Heroic Life and Deadbeats On Blogger Help Group

Blogger Help Group (BHG) is a forum that isn't difficult to join, though if you don't join and log in, you can't ask or answer questions. There are approximately XXXX members, though I would not be surprised if the ACTIVE number at any one time exceeds a hundred or so. Some visitors there ask a single question or maybe a spate of questions while they're still pretty new, then never return. Another category are those who come back months or years later to ask something new. Then of course there are the advisors who answer the questions. Most are unofficial volunteers like me who've never had a penny out of Blogger (or even a kiss, thank God!). The answerers range from some intelligent Newbies who just got here, but who learn fast and have already begun to volunteer help to other Newbies who are even less experienced. "If you know it, why not share it?" is a pretty good motto. The other ulterior motives are as diverse as the human personality, I suppose, but that would be getting off-topic! Others, like myself (and more so!) hang around so long answering questions correctly (mostly) that they become fairly expert. In some cases, these catch the attention of the Blogger team (the real employees) and are invited to be (or are crowned as?) Blog*Stars in acknowledgement of their good work. I thought it was in 2005, but now I see it was by November of 2006 that I became a Blog*Star. A year or more later I resigned from the official group. I never stopped for long at working in Blogger Help Group, though, so I guess I am only (at best) a renegade Blog*Star. It pays the same (nuthin'), either way. The last group consists of "bad actors". They are pimps, trolls, and spammers who are all there for reasons worse than selfish, apparently finding satisfaction in making trouble for the world. Some are just putting their links on the Internet, the way you might "fish" by using extra poles stuck in the mud. Some are extreme egotists who may be as unsubtle as asking the same question(s) repeatedly and acting as if they don't understand what you mean. Somewhere on planet Earth, there's some jackass laughing and braying because another few people of good intent have been caught by his hook. If they become too famous, they appear later on with other names since the Internet and Blogger makes it pretty easy to "become" someone else. Disgusting.

When Header Image Won't "Remove"

When the blog header you decided you don't like after all won't let itself be removed, what are you supposed to do? People say their photo is stuck there and won't be removed! I believe them, but I've barely had it happen to me, so my experience has been of small proportions!

What did I do? I panicked, of course. WHAT was it doing? So I tried everything that I ever heard of.

NO SUCCESS AT THIS:

1. I hit "Escape".
   
2. I cleared the cache and cookies.
   
3. Put the cursor over the window for the image and alternately clicked "Home" and "End" a few times. (This didn't work, although in the past, it DID WORK, turning out to be the odd solution to a newly-added header url that wouldn't go ahead and appear as an image in the same "Configure Header" Gadget. If the url doesn't change to an image in that small window, it usually means that the url had not actually "taken".)
   
4. I closed the Gadget and then reopened it.
   
5. I logged out of Blogger and logged back in.
   
6. I restarted or changed the browser (or both).
   

I did break it loose at last, but not before I'd gotten so flustered that I very unscientifically lost track of the order in which I did all these things. I can't even guess which one really "fixed" it. I nearly feel that it just gave up when it saw how hard I was going to work at it! (You can see how insensible it made me!!!)

SUCCESS!

The thing that has always occurred to me is this, though I only just now tested it. It seems to work. Why can't we just "Remove" the Header entirely if the header image stays stuck? Remove it, then add it back with "Add a Gadget" just like we do when some glitch kicks the "Archive" or "About Me" off the blog? This does work, although I had to "test" it without having a stuck header image.

My solution was:

IF THERE IS A "REMOVE" IN THE "CONFIGURE HEADER":

1. Click "Remove" in the lower left corner of the "Configure Header" page.
   
2. Confirm that request when you see "Are you sure?"
   
3. Go to Layout page and click "Add a gadget".
   
4. Select the "Header" type.
   
   IF THERE IS NO "REMOVE" IN "CONFIGURE HEADER":
   
   
5. Go to Layout page.
   
6. Click "Edit Html".
   
7. Click "Expand widgets".
   
8. locate the "header" widget.
   
9. If the header widget code says "maxwidgets=1", change 1 to 2. (You may want to put something extra up there some day!)
   
10. If the code says that "Locked="yes", change "yes" to "no". (This is the one that's NECESSARY. This action is what will put "Remove" in the lower left corner of the Configure Header page--otherwise, you have no icon to click!)
    
11. Return to Layout page and click "Edit" on the Header.
    
12. Click "Remove"
    
13. Confirm that request when you see "Are you sure?"
    
14. Go to Layout page and click "Add a gadget".
    
15. Select the "Header" type.
    

After either the short or the long list, I can only hope that you can finally remove the header image (replace it, too, if that's what you'd meant to do!). But this may be the problem, the "rub"--I had to test this (all 3 times) without a "stuck header! So I wish you great Good Luck and you may learn a number of new things, but I can't promise any success!

