Geek Stuff: Blogger - How to search multiple labels at one time UPDATED

On any blogger (blogspot) blog, if you click on a label, it will do a search for you on the entire blog for that one label. But you want to select multiple labels and view the posts that have all those labels.

I wrote a post about how to view/filter multiple labels at one time back in Nov 2011, but that technique no longer works.

Here is an updated technique, which does work at this point in time.

Search multiple labels

Lets say you want to display all post entries on this blog that have the labels "Blog" and "HTML".

The URL will be this:

http://geekstuff.allnewadventures.com/search/label/Blog+HTML

Or simply

http://BLOG-ADDRESS/search/label/LABELNAME1+LABELNAME2

It's the plus sign (+) that makes all the difference :-)

NOTE: BLOG-ADDRESS is your full address such as http://blogname.blogspot.com or if you have your own domain then http://yourdomain.com

Did you find this information useful? I'd love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment if this post was helpful to you.

NEW LOOK Guide for Blogger.com: Beginners look at creating a blog post

Some time in April 2012 the new look for blogger will be the only look, and the old familiar one will be a thing of the past. I want my son's grand parents to write some posts for me, because what's a web log about our lives in reflection without the grand parents' perspective, right? So I thought I'd better throw together some simple instructions for them to follow, and hopefully they'll find it a breeze and start blogging!

1. Upload all pictures you are going to use for your post to Picasa Web. If you don't know how to do this here are the instructions.
2. Go to www.blogger.com and log in.
3. Your dashboard will look similar to this:
   
   
   
   Click the orange button (shown circled in the screenshot above) to create a new post.
4. Type in your Title of the post in the field next to the Publish button. In the example screenshot the title of this post is "Beginners look at creating a blog post".
   
   
5. It is easiest to create your post using the "Compose" area (instead of "HTML" where you actually create your post using HTML tags).
6. To attach a photo click on the Insert Image icon:
   
   You want to select a file from Picasa Web Albums, then navigate on the right side panel to the album and image you have uploaded in step 1.
   
   
7. Before you publish your post it is a good idea to preview it first so that you can correct any formatting problems, alignments of pictures and texts, etc etc.
8. You can also save your post as a draft for publishing later, or schedule a time when you want your post to publish automatically. To do this enter your date and time in the Post settings on the right hand side of your post entry:
   
   

Let me know if you have any questions, because no doubt if you have questions then the grand parents will have questions too!

Geek Stuff: Blogger - create a gadget box above the header

Usually the Header element (in Designer mode viewing Page Elements) for Blogger is at the top. I wanted to add a gadget (e.g. HTML/Javascript gadget, or Text gadget) above this, like so:

To achieve this do the following:

1. Go into the layout mode of your Blogger blog and select "Edit HTML."
2. Scroll down to the bottom where the header widget code resides (or do a browser Find text "maxwidgets").
3. Change "maxwidgets=1" to "maxwidgets=2"
4. Change "showaddedelement='no'" to "showaddedelement='yes'"
5. Lastly, change "locked=true" to "locked=false"
6. Return to Layout and look at the Page Elements. Notice "Add a Gadget" is now available above the Header.

Geek Stuff: Blogging 101 - blogger templates

OK, so you have now set yourself up with a blogger blog and want to choose a template that is more condusive to how you want your posts displayed.

Free templates

There are so many free blogger templates you could choose from; just do a google search for "blogger templates" and the search engine will return a rediculous number of results. Check out a few of the designs - you might find just what you are looking for. Then all you will need to do is download the xml file (sometimes it will be zipped so you will need to unzip the file), and upload it to your blog from the Design, Edit HTML tab:

Once you've uploaded the xml file your blog should have the look and layout of what you had previewed on the site where you obtained the template. Sometimes you may have to do some tweaking of the template, so read on.

Geek Stuff: Blogger - how to hide the Navbar

The Blogger/Blogspot Navbar is a default feature that appears at the top of every Blogger powered blog. It looks similar to this:

If you wish to hide this (so it is no longer visible at the top of your blog) then here's what you do.

Log into your dashboard, go to Template -> Edit HTML. Anywhere between <head> and </head> tags, and after a } bracket you need to insert the following code:

#navbar-iframe {
height: 0px;
}

This will reduce the Navbar height to zero, thus removing the Navbar.

Geek Stuff: Blogger - view/filter multiple labels at one time

This post has been updated with Blogger - How to search multiple labels at one time UPDATED.

You know you can click on a label and view all the posts with that label, but you want to select multiple labels and view the posts that have all those labels. Here's how you do that.
Lets say you want to display all post entries on this blog that have the labels "Blog" and "HTML".
The URL will be this:

http://geekstuff.allnewadventures.com/search/label/Blog/label/HTML

Or simply

http://BLOG-ADDRESS/search/label/LABELNAME1/label/LABELNAME2

BLOG-ADDRESS is your full address such as http://blogname.blogspot.com or if you have your own domain then http://yourdomain.com

Geek Stuff: BlogSend "from" e-mail address

Description of issue

I have used BlogSend in Blogger to email each new post to a selection of e-mail addresses. The "From" field in the new post blog has always been the username/blogger email of the post author so that you could see who wrote the post when you read it in your email inbox. In the past few days, the address have been changed to "Blogger" as the sender.

Solution

To prevent emails from BlogSend being sent as "Blogger" you need to modify the email address on your Blogger profile. The email address needs to be the same as the email address used to login to your Google Account / Blogger account. Edit your Blogger Profile and under Identity, your email address should be the same as your username. Otherwise, emails from BlogSend will default to "Blogger".

Geek Stuff: Blogging 101 - Setting up a blog

I showed a friend my blog, and she wanted to know how she can set one up. Another friend will be wanting the same information as well, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to run a series of tutorial postings here. There is a myriad of information out there in cyberspace that provides a lot of technical instructions. I am going to keep this series aimed at a novice, and put detailed technical titbits in new posts. This information is shows you how I do it, as many roads lead to Rome.

Begin at the beginning

I think Blogger (blogspot.com) is a really easy platform for a novice to house their blog. Blogger is a free Google web-based publishing service, and it’s intended to be easy for beginners (and is not limiting for advanced users). Blogspot is a free blog hosting service. Decide what you want to call your blog, then go to www.blogger.com

1. If you have a Google account, sign in by entering your email address and password in the upper right hand corner.
2. If you do not have a Google account, get started by clicking on the "Get Started" button.
3. You'll be taken to a screen that asks you to create an account. Here you will need to enter in your pre-existing email address (which doesn’t have to be a gmail email address), choose a password, choose the name that will be displayed when you publish a blog post and accept Blogger's terms of use.
4. You will next be asked to name your blog and choose your blog's URL address**.
5. Next you will be taken to a screen that lets you select a template for your blog's design. At this stage I would suggest you just pick any one of the templates (there are lots to choose from), and you can always change this later.
6. When you have chosen your template, you can start posting.

**URL address - Uniform Resource Locator (world wide web address). Since there are already a large number of Blogspot blogs, you'll need to possibly try a few different URLs before you find one that is available. Your blog's URL can only use letters, numbers, and hyphens. The format for your URL will be blogname.blogspot.com.

Geek Stuff: Blogger (blogspot) - viewing and saving many posts

This is how you list the latest number (whatever you want the number to be - i.e. 5, 7, 10 etc) posts from the blog you are viewing it for.

http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=N

Instead of N, type in the number of posts.

If the blog has less than 1000 posts, you can view/save your search page by typing the following:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=1000

This is how you get all the posts in an XML feed. This is a good format if you intend to import it in a database. Type:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=1000