I've seen blogs with 3 columns before and always thought the space on the screen was used much better, and it allowed the user to view more content without having to scroll down. Since I have a good background in HTML (I used to design and code web sites for a living, and sometimes still do), I decided to add a third column to my blog. Not a great idea at 10:00 pm !
I backed up my blog template and started to edit the HTML following some instructions on another blog which did not work. I then tried a different blog's suggestion. It did not work. Tried a third one... it did not work either. I should probably mention that when I say it did not work, it means that blogger was giving me some strange error and saying it could not process my file, or I was still seeing two columns. I panicked! By now it was close to midnight and I had no blog! I went back to my backup and except for the colors everything went back to normal, and even that step was not as simple as hitting browse file, upload, and restore. I am not one of those people to give up easily... so I kept at it... I finally found a good link that explained how to get the three column layout to work. It also tells you that you could lose all your widgets but that you can copy and paste them back into the code from your back up (which I had). While I was doing this, I started to get different errors and found a site that helped clarify that too. After some more tweaking, voilá! it worked! But not without a major hick up. Yes, the widgets were gone, but I had my back up, so I copied and pasted them back in the code. However, what the site doesn't clarify for you is that the content of the widgets is not saved! -- the images, text, javascript etc...all gone! It was about 1:00 am when I decided to take a break and fix it today. I have almost everything back, but I did lose many of my links and many of my favorite blogs!
TIP: If you are going to make a 3 column layout... backup all of the content in your widgets first...images, html code, links, javascript etc. Backup your main template. Have a WSWIG HTML editor available to help you read the code better, and have lots of patience!
5 comments:
oh my gosh, you've really hard worked for this layout! i love it with 3 columns and i absolutely understand your enduring tryings - i use to do it when i want to do something so much :)
you're done it - great beginning of 2009!
oh it's so great to be back!!! your new layout is wonderful...love the new banner too....I have so much catching up to do!!!
Hugs
and all the best in 2009!!!!
Diana
You did it!!! You suffered like me when I was trying to get my blog with 3 columns.
I'm a beginner so my blog was almost in blank.
Congrats!!
wow! you're revamping everything. It looks good.
Congratulations on finally getting your great looking 3 column to work and the redesign is of course gorgeous. Wanted to share that I found an (I think) easier way to get the 3 tier: http://hackosphere.blogspot.com/3006/09/3-column-templates-for-blogger-beta_01.html - you just save those to a file and then download it, seemed to work for me (cross everything) - thanks for the information, Edrian!
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