new year, new look

source: the Graphics Fairy

like others I felt like a new bloglook and this is it!
I love how easy it is to make or change the whole look of your blog with just a few clicks. 'Cause despite all it's flaws and irratic behaviour I think Blogger IS a wonderful platform :D (despite smiley, I am serious). And no, Blogger (or Google) did not pay me to write that, just thought to start of the new year nice ;).
--> on that positive note; I've discovered a great tip, see rest of post below before&after-image.
The tip couldn't be simpler to use, all the explaining and examples is to make clear why it's so great.

I always like before-and-afters myself, so below a reminder of what my blog looked like. I still like it, but just felt like something a bit more fresh and organized. In addition I also have 'jump-breaks' now for longer posts with 'read more' links, cleaning my blog up a bit extra.

jumpbreak, never knew how to do that or that the little icon was for that ;)

so about that great tip - at least I think it is: Blogger has a Dynamic Views template, since 2011 already, who knew... Well, as it turned out a lot of people, but not me, I saw it when looking for a template in Blogger's templatedesigner. Maybe some of you have known about it too. But even then you still might find this tip useful, because it's not about using the template as a template.

anyway, at first I didn't get the idea, it just looked very nice, but it turns out to be a wonderful way to have a different/professional looking blog that can be viewed in 7 different ways with the same template, hence the name 'dynamic'. Whatever you feel like at any given moment or is most convenient or fitting for the blog or for you. OR your visitors, who can switch between views too with just one mouseclick.

here's a short YouTube-video with a demonstration of Dynamic Views and how the different views work:

installing it as a template has some real downsides though, it means missing some basic features other templates have, pretty essential ones (and for anyone who's more familiar with it: I don't mean the ones that have been solved by Blogger the past years, the ones making it even worth considering). For a number of the remaining ones - and in general - there are quite a lot possible tweaks, but a few essential ones remain. Overall for me the pro's don't outweigh the con's to go for it. And from what I understand many bloggers have returned to a normal type template. But..... (and that's the tip):

.... the nice part is, I discovered later, you don't have to make it your template to be able to use the great appearances and handiness of Dynamic Views at any given moment (or your visitors who can use it too) !!

meaning not only you can use it without having to make any changes to your blog, you can also use it to view ANY blogspot-blog out there in one of those views - and so can any visitor in your or ANY blogspot-blog!!

how amazing and fun is that? I've tried it on my own blog and some of yours and it looks great! Also with most views searching for a particular post to find that handy tip, an example etc is so much easier as well!

you can generate it in literally a second (well maybe 2) & go back to normal view in the same time - if you really need to ;)

why I think Dynamic Views - the view-version for which I'll give you the supersimple trick in a moment - is so great (the highlights):

• not a single change on your blog or blogtemplate required!
• a supereasy, kind of instant, way for much more overview, despite having or visiting a blog with a normal blogtemplate: you can see a lot of - or even all - published posts at once, depending on how many posts (flipcard & mosaic) and/or photo's (shapshot) have been published on a blog. Easily seeing if a post is what you're looking for (easiest with flipcard, mosaic or snapshot) and go to the post directly. Making going back to something you'd like to see again or read about before - much easier as opposed to having to go through a blog or search the archive
• you can use it - mostly - as if it were your template, despite being 'just' a view. You can navigate the blog, you can click images (flipcard, mosaic or snapshot) or summaries (magazine, timeslide) to open and read posts and more. In the flipcard-view  - the only one with this option - you can also select by date, label and author
• when reading a certain post, you can still go to a newer or older posts in 5 of the 7 views (not classic and sidebar), by clicking simple-looking arrows in the leftuppercorner of the post you're in. Which I also find a lot easier and more convenient than what we're used to: having to go all the way to the bottom of the post AND of the last comment to be able to do that 
• you can even edit a post from the view-version of Dynamic Views. When you've opened a post in one of the views (again except in classic and sidebar), you'll see it has the editing-tool next to the title instead of at the bottom in the footer. Click it and it will go directly to where you're used to composing a post and editing. When updating those changes then you will go back to your regular template, from where you can go back to Dynamic Views or not of course
• like I said it can be done and back to normal in about a second at any moment
• despite the impression it might give looking at all the images like in flipcard, mosaic or snapshot, all views are always in chronological order, so the most recent posts come first
• I just think it's fun! :D

because of the added possibilities I use it often now just for looking up or change something, like updates. I can get to a post much quicker than in my normal view in any traditional way like through archive, the published list on the blogger-dashboard or having to go through several posts!

yes, yes, all great Monique, but now tell us how to do this! Of course, you're right, I'm sorry.. ;). It couldn't be easier, really!

simply add the following to the url of your blog or of the blog you visit: /view/flipcard, see image below. You can also use the names of the other views instead (after /view/), there is classic, magazine, mosaic, sidebar, snapshot and timeslide. I just chose flipcard as the example because it's my favorite :D. From there you can select any of the other 6 views in a dropdownmenu on the far left if you'd like (the black bar that runs across the screen horizontally at the top).

it's fun, try it!

and instead of flipcard you can also use classic, magazine, mosaic, timeslide, sidebar, snapshot or sidebar for completely different view

and don't worry, doing this doesn't change anything,

it's just a different view of your blog, that's all

example (flipcard-view):

for your and my convenience I added a button on the right for always being able to view my blog in Dynamic Views with just a mouseclick (it's linked to flipcard-view, but you can select any other from there). --> I forgot about this, but now it's added, you can find it below the youtube-button not far from the top

enjoy if you'll use Dynamic Views-view for your own or other blogs!

not really in the mood with a very sad ending of 2015 with on top some unbelievable, nasty & hurtful stuff in an already extra tough year (trust me I don't say that lightly with many years of being very ill in unusual and ridiculous circumstances - and what some of you read about that this year is just a fraction of the story). But had this post ready before the mentioned news and other stuff came, had written it over time with much pleasure, so I decided to publish it anyway.. Also because I was and still am determined for 2016 to be my year!! I hope it will be yours too!