Google introduced three new features to Blogger this year.
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- In July, Google introduced a new system for backing up our blogs.
- As the year ends, we're randomly seeing two "beta" features that use machine intelligence to add hyperlinks from your posts to related Google searches.
The changes shared one thing in common: the absence of direct communication or explanation from Google about the new features. Bad Google!
The above links will take you to my unofficial guide to these new features.
Behind the scenes
We experience this as a parade of bugs and (usually) bug fixes. I do not know what is going on behind the curtain, only that things are obviously not static.
Other changes at Google also affect Blogger users. In 2024, for instance, a change in Google Drive broke links on myriad blogs that were hosting images and other content there. This year Google added a recovery channel for your Google account.
Unlike the changes in Blogger and the one at Drive, Google actually announced that last feature and provided a help page describing it.
Good Google!
New for me
You, my readers, seem to like it, and I don't think I am going back.
But I'd like to continue to use this blog to explore approaches to the usability problem that the responsive themes try to address.
Google is not the only one with the power to innovate: we can, too.
2019 Flashback
From 2019.
Back then, I asked for universal undo ("including a trash can for deleted items"):
Users should be able to reverse any action on Blogger within a reasonable period of time.
We did get, anyway, a trash can for deleted blog posts in late 2022.
This year the new backup (above) fulfilled my 2019 wish for automated backup.
Other wishes...well, maybe next year.
Best wishes
All the best to my readers for 2026!
I tried it a few weeks ago but I don’t think 🤔 I want to loose my audience with those links in my blog posts. I do wish that Blogger can add more features like some of features in Google Sites
ReplyDeleteI assume you are talking about the two Search link features. They are still in beta, so we will see what happens.
DeleteI'm not impressed by those either, but not all outbound links are bad for your blog. If you link to useful things, people will value your blog as a discriminating curator.
The key is "discriminating," I think.
I don't know Sites, but you can suggest new features for Blogger using Feedback. Those do get read by the program team.
What features from Google Sites would you like to see added to Blogger?
DeleteSome drag and drop features, Table of Contents features tool for long form content, maybe a forum option as well.
DeleteInteresting! Does Sites have a forum option separate from Google Groups?
DeleteI certainly think threading in Blogger comments could be more robust.
An automatic Table of contents for headings inside the post would be really nice.
ReplyDeleteAlso an automatic references would be really nice too. Like for example you drop a reference to a source after a sentence in wikipedia or substack and the References lists will automatically generate below the post with links and all.
It would also be nice to have an easy way to insert Tables in posts (something like we do in MS Word).
It would also be nice if Blogger stops inserting unnecessary padding through inline styles in image codes Any styles should be done through CSS. If you see code for inserted images, you'll see a style="..." parameter which is totally unnecessary and forced padding on images. Instead of wasting precious bytes with ever image code having this inline style, the same could be simply applied via CSS which could be easily overridden by CSS for those who don't want the unnecessary padding too.
Also, when lazy loading is chosen for images it should not get applied for images "above the fold", that is, typically your first image in the post which is on top of the post or near the title. Lazy loading should be applied for images below the fold only.Also a fetchpriority="high" should be set for the image above the fold which is typically the first image of the post. (You can see Google's own web.dev or MDN or lighthouse page speed insights to see why).
Also, when images are inserted when in HTML mode of post editor, the height parameter is omitted. It may also be omitted when full size image is opted.
It is a very bad practice to omit the height parameter for images. Width and height parameters should always be there to avoid CLS (cumulative layout shift). (You may see about this in Google's web.dev or MDN etc.)
Ideally, the HTML srcset attributes should be there for image elements for the browser to choose the best possible image for a given screen width or resolution. This is for making it truly usefully responsive.
All these are explained in Google's own web.dev but are missing in its own Blogger.
These are just a few simple things which can make Blogger better.
Oh, and currently it generates a table below the image if caption option is used. Which is really weird. It should use a div element for it instead.
Of course there are already simple workarounds for all this but one needs to get comfortable with editing template or posts and using javascript and CSS with editing HTML.
Google had an "insert table tool" in he draft version of "The New Blogger" (what we use today) ca. 2020. I even wrote a blog post about that.
DeleteI don;t know what happened to that idea, except maybe that it's hard to make responsive tables. (Something i am working on right now, as another blog has several tables that just fail in mobile.)
Hi, the only way tables seem to work on a mobile device is if you put the tables inside a container element with max width set to 100% and then set to a fixed width (say 600px or 640px, whatever your post width is) and then set the tables to be overflow scroll using css like this.
Delete.post-body {
max-width: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
padding-left:0;
padding-right:0;
}
table {
overflow: scroll;
}
In the example, the container is the post body itself. If max-width doesn't work, then try width:100% instead. But keep in mind that there should be no padding left or right on the post body because padding is always added as extra space for a container behind 100%. A div element is by default a 100% width as it is a block element and so it is not really necessary to declare it separately but I just put it there.
The overflow hidden for post body is necessary as it will hide anything that goes beyond its dimensions.
The overflow scroll for table elements is necessary to make anything that is going beyond the width of its parent element (in this case, the post body) to be scrollable so that you can scroll it horizontally and see the full table.
For example you can see some tables on Wikipedia are scrollable to see full contents on mobile while keeping sufficient width of the table cells.
I hope this helps you make better tables. You only need to declare the custom CSS once in the template or in custom CSS area and it should work out.
You may even add a fixed width parameter to the table element in HTML view of post if necessary (as different tables may have different widths you'll need to set it to individual table in the HTML of the post) or just leave it as it and don't set individual width to table as it may get set automatically by browser. Just do not declare a 100% width for the table element for that will squeeze everything within the parent element width.
See if this works out for you!
Thanks! I am already familiar with that solution. However, I do not like scroll bars. I've been looking at a different solution that uses divs and an @media statement to make the table reorganize responsively. I haven't had much time to try it out lately.
DeleteThe tables in question are in my other blog anyway.
P.S.: A better comment moderation system would be appreciated. (You'd obviously know how much spam you get!)
ReplyDeleteAlso a way to monetize the posts or the Blog, if I'm not asking for too much. No, not by ads (lotsa people use ad blockers these days, why there even browsers that do that these days without the need of installing an ad blocker). I mean by choosing some posts to be as a paid or premium content behind a pay wall while others is free to view or with ads, as chosen by us. Or a get premium paid Ad-free version of the blog or something like that. You know what I mean.
Those who don't want all that should be still able to continue normally as usual as it is now without opting for it and putting out posts for free or with ads, as chosen by the author(s).
Even Google can earn through it by taking a percentage of such payments. It should integrate it's Google Pay for easy way of payments.
Also it would be nice if there's a way to list posts by author. It is helpful in case of blogs with multiple authors.
I'd already submitted all these long ago through the feedback option in Blogger but I bet nobody saw all that.
Just some suggestions that's all.
These are all good ideas, and I certainly welcome them here. But afaik nobody at Google reads this blog.
DeleteSo here is my obligatory mention of feedback, on the Help menu at www.blogger.com. It is the onlly way we have to make suggestions to Google.
Also, I do get tons of spam but am pretty happy with comment moderation. It does mean there is a delay in seeing your comments published (which leads some people to comment twice!) but it does let me catch all the spam.
Hi, I've already sent these suggestions through the blogger help menu months or years ago itself. I don't think they ever bother to actually read it.
DeleteIt could still use better moderation features though.