layout, fix the feed urls and website addresses, or just delete the elements you do not want and add your own.
5. Under Layout, fix the Adsense element to 468 x 15 Horizontal Row, and adjust the colors to match the site. Or just delete it.
6. Create your own Title image, upload it to flickr, picasa, or wherever, and replace the background: #ffffff url(http://yourimageurlhere.jpg) no-repeat top left; with the new image location.

#outer-wrapper {
margin:0 auto;
padding:10px;
text-align:$startSide;
font: $bodyfont;
background: #ffffff url("http://lh6.google.com/whitney.steve/R6zd9cs82SI/AAAAAAAAAgA/aRvDFDJdAc8/s800/flowers_blue.jpg") no-repeat top left;
}

That's it. Not too painful.

The Japanese Cherry Blossom Theme for Wordpress still has some nice features that the Blogger Template I made never will. I have added some elements already, and will deviate further from the original minimalist theme in the future. Plus, the inherent differences between Blogger and Wordpress guarantee that I will never get this template any closer to the Japanese Cherry Blossom Theme.

The original Japanese Cherry Blossom theme was created by April D. Spreeman. Her site is not currently functioning so I can only link back to the Wordpress template site where I originally found her work.

Creating a Tag Cloud from Blogger Labels

I found this easy tutorial for turning a blogger labels list into a tag cloud at Frivolous Motion. Jeffery Zeldmen apparently despises tag clouds, but I feel that if they are aphabetical and the purpose is clear then they are an OK way to display labels, if albeit completely overused and often obnoxious.

Cherry Blossoms Blue

If you scroll down to the footer, you will see the credit for the Japanese Cherry Blossom flavored Hemingway theme. We use to manage a Wordpress powered blog. Wordpress is great but my wife was using Blogger and I like the ease of it. We really liked the Japanese Cherry Blossom theme but there wasn't one available for Blogger. So I made this one. If you go over to Worpress and view the original theme, you can see it has a few extra design characteristics that I haven't had time to incorporate. But overall I'm pleased. Once I get a fully working copy I'll make the template available for download. Right now when importing the template there is too much to edit to make it functional.

Update, 2.18.06. The template is now available for download.