Blog introduction/Need help with Blogger

[ljt2r]

Well I finally did it. I have been wanting a blog for a while now but between babies and moving it never seemed like the time. As many of you know, when you think like that it will never be the time (much like with having babies in the first place :rolleyes: :p) so I finally bit the bullet and did it. I am pretty happy with it so far, although it is is still a work in progress in terms of organization, etc., but I am absolutely fighting with Blogger over the header. Can any of you who use Blogger give me any advice on how you got your header to go outside the bounds of what their stupid template allows? And can you tell me, if you look at my blog, if you ever had the same problem I do (you'll understand when you see it)? I have been trying to get those words and that picture into a single header and it just does not seem to want to let me. Any advice?

Anyway. I hope you all stop in and read occasionally. :D

http://thespicedlife.blogspot.com/

[lindrusso]

I'm having a hard time figuring out how you want the header to look. Right now, the only definite problem I see is that the border does not go all the way around your header.

When I did my header, I just played and tweaked until somehow I got it to work. I'd like to say it's because I knew what I was doing, but that would not be the case - I just lucked out. :o I wanted to change things to make my columns wider, but I can't because I know I'll never get my header and columns to line up again if I do. And I'm anal about those things.

Hopefully someone more proficient will be able to help you! I remember a lot of bleary-eyed days spent altering tiny bits of code. Every time I think I should have gone into the computer field (kind of fun, definitely profitable), I remember fiddling with HTML on Blogger and how one little missing < could throw the entire thing off! :eek: ;)

[MISSINDI]

Like Alysha, since I don't know what you specifically want your header to look like, no advice yet. BUT, in the meantime, you might consider setting up another blog for testing purposes. I did it in the beginning, and it was a great place to play with code without having to worry about it screwing up my "real" site. You can also "hide" the test blog so people won't be able to see it when looking at your profile. Hope this helps in the meantime. :)

[avariell]

not laura but...

i think she wants the frame to go around all 4 sides of the header, instead of just 3 :)

[ljt2r]

What I think I might be hearing is that I have to know HTML... the thing is I am just inserting a picture--and plenty of other pictures it has put inside the border, but this one, it just keeps sticking outside the border on the right--no matter how small I make the picture. It is driving me crazy. I was hoping to do this without html. :o

[lindrusso]

BUT, in the meantime, you might consider setting up another blog for testing purposes. I did it in the beginning, and it was a great place to play with code without having to worry about it screwing up my "real" site. You can also "hide" the test blog so people won't be able to see it when looking at your profile. Hope this helps in the meantime. :)

Duh, thanks for mentioning what I intended to, but completely forgot! :rolleyes: When playing with my blog, I had a test blog set up - that way you only "ruin" your test blog.

As far as HTML - sometimes you do need to know how to tweak the code in the template, but it looks like you've been doing some of that already since your blog isn't one of the ready-made templates out there. You don't necessarily need to know HTML per se, but you need to know what code corresponds to what part of your template, etc.

I know I had a problem with the border going all the way around too, but it was so long ago, I don't know if I remember why or how I fixed it.

If you'd like, you can email me your template and I can take a look at it - maybe something in my memory will spark...........

[ljt2r]

Duh, thanks for mentioning what I intended to, but completely forgot! :rolleyes: When playing with my blog, I had a test blog set up - that way you only "ruin" your test blog.

As far as HTML - sometimes you do need to know how to tweak the code in the template, but it looks like you've been doing some of that already since your blog isn't one of the ready-made templates out there. You don't necessarily need to know HTML per se, but you need to know what code corresponds to what part of your template, etc.

I know I had a problem with the border going all the way around too, but it was so long ago, I don't know if I remember why or how I fixed it.

If you'd like, you can email me your template and I can take a look at it - maybe something in my memory will spark...........

:o Actually I have not touched anything "code"--I would not have the slightest idea how. I just created the header I have as its own image and inserted it. In other words I created an image out of a photo AND the writing in a separate program, saved it as its own picture and inserted it. So you see why I am at a loss.

