Secondly Beth advises not to include the Followers widget as that sometimes stops a blog from opening in Internet Explorer. I find this a harder one to comply with. I do like to see my followers in the sidebar and to encourage new followers. And, so far as I am aware it has not caused a problem. However, it seems that if you move the Followers widget down the page (mine has always been quite far down) it helps. Nevertheless, if you open my blog in Internet Explorer they may not show. (It seems that loading it in Internet Explorer may also be slower than Chrome and Firefox.)
If anyone cannot get my blog to open at all in Internet Explorer and has to switch to Chrome or Firefox or Safari will they please let me know and I shall investigate this Followers issue further.
The Friday My Town Shoot-out has brought me a couple more followers. At first I assumed Pauline had come via GB as she lives in NZ. Meanwhile Denise is a fellow Francophile as well as being a Friday shoot-out person.
Another thing that GB discovered today was that simply pressing Ctrl and + or Ctrl and - alters the screen size. So if you come upon a site which has a photo that overlaps the column in a blog try pressing Ctrl and minus. Or, if you think one of your photos should be larger on the blog check whether Ctrl and plus does the trick. After twenty years of playing on computers its simple things like this (that probably most people know) that still amaze me...
Today was wet and generally unsuitable for photos but I took one of the Isle of Arran. Not the place - the boat of that name. She was in Stornoway standing in for the poorly sick MV Isle of Lewis (I think it's a hardware problem!!). Hopefully by the time Partner-who-loves-Tea is due on board on Monday morning the sailings will be pretty well back to normal.
I didn't know all of this, but did wonder why I had such trouble with some of my favorite blogs opening. Sometimes, all that is needed is to refresh the site - that's what I've done in the past but not on yours. I have never had any trouble here :)
ReplyDeleteNow, thank you for changing the comments section; although, I prefer the pop-up and that is only because I'm able to see the blog itself as I write my comment. I tend to forget some important thoughts that I want to share when I can't see it. That's just me though.
AND...I LOVE this upsizing and downsizing with a simple ctrl+/-. I'm using it right now...very nice!!
Quite the productive post you've shared today. I like it :)
Just a little - hopefully helpful - tip for those like Heather who like to see the post whilst commenting on a blog where the comments open on a full page - you can do so by clicking on the little 'Show Original Post' at the top of the page. It only shows the text though.
ReplyDeleteUnless there are a lot of voices joining you, Heather, I shall keep to this full page format because I know the pop-ups sometimes don't manage to open for some people (perhaps because their virus checkers won't allow it?). I've also had problems getting pop-up comments to open on some sites.
I know you have shared lots of useful blgging tips in the past and any more useful tips will always be welcome, from anyone.
Just to complete the resizing comment, while Ctrl+/- will make the page bigger/smaller if you forget how many times you have done either and just want to go back to the original size then you hit Ctrl 0
ReplyDeleteAs for Internet Explorer I've done some limited testing in the different versions/configurations I can get my hands on. IE6 on XP seems to work fine (which is itself a bit of a surprise). IE8 on Vista also works fine. In IE8 I have some developer tools installed which means I can make it behave like IE7. If I do that then the followers widget doesn't display at all (there is just a gap, and a javascript error is displayed as a little warning triangle at the bottom left of the window) but the rest of the blog seems to be alright. Of course if someone is still using IE (any version) to browse the web then when a page doesn't display properly that's there fault for not using a browser that actually respects the standards.
Sorry Mark but so far as I'm concerned it's also my problem. I want to be user friendly to everybody not just computer experts like yourself. And all the other browsers have their problems. Google Chrome, for example, won't display comments in full when you moderate them - and that's on Google's own blogger!!
ReplyDeleteSome people also don't have a choice of browser because their computer has been set up for them by someone else or belongs to someone else.
All true. I didn't mean it to come across quite as it obviously did. I'm actually amazed that IE worked as well as it did and all that was lost was the followers in IE7 so in general most visitors won't have a problem.
ReplyDeleteI've also now tested the blog in Opera and Safari (under Vista). Safari seems to have no problems although there is a weird frame access javascript error from the followers gadget but it doesn't stop it working. Opera on the otherhand is badly broken. The translate gadget doesn't list any languages and the followers gadget is completely blank with lots of JavaScript errors.
If I get time I'll make amends for my previous post and see if I can find a fix for so that these gadgets work properly everywhere.
Okay, I have no idea how to fix the followers gadget in IE7 (the javascript has been obfuscated and would take an age to figure out).
ReplyDeleteThe good news is though that contrary to my previous comment everything works ok in Opera -- my installation had got messed up but a re-install and it all works.
So as far as I can tell this means that your blog displays and works correctly in every browser I could find apart from IE7 which has a blank square for the followers widget.
I managed quite well with your old format, but have to admit I like this better!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Mark - that's good to know!
ReplyDeleteIt poured rain there and poured sunshine here--- both can be annoying in large doses. :) I've never had any trouble of any kind with your site. Thanks for the info.
ReplyDelete