The Blogger Template Designer

This blog post is for those who use blogger.com for their blogs and it assumes you already know how to use blogger.com. 

Blogger.com has improved its template designer and it is in draft mode, but I have just used it to change the theme of this blog and it was easy to do.  I selected one of the new templates that they are offering and it was easy.  Here are a few details of the improvements:

• 15 new, highly-customizable templates from our design team, split into four families: Simple, Picture Window, Awesome Inc, and Watermark
• One-, two-, and three-column layouts for each template, with complete control over the size and arrangement of the columns
• Hundreds of background images and patterns from iStockphoto, the leading microstock image marketplace

To learn more about new template designer check out their blog:  http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/2010/03/blogger-template-designer.html.

I have been using Windows Live Writer (WLW) to update my blog and it has been working really well.  To see my blog post on Windows Live Writer, click here:  http://elevateusergroup.blogspot.com/2010/03/windows-live-writer.html. 

When I changed the template and theme of my blog on Blogger.com, I brought up WLW so that I could create a new post.  WLW was displaying my post in my old theme, but it was easy to change that.  I discovered that I could have WLW download my new theme.  Here is what I did:

• I selected the “Blogs” option from the menu/navigation at the top of the WLW window/interface. 
• Next I selected the “Blog Settings” from the drop down menu.  
• A small pop up windows appears for the “Blog Settings”.  On the left side of this pop up window, click on the “Editing” option. 
• The display to the right will change and you should see a button labeled “Refresh Theme”.  Click on it and answer any prompts that appear. 

That is it.  Not bad at all and it is pretty cool.  What are you waiting for.  Go check it out and have some fun!