Dynamic Views no more...

Ok, so I have been fiddling a lot with this blog since I got my laptop back in February.

I do apologise.

I had tried the new Blogger template 'Dynamic Views' when they first released it but didn't like that fact that it removed ALL my sidebar gadgets - you know the lovely followers bit, the badges, the blog archive and the tags. All they had included was the email subscription tab. I felt it took away the character of the blog, After a week or so I went back to my old template.

That said I did like the clean lines. It looked different to all the other bloggy templates out there...



Then Blogger announced that they had included some sidebar functionality so I thought I would give it another go. There were my followers, blog archive and labels. A lists  tab was also available. But not my blog roll - I so missed my blog roll...  So better, but still far from perfect.

Several of my readers had reported issues with the new template too - some told me about numbers floating randomly about the page or not being able to comment. We put it down to different browsers not being quite compatible.

One of the plus points of Dynamic Views was that my page stats went through the roof as readers have to click on each post to read it so every one was a new page view (rather than scrolling down the list of posts and reading 2 or 3 in one 'page view') My Tots100 rating went up higher than it has been since I registered a year ago! Woohoo!!! But - there were still issues...

Then yesterday I received more reports of the template not behaving - now readers were not able to scroll down and read an entire post or leave comments. I wondered again if it was a browser problem or a screen set up problem or..... you know what? I didn't care. I knew that if there was a problem of any sort it was going to put readers off!

So last night I blew a big fat raspberry at 'Dynamic Views', created a new header and rocked up the colours a bit - an unintentional Red, White and Blue theme emerged as I tinkered - and now I have my old but revamped blog back - complete with followers, link lists, blog roll, the lot.

The lesson in all of this is - if you encounter a problem on a blog - whether it's viewing, commenting or just finding your way around, please PLEASE let the blog author know! Thank you to everyone who took the time to contact me about the problems you encountered. Constructive criticism is always welcome. If we don't know what is wrong, we can't fix it!

This has given me a chance to really look at my blog again with fresh eyes and you know what? I am SOOOOOOOO loving it!