Blogger Introduces A New Template HTML Editor

A few days ago I had wanted to do a tutorial on some new blogging techniques that I've learned recently, only to be surprised that the Edit Template editor that I was familiar with had 'disappeared' without warning! To see the new Template HTML Editor, click the 'Template' tab on the Blogger dashboard, then the 'Edit HTML' button.

Blogger has updated it with new features, an improved version that's to bring smiles to many.

This is good news to many, especially the web-developers, programmers and tech-savvy blog owners, but sad news to as many of us ordinary bloggers who are technically challenged!

I fall under the second group.... before I can master the old, it is being replaced by the new, a roller coaster ride until I learn and catch up again.


Nevertheless, the newly updated Template HTML Editor does appear inviting with the colourful inline codes, etc. Surely changes made are always for betterment and this improvement by Blogger should not be measured by my lack of technical competence. Well, it's just a matter of time before I get used to it! ;)

Spent almost the whole day playing around with the new features but something was missing... I just couldn't find many of the customized codes that have been added earlier on using the 'Expand Widget Templates' which is obsolete now. And, the browser's 'Find' feature was of no help at all.

A quick google search landed me on BloggerPlugins' site, where this issue was mentioned (TQVM, Aneesh for highlighting this matter). It appears that the newly improved Template Editor has an inbuilt search option too. To bring forth the built-in search bar, just click anywhere inside the Template Editor and press CTRL+F (Command+F on Mac) on your keyboard, then type in your word or phrase and viola the match is highlighted. This built-in search function can search within the folded codes too!

Some other new features seen in the newly improved Template HTML Editor, besides the built-in Search Option as mentioned above are :

1. Colourful inline code making codes easily spotted and readable;
2. Auto indentation, keeping it neat, tidy and organized;
3. Line numbering, making it much simplified to spot codes and errors;
4. Syntax highlighting, making errors easily spot and corrected;
5. Code folding that expands/collapses section of codes with ease - just a click on the shaded triangle beside related numbered lines, when required. It's now less cluttered and looks clean;
6. 'Jump to widget' drop-down for quick access to the related widget's code;
7. Inline preview option to preview changes that you've made easily and immediately.

Hop over to BloggerPlugins.org (link given above) and MyBloggerTricks.com to get more details on the various new features, complete with illustrations for better understanding.

Happy learning and blogging!!

  "Keep learning ~~ keep smiling ~~ keep sharing"