by Bonnie Calhoun

Hi folks! Another tip has been pulled to the forefront of my memory by an inquiring blogger...the necessity of using target="_blank".

LOL...don't look at me like that...I'm not talking dirty :-) Using target="_blank" in an outgoing link on your blog or website causes a new browser window to open when the link is clicked. It is desirable for two reasons.

First, the visitor is still on your website when they close that window after perusing, and they don't have to navigate back to your page.

And second, it helps to decrease your "bounce" rate.

LOL...I knew I'd get your eyes to roll up in your head at least once in this post :-)

Bounce Rate is defined as how many times a visitor "bounces" away from your site and comes back. If you are involved in increasing your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the bounce rate on an entry page can help to determine how effective it is at grabbing people's attention.

Now before you running screaming from the room yelling, "SEO, SEO!" I must add caviar...LOL...I mean...a caveat. Bounce rate is only an SEO factor is you have a site for commerce. If your site is about ordinary stuff like blogging, news or just plain information you really don't have to worry.

The neat and conclusive reason for adding target="_blank" is to keep people on your page!

Write your links like this:

by Bonnie Calhoun

Man, oh man! I'm just full of posts lately! *snort-giggle* I've been helping a lot of friends get their blogs redesigned.

Well here is a problem I've noticed on several of my friends blogs. When they re-install their templates, they can no longer get their header images to show. Well I've come up with a work-around....LOL...and yes...you have to go play with your HTML!

I'll turn ya'll into template gurus yet!

This problem is especially prevalent on the Scribe template. When you switch templates the Header gadget should stay, but in the Scribe it doesn't...so go figure!

Here's how we're gonna fix it. We're going to delete the present Header element from the template and add a new one. LOL...I think the old one has a bad case of the ick! But first we have to allow the Header section to allow another gadget (You will notice that there is no "Add a Gadget" section on the Scribe Header.

Here's where we go play with HTML. Start at your Dashboard....go to the Layout tab...then click the Edit HTML link. We are going to scroll down to the highlighted section of code in the below image. If you can't read what it says, click on the image and it will open in a larger window.



What you are going to do is change the line where it says...showaddelement "no"...to "yes" This will allow the "add a Gadget to show up in the header section of your template. And you are going to remove the <b section that has your bad Header, so that that section looks like this when you are done.



Now you will click "Save Template". It will tell you that you are deleting a Widget, like in the below image. That's okay...click yes!



Now go to your Page Elements page...see the "Add a Gadget" in the Header section. Click it! Scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and pick Page Header.

When it opens, click for the image to show "instead of the title and description" Then either find your image on the internet at your storage site, or use the top link and upload it from your computer. Then click save! Viola! You have your header back!

by Bonnie Calhoun

Hi guys and gals! Yes it's me again...twice in one week! Well I'm helping some friends spiff up their blogs, and I've had to re-remember stuff I've done in the past. Okay...today we're going to add color to that pesky browser scroll bar.

Now before you use this code, I must make you aware that it will not work in Firefox...LOL...they don't like people messing with their colors, so you can only get this to work in Internet Explorer.

The last caveat that I add to it is that, if you're anal retentive like I am about making my web pages validate this one is going to throw you for a loop because according to W3C...it ain't valid! So you will get an error code for it, but it won't break your page or anything...LOL...unless you have like 5000 other errors!

Okay...here's what you use:


<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css">
html {
scrollbar-arrow-color:#6E0502;
scrollbar-track-color:#940400;
scrollbar-face-color:#6BE02;
scrollbar-highlight-color:#909400;
scrollbar-3dlight-color:#333333;
scrollbar-darkshadow-color:#473624;
scrollbar-shadow-color:#BFB186;
}
</style>
<![endif]-->



And you scroll down til you get to the end of the <head> section, and you put it right BEFORE the </head>

Viola! You've got a color coordinated browser scrollbar!

by Bonnie Calhoun

Hi all! It's been a while since I had something new to tell you, mainly because I've been busy with other projects.

One of my friends ask me to help her create a scroll bar for her rather long link list. So I thought I'd share the result with you.

It's rather easy to accomplish. As with everything I tell you, make sure you have saved a copy of your template in NotePad before you go farting around with it. And when you add code to your HTML, please....use the "Preview" button to see if that is what you want. If it is not, hit the "Discard Edits" button and you will be back where you started from.

Only hit SAVE...when you are sure you have the proper results!

Okay...now for the easy part...go to your LAYOUT tab. Click Edit HTML. Scroll down in the code until you see:


/* Sidebar Content
----------------------------------------------- */
/* Sidebar Content */


Right below that add:


#LinkList1 {
height:150px;
overflow:auto;
}















The number '150' in the height tells you how tall the box will be before it show the scrollbar, (illustrated to the left) you can change that number at will!

If you only have one link list in your sidebar, this will work as written. But if you add more than one scroll bar you will have to scroll down in your HTML is see what the list is called to create a scrollbar for it. Typically the default names will be LinkList1, LinkList2...and so on. Change the name in the piece of code that you add according to that name that the widget gives it.

And add the piece of code for each list that you want to have a scrollbar!

One other NOTE...your sidebar section in your HTML might not be names exactly the same as mine...it might just say:


*/Sidebar/*
or

/* Typography :: Sidebar
----------------------------------------------- */


Whatever it says, it's just a section name, and I want you to put it in the right section...LOL...only because I'm a neat-freak, and anal-retentive about how the code is organized! *snort-giggle* You could actually put it in any section...but you might forget where you put it...So keep it neat!

Happy blogging! Till next time!