Template Corruption

Nitecruzr has already done a good job, I think, on explaining this little fixit, so I'm only going to add a few notes and direct you to his post also called Template Corruption".

The only significant addition I can make is to show the code line in another way so that you can be certain of what you're intended to delete and then replace in his directions.

In my own code (for this blog) I located the following:

<div id='main-wrap1'><div id='main-wrap2'>
<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='HTML9' locked='false' title='' type='HTML'/>
<b:widget id='HTML6' locked='false' title='' type='HTML'/>
<b:widget id='HTML8' locked='false' title='EMERGENCY STEPS' type='HTML'/>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'/>
</b:section>
</div></div>

It is the line of code in red that I removed and replaced. (See further important details at Chuck's post.)

If you were really familiar with this blog, you'd notice the Email envelope icon has returned below each post for the first time in ages!

Captioned Photos In a Table

PICTURE1	PICTURE2
Caption1	Caption2

Caption1	Caption2

Below is the code for the two small tables shown above:

<div class=nobr>

<table border=2>
<tr>
<td>PICTURE1</td>
<td>PICTURE2</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Caption1</td>
<td>Caption2</td></tr>
</table>
</div>

<div class=nobr>

<table border=2>
<tr>
<td><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvYWmbzDx0ZTNhzkxcnvD1E8roURVwVz91WLs1tbj9CR7Hm7k_MxFNEzWtzGtqjXTACBfVpxPN89G28V9DhtDv50-fAKL24BcsM5UOZxSYweUFjdFcrVBf9EZrXSqsPwipoki46n9NWSo/s1600/twinkiebite.gif" /></td>
<td><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvYWmbzDx0ZTNhzkxcnvD1E8roURVwVz91WLs1tbj9CR7Hm7k_MxFNEzWtzGtqjXTACBfVpxPN89G28V9DhtDv50-fAKL24BcsM5UOZxSYweUFjdFcrVBf9EZrXSqsPwipoki46n9NWSo/s1600/twinkiebite.gif" /></td></tr>
<tr>
<td align=center>Caption1</td>
<td align=center>Caption2</td></tr>
</table>
</div>

Table for Captioned Photos

Ronald	Southern

Haven't done any of those in a while. Tedious.

[Those of you wishing to cut to the chase quickly, start reading the large yellow-highlight area below, which is below the fourth straight red line.]

Below is the code that makes a small table like the one above have photos side by side:

<center><table border=4 width=95%><tr><th align=center>Ronald</th> <th align=center>Southern</th></tr><tr><td><img src=\"https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvYWmbzDx0ZTNhzkxcnvD1E8roURVwVz91WLs1tbj9CR7Hm7k_MxFNEzWtzGtqjXTACBfVpxPN89G28V9DhtDv50-fAKL24BcsM5UOZxSYweUFjdFcrVBf9EZrXSqsPwipoki46n9NWSo/s1600/twinkiebite.gif\" /> </td> <td><img src=\"https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvYWmbzDx0ZTNhzkxcnvD1E8roURVwVz91WLs1tbj9CR7Hm7k_MxFNEzWtzGtqjXTACBfVpxPN89G28V9DhtDv50-fAKL24BcsM5UOZxSYweUFjdFcrVBf9EZrXSqsPwipoki46n9NWSo/s1600/twinkiebite.gif\" /> </td></tr></table> </center>

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[More below...]

A MORE SIMPLISTIC SAMPLE OF A TABLE (followed by its code) is shown below:

PICTURE

OR TEXT

<table border=2>
<tr>
<td>PICTURE</td>
<td>OR TEXT</td>
</tr>
</table>

---

PREVENT LINE BREAKS:

In order for the Table not to cause extra line breaks in Blogger posts, there are two methods:

Method #1: You may need to copy it out like this (no line breaks of your own):

<table border=2><tr><td>PICTURE</td><td>OR TEXT</td></tr></table>

--To create additional row(s), add another set of "table records" such as

<tr><td>picture or text</td></tr>

as needed. Place them after the first table record and before the end tag, </table>.

--Remember that the photos cannot exceed the width of the area where you are placing them or else it will create problems, probably your sidebar being pushed down.

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Method #2: This is something I've tried a number of times now. It does seem to be very effective, especially if you're going to use tables often. It is not good, though, for creating a table around a list (numbered or otherwise) because it will remove the page breaks and show the list as if it's a regular paragraph. It'll make the info resemble a traffic jam. This method makes the change in this way, using css:

Table Formatting In CSS

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My explanation of the Table Formatting (Method #2) which I learned from the site above is as follows--changing the table in the CSS: Place the following line of code in your CSS: .nobr br { display: none } Then place the DIV tags around your table as below: <div class=nobr> <table border=2> <tr> <td>PICTURE</td> <td>OR TEXT</td> </tr> </table> </div>