Top Droppers Widget for Blogger

In the previous post, we learnt how to install the Recent Droppers widget for Blogger.  In this post, I am going to cover the Top Droppers widget for Blogger.

The Top droppers widget is meant to display the links of top droppers from Entrecard on your sidebar. While recent droppers widget will reward every dropper for a short period of time, the top droppers widget will reward only bloggers who consistently drops on you. If you have a good blog, then the droppers will fight hard to get a link from you. In return, you might get regular droppers.

Now, we will see how to install the Top Droppers Widget for Blogger/ Blogspot. If you have followed my instructions to install the Recent Droppers widget, you will find the instructions here very similar.

How to install the widget?

1. Log in to your Entrecard account


2. Click on the "Statistics" button, located on the top menu.
   
   


3. Scroll down the Statistics page to a section titled "Top card droppers". You will see an orange colour RSS button besides the title. Click on the feed button.
   
   


4. This will open a new window. Look at the address bar in your browser window. The address should look like "http://entrecard.com/feeds/top_droppers/XXXXXXXXXX/rss2.0". Copy the address; we need to use this later in Blogger to create the widget


5. Now, log in to your Blogger account


6. On your Blogger Dashboard, click on the "Layout" link
   
   


7. This will take you to the "Page Elements" tab. Decide where you want to insert the recent droppers widget and click on the "Add a Gadget" link accordingly.
   
   


8. Scroll down the list, find a gadget titled "Feed" and click on the "+" button
   
   


9. This will open the "Configure Feed" window. Here, you need to paste the URL copied from Entrecard (Refer to step 4). Click on the "Continue" button


10. If you have pasted the feed URL correctly, you should see a prview of your top droppers in the window now


11. Blogger allows you to display a maximum of 5 droppers. If you want to display less than 5 links, select the number accordingly. Once you are satisfied, click "Save"

That completes the installation of your Top Entrecard droppers widget. Feel free to post your queries here, if you have any. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Recent Droppers Widget for Blogger

If you are using Entrecard for building up your traffic, then this widget is for you. I am going to call this as Recent Droppers widget for Blogger/ Blogspot. You may call this as Latest Droppers widget or Entrecard Droppers widget or as you may wish.

The widget is meant to display the links of recent droppers from Entrecard on your sidebar. This list will be a dynamic one and will change as entrecarders drop into your Entrecard widget. The idea is to reward all your droppers for a short period of time with a link to their blog. Now, I will explain how to install the widget. It is going to be very simple.

How to install the widget?

1. Log in to your Entrecard account


2. On the top right hand corner of your Dashboard, look for the orange colour feed button
   
   


3. Click on the feed button


4. This will open a new window. Look at the address bar in your browser window. The address should look like "http://entrecard.com/feeds/inbox/XXXXXXXXXX/rss2.0". Copy the address; we need to use this later in Blogger to create the widget


5. Now, log in to your Blogger account


6. On your Blogger Dashboard, click on the "Layout" link
   
   


7. This will take you to the "Page Elements" tab. Decide where you want to insert the recent droppers widget and click on the "Add a Gadget" link accordingly.
   
   


8. Scroll down the list, find a gadget titled "Feed" and click on the "+" button
   
   


9. This will open the "Configure Feed" window. Here, you need to paste the URL copied from Entrecard (Refer to step 4). Click on the "Continue" button
   
   


10. If you have pasted the feed URL correctly, you should see a prview of your recent droppers in the window now
    
    


11. Blogger allows you to display a maximum of 5 droppers. If you want to display less than 5 links, select the number accordingly. Once you are satisfied, click "Save"

That completes the installation of your recent Entrecard droppers widget. Feel free to post your queries here, if you have any. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Statistics Widget for Blogger

Here is my latest widget for Blogger/ Blogspot; I am going to call it Statistics Widget for Blogger. I have noticed a few sites displaying blog statistics like, total number of posts, total number of comments, total words in posts, total words in comments and similar data on their sidebar. I thought of coming out with a similar widget for Blogger.

What is Statistics Widget for Blogger?
Statistics Widget for Blogger will display the total number of posts and total number of comments on your blog. As of now, I have included only these two data for display. I do not see any value in displaying the total words in posts and total words in comments. I find them meaningless. If you are interested to display the total number of posts and total number of comments on your blog, please follow the instructions below.

Instructions to install Statistics Widget for Blogger

1. Log in to your Blogger account


2. On your Blogger Dashboard, click on the "Layout" link
   
   


3. This will take you to the "Page Elements" tab. Decide where you want to insert the statistics widget and click on the "Add a Gadget" link accordingly.
   
