New Blogger in Beta, Pros and One Con.

If you haven't heard, Blogger is doing a Beta run of new features, drag & drop WYSIWYG template editor, labeling posts by category, privatizing your blogs, and dynamic "on the fly" serving of blog content, which means no more long waits when you publish a post or update your blogs template! Calm down people! Calm down!

Before you ask the question how to switch your blogger account to this new service, there's a few Cons you need to know. I checked out a few blogs that made the switch, and their comments are buggy, works when it wants to work. Users who have not switched to Blogger in beta will not be able to login to comment on blogs that have been switched, but commenting using the "anonymous" or "other" options still work. So if you made the switch to Blogger in Beta, you wont see your blogfriends profile images anymore in your comments, but if they write you using "other", how do you know it's really them and not some sicko pretending to be them? Major Con in my book if you ask me! The above has been resolved! Go Blogger!

From what I read on several blogs who have made the switch to Blogger in Beta, you can no longer edit the template manually, only with the WYSIWYG template editor. Does this mean you can't add plugins like your blogrolling blogroll, or use offline posting tools like Qumana for your blogs, or updating through Photobucket to post videos and pictures? Don't know! But John over at Freshblog informed me that manual template editing in beta is apparently coming within days!

Hey, this is my 100th post! The drinks are on you!

7 comments:

L said...

Congrats on 100th post!

John said...

Manual template editing in beta is apparently coming "within days"...

Dear AL said...

Thanks Lori! I'll have a beer!

John, thanks for the link!

eric santillan said...

Congrats on the 100th Post Al!

Great blog. I make sure I read your blog every week.

Anonymous said...

congratulations!

Jeff Day said...

You can add 3rd party Javascript or HTML snippets in a special "widget" block within the "WYSIWYG" editor (it really isn't WYSIWYG, its more like watercolor.)

I've updated my Recent Comments module to work with the new Beta because its output looks better and has more useful features than the built-in ability to include a feed in the sidebar (used in conjunction with your own comment feed).

I've also started a new living and breathing New Blog Tools blog to experiment with the Beta. So far, it is OK... But I notice some bugs, like, on the first day I couldn't even load the blog at all, I just got a pretty Blogger-themed page error, and upon privatizing a blog I was presented with an endless redirect loop even though I had been granted permission to view it.

They'll get the kinks worked out, however. They're Google.

Anonymous said...

Congrats on 100.