14 DAY TRIAL // Blogger debuted the new Dynamic Views last week, a great-looking new set of templates for Blogger blogs that are built on top of modern web technologies, HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. But, as with any big launch, especially for something as technical as this, some issues have only now surfaced.
So Blogger has now updated several of the templates with fixes and tweaks designed to squash what bugs made it through the testing phase but also add some of the most requested features.
"Last week, we launched Dynamic Views in an effort to make it easier for readers to enjoy and discover your posts. You responded," Bruce Polderman, product manager at Google, wrote.
"As of today, hundreds of thousands of blogs have changed their blog template to Dynamic Views. The clear favorite appears to be Magazine, with Classic running a close second," he said.
With so many people now using the templates, the big issues with them were quick to surface.
Following feedback, Blogger has added more emphasis to search results, when using either the Magazine or the Timeslide templates.
The way images are positioned in posts has been improved to make them more accurately follow the poster's intentions.
The new Dynamic Views now support JavaScript within posts, a welcomed update for those that use custom code on their blogs.
Also new is support for Archive pages, something that probably should have been there from the get go. Still, it's nice that Blogger is moving this fast and fixing what's missing.
These fixes and changes are great, but what most people have been missing and requesting the most is support for Blogger gadgets and the ability to customize the templates.
Both of these things are coming, but they're a bit harder to implement. Gadgets have to be rewritten to run on the new HTML5 and CSS3 base. Likewise, customization options are going to require bigger updates to the templates, but Blogger is working on it.
