Don't Change the Template Coding (Blogger)

I have been seeing a issue that come up quite often in the Blogger Help Forums. People are still changing their template coding despite the fact Blogger has added a Template Designer functions to do just that.

Most people are still caught up in the old ways of making CSS tweaks directly in the Edit HTML page. This method was used in the older templates and is no longer recommended unless you have to. The proper way now is to use the Add CSS option located in the Template Designer. Some people that are new to Blogger are following instructions for sites like this on that tell them to change the Edit HTML coding. Most the time this is not needed if it is a CSS code your modifying.

Their are many reason why you should not tamper with the Edit HTML coding unless needed. But I will let a Blogger employees comment say it for me.

By Blogger Software Engineer: Pete Hopkins
(He was referring to a new feature added to the new template.)

PSA about Edit HTML: If you’ve changed things in Design > Edit HTML then this might not work, since your HTML template will be based on our stock version at the time you made the edits, and will not have picked up some of the recent additions. In this particular case, you can replace your template’s section with that of a fresh blog. That being said, I strongly encourage you to not use Edit HTML unless you reeeeeaaaaalllllyyyyy need it because it does prevent your blog from getting improvements that we make to the default versions.

If you need to add a snippet of HTML or JavaScript to your blog, prefer using an HTML/JavaScript gadget over Edit HTML. If you find instructions that say “add this right before ,” just put the gadget at the bottom of your footer. It’s typically close enough. (Please pass this note along if you see any tutorials that recommend using Edit HTML when an HTML/JavaScript gadget will suffice.)


As you can see Blogger does not recommend editing your Edit HTML page unless you have to. This goes for removing variables from the Edit HTML page.

Example: (Lets say I want to use some custom font and a custom background)

The template code would display something like this.

body {
  font: $(body.font);
  color: $(body.text.color);
  background: $(body.background);
}

Then users would change the coding to something like this.

body {
 font: normal normal 14px Lucida Calligraphy;
color: $(body.text.color);
background: #e9edec url(/2010/11/myimage.jpg) repeat fixed top center;
}

And now you just corrupted your template coding. Although it may do what you want it to, you will no longer be able to receive some of the new features to your template. This same effect above could of been accomplished by using the upload background option and the Add CSS option. 


As for the statement Pete made about adding HTML/JavaScript snippets into the footer, I can not agree with 100%. If it works for you then that is great! But their is a issue in the Blogger Known Issues that states adding scripts in your Page Elements may cause a issues with the Add Gadget option. This issues dates back in 2007 but is marked as a Outstanding issue. Meaning their are still reports of this issue going on.

Hopefully some of you will listen to reason after reading this and stop making unnecessary edits to your Edit HTML page.