I'm also having a lot of trouble inserting pictures and resizing and placing them in the page layout. No setting seems to stick. You do a lot of fiddling, and then suddenly everything reverts to an earlier form and locations. There's no explaining it. Getting line spacing right is also problematic.
Now that I have the old authoring tool back, I can post this picture
to show you how recent rains have turned everything very green.
to show you how recent rains have turned everything very green.
So I give up for today. Later today I'll work on the post I wanted to publish and schedule it for tomorrow. Sorry.
I need to find out if there's a way to go back to the old Blogger interface for composing posts.
Sunset on a rare recent clear afternoon
P.S. I found a way to get back to the old interface. If you don't have a Blogger blog, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about...
After a couple of days of persevering we have also reverted. The line spacing thing is a total pain and they have made it slower to insert photos in the new interface.
ReplyDeleteTim typing... not PG, but I'm on her machine.
ReplyDeleteUntil yesterday I had the old interface and tools on mine... you could choose 'classic'. Then yesterday I went to write a post and I got this new stuff... you've both discovered how to get back...
for my continuing sanity, please post how you did it.
Wordpress has also changed its interface... and that is a pain too! Looking at this new Blodger interface, it looks like they've tried to 'emulate' the Wordpress one... with little success!
Tim, in the new interface, click the little gear icon next to the language drop-down on the upper righthand corner of the screen. Choose the option for using the old interface from the settings drop-down menu.
ReplyDeleteKen, I compose everything in "Windows live writer", something that came with my laptop and Windows 7.
ReplyDeleteYou create everything separately from Blogger on your machine, can tinker with it endlessly, then publish it to Blogger when you're happy with it. It works well for me, especially in the spacing of text and photos, which was always difficult working in Blogger.
Like Jean, I've been using Live Writer for some years now - takes all the pain of Google's edit interfaces away (and can be used with other blog engines too).
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to go back to old bloggger but what is the point, they are going to enforce the change any moment and I gather that old blogger will not be available. "Windows live writer" is fantastic if you have a computer that can use it. Most of my blogging I do on my old laptop on which it is not available. New laptop has many problems which is why I do not use it. It has to go back to the agents but that is in the UK!! Between Blogger and the laptop I am pretty much fed up!. Diane
ReplyDeleteHaven't yest posted a new blogger post, so I don't have an opinion. However, when I travel, I often just write in the good old notepad and simply copy and paste that text into my post when I finally get a wifi connection. Then I can insert photos or do formatting. I hope the new interface will allow that. Since notepad is simple, unformatted text, it's usually easy to transfer it to other, more sophisticated systems, without fuss.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, for the Americans not living in the States who read Ken's blog, you've heard me say it before, you can vote in US elections: http://plus.lefigaro.fr/note/american-expats-you-can-vote-20120422-898496
Tony, Barbara, and Lucy are all friends of mine from AARO and we've been involved with the voting issue for quite a few years.
“Pourquoi faire simple, quand on peut faire compliqué!” LOL
ReplyDeleteSince I don’t have a blog, I don’t know what you all are talking about. Why make it simple, when you can make it complicated! Is that what you’re talking about? I don’t think I’d have the patience to go through all those steps as you do.
But I do appreciate reading blogs even more now.
Ellen, can you vote only for president, or also for senator, representative, etc.? Voting for president in the California election doesn't do much for me, since the outcome there is a foregone conclusion (at least for the foreseeable future). I'd like to be able to vote for president in North Carolina, where my vote might make a difference.
ReplyDeleteI've also heard that you might become liable for state income taxes if you vote this way. Any truth to that? I don't want to pay California income taxes, since I don't live there and don't benefit from any services.
Don't give up, Ken. Think of
ReplyDeleteyour faithful fans!
Please do not stop blogging. Love following you!
ReplyDeleteCHM, LOL, compliqué, c'est tellement plus attractif!
ReplyDeleteJean and Mike, I guess I just want the Blogger interface to work the way it has worked for the past 7 years. Mais on n'arrête pas le progrès, n'est-ce pas ?
Does Live Writer let you insert pictures in a post before you copy the content and paste it into Blogger? How do you get pictures to go to a larger size when you click on them in the blog? Or do they just stay at the same size? I'm always disconcerted when I click on a picture in a blog post only to have it open up again at exactly the same size. I want my pictures to display at the larger size when I click on them.
I'll have to try it out — Live Writer I mean. But pretty soon this all turns into work! I don't want to do work, beyond cooking and gardening.
Thanks for the encouragement, Betty and Sheila.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain, Ken. Nothing more annoying than when these kinds of systems change. I love it when the photos enlarge when you click on them, so thanks for wanting to keep that feature. Courage!
ReplyDeleteKen, my pictures do stay at the same size when you click on the in the blog. I don't know if there is a way to get the enlargement function using Windows Live Writer - other people cleverer than me will know, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteApart from that, everything about it is easier than using Blogger, I have found. But then I'm not an expert or very adventurous in my blogging. So long as it works, I'm happy.
Oh, so that's why my blog posts haven't worked for over 2 years! ;)
ReplyDeleteBlogger can be a pain in the butt. I often wonder why the think a good thing needs changing.
ReplyDeleteWell, I had been contemplating the possibility of maybe (???) starting a blog until your post today, Ken.
ReplyDeleteMy personality would go bonkers with all this up and down and changes happening that one cannot control. I am one who is good with change, but then I always feel there are options.
I so enjoy reading your blog and Walts - I hope you both can continue.
Mary in Oregon
Thanks for the info, Ken.
ReplyDeleteI'm still using Pauline's machine upstairs in our biblio'... in this weather I'm only crossing over to my 'office' when absolutely necessary.
I'v looked at the options here on this machine... so will put them into action when Noah gets here!!
Tim
I've been using it for over a month now and some things have been fixed, but photo placement hasn't. I find sometimes saving, closing and re-opening helps.
ReplyDeleteKen, Jean: re picture sizes in Live Writer / Blogger.
ReplyDeleteI manage my pictures from within Picasa and usually export them as 1024pixel images, maybe a little larger if I've got a panoramic image or detailed collage. Picasa optionally adds watermark text of my choosing to the lower right corner, but Live Writer also has watermarking options for pictures.
With Live Writer you do everything in a WYWIWYG editor - I drag and drop the images onto the page where they are generally shown in a smaller size, generally 320pixel width, but if I want a "full-width" image I take it up to 640pixel. These pictures automatically expand to original size when you click on them.
I find myself increasingly using one big invisible table to help with my layout. Once I have everything in place I "publish" the post to my blog by simply clicking on one button. If I notice an inevitable typo or other error afterwards then I simply correct my post and hit "publish" again and it updates the post on Blogger. This happens very quickly as it doesn't re-upload any images unless they've changed.
Live Writer also takes care of video inserts, managing my tags, setting the time/date of the post. I can also locate old posts and re-download them for editing. It's basically like a very simple specialised version of Microsoft Word that interacts with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and other blog engines.
If you have multiple blogs then you can register each one of them with Live Writer and simply select which one you want to publish to.
There's a variety of free plug-ins, e.g. I have one that notifies Twitter each time I publish a post.
Best of all you can work off line, and save your posts until you're ready to publish them.
Hi Ken,
ReplyDeleteLike the others have said, try Windows Live Writer! It's the best blog publishing platform that i've found. So easy to use, and free!