Too Clever By Half

BIT OF A RANT HERE

Websites should be clean and simple. Also, they should be transparent and functional.

These two criteria do not always dance well together. 

Furthermore, the optimal mix of simplicity and functionality might be different if you are viewing and interacting on your phone versus a computer with a large monitor.

In my view as a desktop user, The New Blogger often strikes the wrong balance. (But in many respects, the legacy UI did too: I am a critic from way back).

Let's be fair.

Blogger is hard to use, and it is not your fault.

Google could have done so much better when it revisited the "back end" of Blogger—the tools we bloggers use to create blogs and posts.

I've been critical (and, I hope, helpful) on this blog. 

But to be fair, I'd like to put the criticism aside and remind everyone of things that are new and improved. Of benefits from the change.

PAIN FROM BLOGGER'S COMMUNICATION PROBLEM

Third-party tracking cookies (tiny files that your browser downloads from just about everybody, unless you block them) are facing legitimate concerns about privacy.

Apple started blocking these trackers in its Safari browser by default in the spring of 2020, and now others, including Google, have come around.

That's good—but also a problem for Blogger. We felt the pain for five days in January.

A PROBLEM YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD

Want to delete a comment you left on someone else's blog?

Photo: Auaan, cc by-sa 4.0

It just got more difficult.

Blog comments are affected by the same issue that recently disabled the quick-edit tools.

A workaround "fixed" that issue. It also has the effect of fixing comments.

The removal of the quick-edit tools has made Blogger harder to use.

Here's how to get them back, at least for now.

Update: If you are having this problem today, please read "the case of the missing pencil" for the current solution.

Things have changed!

AND IT'S MY FAULT

Sam Beebe/Ecotrust (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The latest casualty in Google's War On Usability is the class of Quick Edit tools that many of us use to maintain our blog and perform other editorial functions.

So, why did this happen? And, can anything be done about it?

The answer to why is this.

It is my fault.

A CRITICAL APPRAISAL

Creative Commons attribution below

Even the very oldest Blogger themes (also called "templates") still work, in that they faithfully render their contents on the World Wide Web.

Beyond that, any of the three families of themes from the past decade are broadly  functional. Each family has advantages and drawbacks not offered by the others.

So, a reasonable question is, what theme should I use today?