Enable “Add a Gadget” to Blog Post column and Header Layout sections

Image courtesy:- Stuart Miles

Blogger has allowed publishers to make changes of blog from various ways. Blogger template is the operculum of your blog like the mask which you used to affright others. The template is the main factor of any blog or website. Millions of websites and blogs are out there. But these all sites are not similar, because of the different types of templates. A blog or website is made up with sections, which are known in blogger “Layout sections” or “Blogger Layout boxes”. Like in any blogging platform, in blogger you can control your blog easily by adding, changing and editing different types of widgets, which are known in blogger called “Page elements”. Blogger officially have added and introduced new page elements or gadgets which can be installed from the layout page of your blogger dashboard. Recently they added a few gadgets like Google plus one button, Wikipedia search box and blogger contact form which is so popular in these days.

You know maintaining your blog neat and clean with good stuff is not an easy work, and is an essential duty you should do. That is a reason to differ bloggers from article writers or copywriters. A blogger should practice this factor as they can, If you understand what I mentioned, you’re on right track. If you are able to hire a web designer, it’s not enough to maintain your site without errors. Be ready, once you want to put into practice your coding skills.

As I mentioned in above, All blog contents are in the blogger layouts, even posts. So knowing how blogger layouts work and how to work with them might be helpful in many occasions such as when you wanted to increase the sidebar section width and decrease the post pages’ width. You know how to install a widget on blogger. You go to layout and click on “Add a Gadget” link. Then add the gadget that you want to show on your blog. Though in case, if you were unable to find the “Add a Gadget” link in any section, what do you do? So in this tutorial I will show you how to control the Blog post column and header layout section, from blogger template. Keep up with the tutorial. Last you will learn how to control layout sections easily.

Blogger layout section attributes and their values

A blogger section is specified by the tag. tag contains following attributes.

• Id: - A unique name with numbers and letters, which stands for each widget section. One section ID can’t be used another section. The section ID is a required attribute.
• Class:- This is optional, but it helps blogger to determine how best to transfer over your content when you switch template later. Some common class names are “main, header, sidebar, navbar” etc.
• Showaddelements:- Optional item, which is standing for “Add a Gadget” link box. ‘Yes’ is the default value.
• Maxwidgets :- Another optional item for specifying how many gadgets can be added to a section. If you don’t specify a value, there is no limit.
• Growth:- This determines how page elements should be arranged, vertically or horizontally. The default value is “vertical”. If you add horizontal as the value, Page elements will be stacked on your blogger layout page (optional).

Now you know, it’s enough to inform the id of section to make a new widget section in blogger.

How to enable “Add a Gadget” link in the Blog Posts section and Header

1: Sign in to your blogger account.

2: Go to Dashboard → Template and backup your current template first.

3: Then click on 'Edit HTML' button and find below code in your template.(Tip: Use Jump to Widget option)

 

4: Now change above code with necessary items.A modified code is in below.

                           

This will determine to include "Add a Gadget" link box and limit number of gadgets to twelve. Look below GIF image which shows how page elements page differs as the changes.

Click Image to Enlarge

As well as making changes to blog posts layout box, you just need to change some codes of header section to make it is available to add more gadgets. This is very helpful, if you think to display more affiliate banners on header. All widgets which are above of fold get maximum impressions rather than others. So enabling to add more third party widgets and Adsense ads on header will increase your revenue by 20%+.

Find below code in your template.

                      locked='true'

 title='Test only (Header)' type='Header'/>
Now change above code to below code.

                     

Note:- As your template's type, title and other aspects, the above code(s) could be different.

5: Last and important part is Saving your blog template.
6: Now go to the Layout page and see how it appears now.