New Blogger theme, new look for The End Time

I've been on Blogger for ten years. For most of those ten, Blogger hasn't put out any new themes. Themes are the offered Blogger standard templates one can use to present your blog. Its design, look, etc. I've been using 'Simple' for almost the entire ten years, customizing where possible. Blogger finally added new themes, to keep up with the times I suppose.

I switched themes and of course nothing is perfectly easy in the html world. There is still work to do to bring The End Time back up 100%. I'll tweak it more tomorrow. What I'm hoping is that with a standard Blogger template without customizations, the issues some of you have reported to me will go away.

If you have an opinion on how the new theme looks, or what you want to see for sidebars and links, etc, please let me know. The 'Sidebar' is now at the top. If you click the three little lines at the top left, it will appear.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience!

Comments

  1. Hi Elizabeth,

    I tried to post a comment, but I don't know if it worked... I think somehow I forgot to select "comment as..." correctly. So rather than repeat myself, I'll check back later to see if what I said appears. If not, I can comment later. :)

    One Q, though... I notice that some bloggers use wordpress and some use blogspot. Was there a reason you chose blogspot?

    -Carolyn

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    1. Hi Carolyn,
      Thanks for the comment. I still have comment moderation 'on' as I receive Spam and of course lots of "I hate you, stupid Christian" replies. I put through your comment.

      I actually use both Blogger AND Wordpress. I have a mirror site at the-end-time.org at Wordpress' site. When I started blogging at my personal blog The Quiet Life ten years ago I tried WP and Blogger. I found WP to be confusing and complicated and non-user friendly. I chose Blogger back then. I still feel WP is hard to use, but I began using WordPress last summer after the Supreme Court decision about homosexuality so as to have a mirror site there, which tends to be more free in terms of content. Blogger more easily suspends accounts on sites it determines is 'hate speech.' I felt my blogger blog might be at risk at some point, given that I do preach against sin, including homosexuality.

      After setting up camp at Blogger all those years ago,I never budged from Blogger after that because it's easy to use, free, and has no ads. WP has ads unless you pay for your own site (which I do at The End Time/Wordpress). Also, after daily blogging and promoting reached The End Time/Blogspot every day for 8 years it has reached the top half of page 1 of Google search engine results. It will take me a decade or more to get there with WP, if ever, so in the end I decided to go with both sites running simultaneously and not make the total switch to WP.
      :)

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    2. Thanks for your input! I have noticed some of those with WP blogs do have ads, so that must be the free version. I've contemplated blogging myself, but not sure I want to bother.

      As for my thoughts on your new format - my original comment didn't post. I think I did make a mistake while trying to publish it, probably at the comment moderation step. Which, given the spam and comments you receive, makes sense to maintain.

      Anyhow, the gist of what I said: I do like this new template, it is simple and clean. However, I find the way it organizes your posts "minimally" confusing. It's easier for me to navigate blogs when the posts are vertical, in one column (like your current format on Quiet Life). This one - the posts are offset, side by side, which I find harder to follow. It's probably just me. LOL! So no worries, I bet I'll get used to it.

      That - and - I appreciate your links to other blogs. I often scan those to see what else is going on with like-minded believers. If anything looks interesting, I link to them through you.

      -Carolyn

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    3. If you ever do decide to start a blog, Blogger makes it easy. I started my Quiet Life blog with no experience in just a few minutes.

      I agree with you about the lineup being a bit harder to get used to. I think the look is contemporary, and that is an important factor in blogging, which is a format that appeals to a generation of graphics-loving consumers. When things look dated peopel think the content is dated, too, and move along.

      However, the vertical layout is so much better, IMHO. Having a sidebar to the right or left, with links to additional content, etc is easier than the added steps of having to click on the three lines above and THEN finding what you want, all the while it is overlaying the blog essay a person has come for in the first place. Sigh. I suppose I'll get used to it eventually also. I'm a granny when it comes to blogging.I like my blogs old fashioned, lol!

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    4. LOL! The thought of appealing to a contemporary, graphics-loving generation, lest the content is erroneously deemed "dated"... ROFL! Whatever happened to not judging a book (blog) by its cover? :)

      (Sorry I'm just laughing at myself, at the thought of me trying to be "with the times", hilarious.)

      Apparently I'm an old-fashioned, "granny", too!

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    5. Doh, I meant to indicate that the 3/22/17 2:51pm comment was mine! You probably figured that out, though. ;)

      -Carolyn

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  2. I got a lot of blowback when I changed to Notable. People wanted the old, familiar, and CLUTTERED design back. They have threatened to hunt me down and put my computer on a pike. I like nearly everything about it, though. 40% of my traffic is from something other than a computer. Before, you could not even see the sidebar on an iPhone unless you went to web view and zoomed. However, my blog is very personality-driven, since I blog as a real Bear. The biggest complaint is they miss the atmosphere. I am gratified, however, that they care enough to be upset.

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  3. Just FYI - No matter which way I turn my iPad, the title banner is huge, and I can only see the left half of it.

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    1. Hi Alicia, thanks. GSighrrr. I'll try to reduce the size but it might be integral to the theme. I also hate the way the theme does Block Quotes (no indentation, just HUGE letters) and RefTagger that makes the scripture live isn't working. I'll keep tweaking. Thank you for letting me know. I really appreciate it.

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