January 4, 2008

Template: Part 2

Alright, for those of you who are keeping up, I've already discussed part one here.

Now on to part 2. The next thing I suggest working on is your HTML. It's a little tricky at first but once you start to look at it, it becomes clear as day. From your blogger dashboard, select Manage: layout. It will bring you to the Template heading, page elements. The fourth option is Pick New Template. Click on it.

Choose the minima template. It's the very first one. Not to be confused with the minima dark, or the minima stretch. (Miss FancyPants, I do believe you chose the minima stretch which is why your stuff doesn't quite fit in between the margins....) Anyways. Choose the minima template. Then Save.

Now comes the tricky part. Choose Edit HTML.

You will probably want to save your current template just for goodness sake. Like I said, the first time you're getting in there, it's a little confusing but it begins to make sense pretty quickly.
At this time, you will see a lot of code. Scroll down a little ways and you'll see something like this:

body

{

background:$bgcolor;

margin:0;

color:$textcolor;

font:x-small Georgia Serif;

font-size/* */:/**/small; f

ont-size: /**/small;

text-align: center;

CHANGE IT TO THIS:



body

{

background:$bgcolor;

margin:0;

color:$textcolor;

font:x-small Georgia Serif;

font-size/* */:/**/small;

font-size: /**/small;

text-align: left;

background-color: #ffffff;

background-image: url( ); background-attachment: fixed;

background-position: center right;

background-repeat: repeat;

border-color: #ffffff;

border-width:0px ;

border-style: solid;



The area I highlighted is probably the MOST IMPORTANT PART. In between your parentheses, insert the URL from your photobucket account of the paper you've chosen. There are 4 options per paper in Photobucket. Use the DIRECT LINK. copy and then insert.

I also prefer to have the actual background paper fixed. You may have it scroll, but I think it looks better fixed. It's all a matter of preference.