Currently Blogger is refusing to let me sign in, maybe tomorrow when I poke around I will see if I can figure out something to send you. Thanks for the offer. :)

[mrswaz]

Can you re-size your photo at all and then upload it? I've just started playing with adding a photo to my header on one of my blogs, but it certainly didn't seem to give many options at all.

I would either re-size the photo to be a few pixels smaller, or try to increase the size of the border box around it. (This is where the test blog would come in handy, because I would just play around with some of the numbers in the html until I found what worked.)

[RecipeGirl]

Ug... I just went through all of this set-up stuff last week!

I did play with my code a lot, but I'm rather familiar with it since I designed my own website too. I found though that if you have a specific problem with your blog, you can google the question and will get several sites that come up that can sometimes give step by step instructions for how to get you through something. A couple that were helpful to me were http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/ and http://foodblogscool.blogspot.com/

Looks like you're getting a great start to it all. Have fun :)

[ljt2r]

I have re-sized the photo--multiple times. It always comes out the same size on the webpage though. :(

As to increasing the border... well that is like asking me to try to speak Swahili, I have absolutely no knowledge of HTML whatsoever, it looks like garbledy gook to me. BUT :) if someone could tell me where to look for the code for my header (i.e., where is the code for YOUR headers) then DH might be able to do it. In other words, where do I find the code for my page as it is set up. All I saw was the page for the HTML code for the templates, and DH's knowledge of HTML is not enough to handle that--if he could see the code around MY words then I guess he would know what he was looking at--he only knows a little HTML.

[lindrusso]

I have re-sized the photo--multiple times. It always comes out the same size on the webpage though. :(

As to increasing the border... well that is like asking me to try to speak Swahili, I have absolutely no knowledge of HTML whatsoever, it looks like garbledy gook to me. BUT :) if someone could tell me where to look for the code for my header (i.e., where is the code for YOUR headers) then DH might be able to do it. In other words, where do I find the code for my page as it is set up. All I saw was the page for the HTML code for the templates, and DH's knowledge of HTML is not enough to handle that--if he could see the code around MY words then I guess he would know what he was looking at--he only knows a little HTML.

Okay, I gotcha now. It used to be that in order to add an image to your blog, you had to mess with the code - it wasn't as easy to customize your blog.

Let's see if I can get you where you need to be.

Click on Template. Then you'll see a tab for "Edit HTML". This will take you to the garbly gook code page. ;) As you scroll down, you'll see different sections like "body", "header".

It will look something like this:

/*#header-wrapper {
width:660px;
margin:0 auto 10px;
border:1px solid $bordercolor;
}*/

#header {
width:750px;
padding:50px 55px 50px;
margin: 0px auto 0px;
border-bottom: 10px solid #000;
text-align: center;
/*color:$pagetitlecolor;*/
background-color:#000;
background-image: url(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a209/alyshal/garlic2.gif);
}

You'll probably want to try to increase one or both of the values I highlighted above.

This- your entire template - is what you'll want to copy and paste into a test blog. That way you can play around with different values and see what it does to your blog.

Knowing how to tweak little things here can help you further customize your blog beyond what Blogger allows you to do. It can be fun, but it does take a lot of time and can be frustrating.

Again, if you don't have any luck, just copy and paste your template into notepad or word or something and I'd be happy to play around if I get a chance this week or this weekend.

One thing - if you increase your header without increasing your main wrapper and sidebar wrapper, your header will be bigger than the main body of your blog. If you don't care that they don't line up exactly, then no big deal. If you do care, you'll have to increase the main and sidebar widths as well. I ran into problems with this and it took me forever to get them lined up properly. But I was just randomly changing things and sometimes succeeded or failed without really knowing why. :o :)

Good luck!

[ljt2r]

Alysha, you totally saved me. It is now fixed, and furthermore *I* did it (as in not DH). WEE-HOO!

Now someday I hope to figure out how to put a nicer picture in there for my header. But for now I think it will do--it has chocolate, it has spices, it has Mexican pottery and it has my blog name and it is legible. (Getting font to show up on the Mexican pottery was not easy which is why I finally created my own picture.)

:D :D :D :D :D

[lindrusso]

Yay - I'm so glad it worked! :) :)