A drop-down menu alternative
I had a problem. I wanted a drop-down menu for my list of BlogU Picks. For the past few days I have tried several different types. The problem I found is I simply don't like the usual drop-down menu. It is far to 'clunky' for my liking. So I thought how about a simple CSS drop-down menu? Well, they are prettier, but what an oxymoron!! There is nothing simple about the CSS drop-down.
Problem still not solved. So, now I must think outside of the box. (So to speak.) My desire was to corral a list of links that will only be getting longer. I did not want it to run on forever in the sidebar.
Then it hit me. Make a new blog the mirror image of this one. (Simply copy the orginal template and paste it in the mirror blog's template section.) Remove all the extra 'sidebar' items that I didn't want. Add a couple of "Return Home" links. After that I created a post with all of the BlogU pick links I have so far. In the future to add a link, I go to the mirror template and edit the post. Last but not least, I added a link in the sidebar of this blog linking to it! Check it out!!
Labels:
Classic Blogger,
Design,
Hacks
8 Comments:
BlogU is amazing. So many cleaver informations and tutorials. Your blog will be linked to mine when it's published.
1. As yourself, I need a mirror second blog to add a MENU at the top of my sidebar. A Menu for 3 or 4 Titles like FAQ, WHY THIS BLOG NOW, which would offer 2 or 3 Sub-titles under each Title.
May you explain, if possible in some details, the steps from 'Copy the original template and paste' (with same identification and password?), to 'Add a couple Return home' and to 'Check it out'.
2. My unpublish blog is in french language (Canada) and can I offer a translation tool in english.
P.S. It's a two colums Blogger Minima Ochre template and as you can see, its a first time for me!
Many thanks for Montreal
@Francine, You can have as many blogs as you want under the same Username and Password. I have several. Here are the steps to make a mirror blog:
1. Create a new blog.
2. Go back to blogger dashboard and open the main blog, 'Template/ Edit HTML'.
3. Copy the template in that box.
4. Go back to blogger dashboard and open the new blog, 'Template/ Edit HTML'.
5. In the box, remove the old template and paste the new one. Save.
Now you have a new blog exactly like your original. You can now remove what you don't want, and add what you want. You will also want to link to this blog from your original blog. You can do that by following the directions below for 'return home' except reverse it. Put the name of the new blog (FAQ, Menu, etc) and the URL.
Here is my 'mirror' blog,
BlogU Picks. You can see some of the changes I made.
In my sidebar is a link to return home. You can do that by adding this code to a page element 'HTML/ JavaScript' and putting this in the
box:
<h2 class="sidebar-title"><a href="http://YOUR MAIN BLOG.blogspot.com"><< Return Home</a></h2>
The drawback to this method is minor, but sometimes a pain. To change that blog, you must open it. Where as if it were all on one blog, it could be done without changing. But, I lived with it. Another way is shown by some other bloggers. Look in my sidebar under +/- Blog Tweaking and I think Hackosphere and Stubborn Fanatic show a way to have tabs at the top. Really nice! Depends on what you are looking for.
For translations look in my BlogU Tag Cloud, click on 'Translation' and it will show you how to add that function.
Good Luck!! And thanks for the future link!
Wonderful blog has lot of informations about drop down menus and its alternatives. to be honest i am a new blogger and this is really great to get information about these important things coz i am a web developer myself.
@French Property, dig deep into my blog...lots of information!!
How do I change the format that instead of dates I'll use my post's title? Thanks
The drop down menu shows only the last 10 posts.
Is there a way for it to show all the posts.
Thank you
I have been trying to do essentially this (use a mirror blog to create a tidy archive, in essence giving myself more "pages" to work with as far as what the blog visitor sees) and couldn't figure out how to make it function the way I wanted it to...until I read your post and the light bulb came on. Clicking on a direct link to a single post of course takes you to a page with only that post, so going there from a page of post-by-post links creates as many dang virtual pages as you could ever hope to have! DUH. Thank you a thousand times over. This has solved a huge problem for me. You rock!
We use wordpress thus far for our Ruby on Rails projects. However after reading a few of your blogs, I am going to try this for a few of our inhouse projects and do the comparison.