Tabbed navigation with Link List and Pages gadgets

Photo: Mike

Update: the improved Page List widget, sometimes called "Pages," has become generally better than the old Link List for the purpose of creating a horizontal navigation widget of links.

Most blogs should have such a widget in the horizontal area between the header and the posts. (This blog has one.) As I said below in 2011,

Navigation gizmos like this can connect readers to your content, making your blog more useful, fun, and, ultimately, popular.

In 2011, Page List was limited, buggy, and hard to use. So I recommended Link List instead.

For no particularly good reason, I retain that post below. But make no mistake, things have changed.

If you have trouble adding or editing a PageList gadget, here's a guide.

Note that Link List is still a solid choice for many uses.

Meanwhile, back in 2011....

There's an old Vaudeville routine about a man in an airplane and a series of reversals.

Unfortunately—he fell out.
Fortunately—he was wearing a parachute.
Unfortunately—it wouldn't open

and so forth.

The unhappy conclusion:

Fortunately—he missed the pitchfork.
Unfortunately—he missed the haystack.

Well, fortunately, Blogger provides a nifty Pages gadget that automatically lists all of your static pages. Blogger nudges you to set one up if you publish such a page, and if you put it in the horizontal area over your posts, many templates render it as a handy tabbed navigation system.

Navigation gizmos like this can connect readers to your content, making your blog more useful, fun, and, ultimately, popular.

Unfortunately, that gadget is is fussy, and users seem to have trouble bending it to their will. Linking to posts, like you can on a label-search page, is possible but some find it confusing.

Update: Fortunately, Blogger has revised the Pages gadget to let you add non-Pages links, hybrid style. Unfortunately you have to use the inferior new Dashboard interface to get to it. Fortunately, for a limited time you can switch back and forth. Update: Unfortunately, you can't do that any more.

The Link-List Alternative
Fortunately, then, there is a better choice: the link-list gadget. Use it to link to anything on the web, including static pages but also the far-more-useful label-search pages and even other blogs or web pages.

You can specify short tab labels on a link list even with long titles. Just like the Pages gadget, a link list will assume the appropriate horizontal appearance (e.g., tabs) when dragged over the posts. (It formats as a list in the sidebar.)

About the only thing Pages does that a link list can't is automatically add static pages.

You can install a link list like most other gadgets, from Layout > Add a Gadget. Scroll down the window that opens to find the link list.

Conclusion
The Pages gadget, like the static pages with which they are so tightly integrated, are specialized and limited.

Only you can decide what is best for your blog, but if you are frustrated with Pages, the link list os a rock-solid, and simpler, alternative.

Fortunately, the decision is yours.

Update: as noted above, Blogger has rolled out a better version of the Pages gadget that will let you add custom links just like the link-list gadget does.

Looks like some day this post will be obsolete.

Update: or maybe not. For you to decide.