Comments on Tweak My Blogger: Different Templates (Blogger)

Yes, and that is very useful information, but the ...

2010-11-20T14:57:52.574-08:00

Yes, and that is very useful information, but the problem I ran into with my gadget was that it gets its skin from the variable definitions instead of the CSS section in the header (like the Followers gadget, my gadget is positioned inside an iframe).

CSS styling rules are very difficult to extract programmatically, so I believe the variable definitions are there as a shortcut that is cross-browser compatible.

I should try out removing the body.font variable, though, and creating a strictly CSS blog to test it out, though.

And that thing about T E D you wrote back on the help forum--ROFL!

The variable definitions are simply HTML assigning...

2010-11-20T12:02:41.260-08:00

The variable definitions are simply HTML assigning a variable to CSS. Then in the CSS section you will see the variable declared with a $ sign. The Add CSS function can override then variables declared to change the font color of anything.
Example:

body {
font: normal normal 14px 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif;
color: #e1e1e1;
}

If I added this code in above it would declare this to everything in my template. However because other font rules are present in my CSS. This would not override a rule that is specifically designated to a element. This would be the same thing as me going into the Edit HTML page and removing $(body.font) and replacing it with the code above. But with doing it through the Add CSS function I am not harming them template. So if later on I decide that I no long want to user this font, I can simply remove the added code. If I made this change directly into my Edit HTML page then I have removed the variable and the template designer will no longer function for this option.

One thing about changing the font styling rules th...

2010-11-20T06:46:29.880-08:00

One thing about changing the font styling rules through the Template Designer's Advanced|Add CSS feature is that any changes you make to the font will not carry over to gadgets with skins (such gadgets get the font styling rules for the main post text sent over to them so they can fit in with a blog's theme automatically).

However, changing the font weight (bold), font family, font size, and/or font style (italic) through the Template Designer's Advanced|Page Text customization feature will carry over to gadgets.

The reason one way (modifying the Page Text font in Template Designer) works and the other (adding CSS in the Template Designer) doesn't is because changing the font through the Page Text advanced customization feature actually changes the /* Variable definitions for the variable "body.font" in a blog's template.

So, unfortunately, it looks like if you want your Google Web Fonts to show up in gadgets with skins, you will still need to modify the "body.font" variable in the blog template directly.

Of course, if a person's blog does not use gadgets with skins, then it doesn't matter. :)