Blogger Updates Photo Picker

Blogger updated the dialog that lets you insert photos. Now it uses horizontal tabs, just like in Gmail. You can upload photos, add photos from Picasa Web Albums/Google+ Photos, capture photos from your webcam or paste URLs. Blogger's dialog has special sections that restrict Google+ Photos to images from your blog or from your phone (Auto Backup).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJC-0-idwYsziKAOlxEnis-hAGYyLf29wQKpLZHQ8oW7LoVdTxOikH-__ysARR4ggN19hFE0dHJtonDIhYXPJcF5cVXGXSSw5rV4si0Q8RYkxMr3-KnWtuDwHCYupmS1IXweEE6JtpJ_dQ/s1600/blogger-upload-photos.png" /></div><br />When you select "from your phone", you can rotate photos or even delete them:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggBKyB70TtWZF9xGUMbaBrsb_t-AtnRQJYo3f_zDDjzedV0fDgEbvsVeg88JgM1yddBAd1pxTd49iAOiP0rYPtCBQ7iPGFrFEcWZC3k6bfsK-KJrUtCD0nw5Q07sHu5om5UElTDWBxFyuV/s1600/blogger-upload-photos-2.png" /></div><br />It's interesting that Blogger still uses Picasa Web Albums instead of Google+ Photos, while also including a feature that's only available if you use Google+: Auto Backup.<br /><br />Blogger, Gmail and other Google services use the same Google Drive picker and customize it  by adding a long list of parameters.

Blogger Updates Photo Picker

Blogger updated the dialog that lets you insert photos. Now it uses horizontal tabs, just like in Gmail. You can upload photos, add photos f...

Read more »

Automatically Share Blogger Posts on Google+

For some reason, Google doesn't make it easy to automatically post content to Google+. You can't add the URL of a feed and import the posts from a blog. There's an exception: Blogger.<br /><br />If you've integrated Blogger with Google+, you probably noticed a Google+ sharing box after publishing a post. It only required one click to share the post on Google+.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHJtMSrCpMiuPMColWsFOfX46mXqUUR9jfOweWBMANxEI8AttDjKUYLpBHqZGet2eXNvEvsyJ-8bsLgSs7qGNdDH8EXdN6Xd75b2evnj5tLAahlT_zWrHFRO14NrQ7wyuPm8kB8phfZnB/s640/blogger-share-google-plus.png" /></div><br />Now you can get even lazier: enable "Automatically share after posting" in Blogger's Google+ section and your posts will be shared automatically.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmemiua98DFpv3m-412ZWezGewGsvp9Q1oANYJeAWP-ZKTG9xV8BBzN9t_MpOLk_iUvMc-uNQwR8Waj4bO4bMheQwZ730qqkG9YLxGzKCVkTqpA_Cj3mcN22ICnLqmb_sTzZVMLYwhrQXv/s640/blogger-share-google-plus-2.png" /></div><br /><a href="https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/1752748?p=share&rd=1">Google says</a> that "automatic sharing to Google+ is enabled by default on all public blogs linked to Google+ pages or profiles. When you publish a blog post, a snippet of the post will automatically be shared publicly on your Google+ page or profile." That's probably true for new blogs, but it wasn't true for my blog: I had to manually enable "Automatically share after posting".<br /><br />You can still enable "Prompt to share after posting" if you like to see the Google+ sharing box. Disable both options if you don't want to share your posts on Google+. Blogger also adds "share" links next to "edit", "view" and "delete" and you can use this feature to manually share posts on Google+.<br /><br /><b>Update</b>: This feature is buggy. Here's what I got after publishing this post:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOhnssBix9a8nDPPfFSn62n8p-2ERYyEKiVD3Lp7yyNBrMu2j0i58L77byCx621cUeIoDuHv93TXUMdwPMUfvAAo2v8xd5cLFBrfNKMqJqa_MvT_LD7_-qkNOyusYEkKHCOPtpahSCKEh/s640/blogger-share-google-plus-3.png" /></div><br />{ via <a href="http://buzz.blogger.com/2013/09/automatically-share-your-blog-posts-to.html">Blogger Buzz</a> }

Automatically Share Blogger Posts on Google+

For some reason, Google doesn't make it easy to automatically post content to Google+. You can't add the URL of a feed and import th...

Read more »

Blogger Bug Hides Old Comments

I don't like to use this blog to report bugs, but sometimes it's important to do that. Blogger no longer shows the old comments imported from the native commenting system. I've switched to Google+ comments and all the comments were properly imported. Now the legacy comments are no longer displayed.<br /><br />Here's <a href="http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-languages-in-google-translate.html">an old post</a> that has 218 comments, but none are displayed:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXl8kEmXy_GNIsggDXFEw0jHvjH351Cn22uWrDJJ1JmjXLuGMw69cdpYdZkW4clvHy5Ke0Fq-TLA-ITLNsRiUfp6l9ciT896SIf5kCJyFL2_-6GV8RMeyGJy54qM42KOrnpyAaSRAq8HTc/s640/blogger-comments-bug.png" /></div><br />Disabling Google+ comments fixes this issue, but the comments powered by Google+ are missing. This means that the old comments aren't lost, but there's a bug in the Google+ commenting system.<br /><br />I checked the Blogger help forum before posting this and I was surprised to see some top contributors <a href="http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/blogger/comments/blogger/dTG0blCX1kk/oWgvsnMw8ocJ">claiming</a> that "all the non-Google+ comments disappear when you switch to Google+ comments". I'll link to <a href="http://buzz.blogger.com/2013/04/bringing-google-comments-to-blogger.html">the official Blogger blog</a>: "older comments will continue to appear in the new widget".<br /><br /><b>Update (a few hours later)</b>: Google fixed the bug, but there's another one. I can't post a new comment and clicking "reply" doesn't have any visible effect. I've seen similar reports in the Blogger help forum.<br /><br /><b>Update 2</b>: Google acknowledged the second issue and promised to fix it.<br /><br /><b>Update 3</b>: Apparently, blog owners were the only ones that couldn't post, but this was fixed. Thanks, Yonatan Zunger.<br /><br />{ Thanks, <a href="https://plus.google.com/118153417237614725639/posts/46VZBnozRNQ">Kristian</a>. }

Blogger Bug Hides Old Comments

I don't like to use this blog to report bugs, but sometimes it's important to do that. Blogger no longer shows the old comments impo...

Read more »