Free Blogger Template: Restoration

Adding to the growing family of free blogger blog templates offered here on Frivmo, is a sleek one-column template called Restoration.


Here are some instructions:

Please feel free to download the XML file (which you’ll then use on your blog by unzipping it to your desktop, and then from your Blogger dashboard click on Template > Edit HTML > Browse for the file on your computer > Upload), share it with your friends, and edit it to your heart’s content. All I ask is that you keep the little credit at the bottom, and if you’re feeling generous, link back to this post.

Free Blogger Template: The Second Thing

(Click to view a screenshot of the entire template.)

In the holiday spirit, I will be making available as many free Blogger blog templates as humanly possible over the next several weeks, starting with a simple and elegant one, called The Second Thing. Please feel free to download the XML file (which you’ll then use on your blog by unzipping it to your desktop, and then from your Blogger dashboard click on Template > Edit HTML > Browse for the file on your computer > Upload), share it with your friends, and edit it to your heart’s content. All I ask is that you keep the little credit at the bottom, and if you’re feeling generous, link back to this post.

If there’s a good response to this, I’ll continue making these free Blogger blog templates available in the months to come.

Happy Blogging! And Happy Hanukkah to those whose celebration begins tonight.



Questions? Comments? Problems?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Tag Clouds: Still Cool?

Love ’em or hate ’em, there’s no denying that tag clouds have played a big part in the design of a lot of so-called Web 2.0 sites. Today, Smashing Magazine devotes another of its lengthy posts to this loved/loathed navigational element, and it’s worth a look, whether you’re in the mood for good examples or some painfully bad examples.

It seems to me that tag clouds as a design trend have been true to their name, especially susceptible to subtle changes in the weather, and I forecast clearer and clearer skies as the months roll by. Done right, tag clouds offer a unique and sweet alternative for navigating the increasingly-hard-to-categorize content in the miscellaneous and meta Web, and they can definitely look cool. But far too frequently they are an usable mess of word soup, used as an excuse for not considering which information is most relevant to readers, and how to best optimize the site so they can find what they are looking for.

That said, if you’re a Blogger user, I’ve got a super-simple tutorial for adding a tag cloud to your blog that was written back when this site had a tag cloud of its own.

Check it out at the link below:

• How To Make An Awesome Tag Cloud

There are some nice tag cloud generators linked to on Smashing Magazine, too.

New Comment Policy

Dearest Readers,

I’ve decided to change up the way comments work on Frivolous Motion in an attempt to make things easier and more awesome.

First, comments are open to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Leave your (real or fake) name, leave your site, or sign in with your Google/Blogger ID to have your name link back to your profile.

I don’t believe in censorship except under the most extreme circumstances, so if I delete your comment there’s either something seriously wrong, or I made a mistake (in which case a quick email to me will usually fix things). The only comments I disallow are blatant Spam. Otherwise, I’m inclined to believe that open discussion is the best choice. But what am I saying? You Frivolous Motion readers don’t need me to tell you what’s allowed! You guys are awesome!

All comments from here on out have the NoFollow attribute removed, which means that links within them (and links to your profile/website) will be followed by the Search Bots. Think of it as thanks for contributing to the discussion. And as an incentive to comment more - especially if you’ve not done so before!

I got rid of the word verification, because in my experience it was too finnicky and unreliable, and I hated having to type the word in several times (even when commenting on my own blog!).

To balance things out, I have added comment moderation, which means it’ll take a little bit for your comment to appear. Basically, I’ll receive an email when you submit a comment, and as soon as I have a chance to approve it (which will usually be immediately - I try to keep on top of things), your comment will appear on the site. I might turn this off from time to time as a test, but we’ll see.

Like any system, it’s bound not to be perfect, but I think it will be a nice improvement over what came before. Let me know if you run into any problems or have some suggestions (by email or in the comments!).

Thanks for reading, and thanks for being such an important piece of Frivolous Motion.

~Kevin

How To Make An Awesome Tag Cloud!

I get a lot of emails asking me about the giant tag cloud hanging out at the top of my site. So many, in fact, that I thought it’d be a great idea to make a post out of it, as a bit of a mini-tutorial. So, without further ado, here’s how to get an awesome tag cloud in the New Blogger (formerly Blogger Beta).

(UPDATE 24/08/2007: Obviously there’s no tag cloud up there anymore, since I redesigned the site. I’ve posted a screenshot below of what it used to look like. Click it for a larger version.)



Okay, back to the regularly scheduled tutorial.

First start a new blog in Blogger. Got one? Cool.

Now, navigate in Blogger to Template > Page Elements (clicking Layout from the Dashboard will get you there, too). You’re looking for the screen that says “Add and Arrange Page Elements.” Now, in the sidebar of this representation of your blog, click “Add a Page Element.” You’ll get a nice pop-up with a ton of options. Click Labels, cause that’s what you want to add, after all. Keep it alphabetical, change the name if you feel like it, and click “Save Changes.”

Save your template.

Now click over to “Edit HTML.” Definitely a good idea to “Download Full Template” here, to be safe, before you start editing the code. I’ll wait.

Backed up? Good. Moving on.

Search through your code for a line that looks exactly like this:

<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'/>

The “title” attribute might be different if you changed it in the step above. Otherwise, this is the line you’re looking for.

Copy all of this code below.

<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>

<div class='widget-content'>
<div id='LabelDisplay'>
</div>
</div>

<script language='javascript' type='text/javascript'>
function zoomStyle() {
var max = 0;
var min = 10000;
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
if (<data:label.count/> &gt; max)
  max = <data:label.count/>;
if (<data:label.count/> &lt; min)
min = <data:label.count/>;
</b:loop>
var display = &quot;";
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
var delta = <data:label.count/> - min;
var size = 80 + (delta * 100) / (max - min);
display = display + &quot;<span style='font-size:" + size + "%'><a expr:href='data:label.url + "?max-results=100"' style='text-decoration:none;'><data:label.name/></a></span> &quot;;
</b:loop>

obj = document.getElementById(&#39;LabelDisplay&#39;);
obj.innerHTML = display;
}


zoomStyle();
</script>

<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

And paste it over (on top of, instead of, replacing!) the line you found. Be very careful not to overwrite the </b:section> that will most likely follow it in your template code.

Click preview, and if you’ve done everything properly, you’ll have a sweet tag cloud with links of various sizes based on frequency of occurrence (if your blog is brand new, you’ll need to post in it first to see the code at work).

If you don’t want it in your sidebar, go back to the Page Elements page, and move the widget around to wherever you like (different templates set different limits on this, which can be subverted, but that’s beyond the scope of this tutorial - email me if you want to get hardcore).

Enjoy! Get tagging! Post your results in the comments for all to see!

(Note: The code up there is a modified version of the Multi-style labels widget written up on Hackosphere. Credit where it’s due.)