   


4. Scroll down the list and find "HTML/ Javascript" and click on the "+" button
   
   


5. This will open the "Configure HTML/ Javascript" window. In the title section, please type "Blog Statistics" or "Blog Information" or "Blog Data" or any other title as you may wish


6. In the content section, please copy & paste the following code:
   

   <script style="text/javascript">
   
   function numberOfPosts(json) {
   document.write('Total Posts: <b>' + json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t + '</b><br>');
   }
   
   function numberOfComments(json) {
   document.write('Total Comments: <b>' + json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t + '</b><br>');
   }
   
   </script>
   
   <ul><li><script src="http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=numberOfPosts"></script></li>
   
   <li><script src="http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=numberOfComments"></script></li></ul>
   
   <span style="font-size:75%;"><a href="http://assessmyblog.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Widgets for Blogger</a></span>



7. Remember to replace the text in bold "yourblog" with your blog address. Take note to replace it in two locations.


8. Your window should look like the image below.
   
   


9. I have a link back to my blog at the bottom. You are free to remove the credit, if you don't like it


10. Click on "Save" button at the bottom right hand corner

That's it. You have created a widget to display the number of posts and number of comments on your blog. Please contact me if you have any doubts or you face any problems with the widget.

Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Top Commentators Widget for Blogger: Update

I wrote a detailed step-by-step instruction to install the top commentators widget for Blogger/ Blogspot about two months ago. The widget was based on a feed from Yahoo Pipes. Since then, this remains as the most popular post from my blog. It has also attracted the most number of comments, positive and negative, and many trackbacks. In fact, the pipe did work very well except for some minor bugs. In this post, I have attempted to address some of the issues, thanks to some excellent work from other fellow bloggers.

Problem #1
The RSS feed did not work properly, as Blogger’s default feed widget tried to sort the feed according to the date. This has disrupted the already sorted version from Pipes and we had duplicate names and names that are not properly sorted. This has been pointed out by CyberPenguin in his/ her post The Top Commenters Feature Glitch Needs A Fix! Will You Be The One To Save The Day?!.

The Solution
This problem has now been resolved and I should thank two bloggers who came out with similar solution to this problem. These bloggers have come out with a Javascript code, which requires just one-step for you to install the top commentators widget in Blogger. Here are the links to the posts:

• Top Commentators For a Blogger Blog from GoogleSystem


• Top Commenter's Widget for Blogger Blogs! from BloggerBuster

Problem #2
Some readers have asked about how to remove their own comments from the top commentators list. In fact, my original pipe did have a filter to remove the author’s name from the list. But, strangely, when you clone the pipe this filter is not available any more.

The Solution
I thought of writing a post on this, but BloggerBuster is quick enough to complete this in his blog. So, I will redirect you to his post to learn how to remove your name from the list:

• Removing your name from the Top Commenters Widget

Problem #3
Many readers have highlighted that the top commentators list is just linking back to the last comment made by that particular person. They felt that it would be nice if we could link to the commentator’s blog/ website instead.

The Solution
Unfortunately, there is no solution to this problem yet. Blogger does not provide the commentator’s blog/ web site URL in the RSS feed and hence we could not resolve this problem. But, let us see if Google will notice this and give us a way to work around. Until then, just be content with the names.

Finally, thanks to all the bloggers who made the effort to feedback, comment and improve the top commentators widget. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Blogger Widgets: A Collection

Widgets are invented to enhance the user's experience and to make the computers more user-friendly. The idea is to save time, effort and automate routine operations. For example, you can get a widget to display the weather conditions in Singapore right on your desktop or on your home page. You can have a widget that extracts the latest information from the web, based on certain specified criteria, and bring it to your desktop.

The advent of widgets has also made life much more easier for bloggers. Every now and then, you get new widgets with some excellent features and performance. Blogger/ Blogspot also have its own set of widgets and it also allows you to incorporate third party widgets. While it is difficult to beat Wordpress in terms of the number of widgets, I believe that Blogger will catch up in the future.

This post summarizes the widgets for Blogger that had been covered in detail in this blog. When you click the links below, it will take you to step-by-step tutorials to let you know how to install the widgets.

1. Top Commentators Widget for Blogger


2. Popular Posts Widget for Blogger


3. Poll Widget for Blogger


4. Recent Comments Widget for Blogger


5. Related Posts Widget for Blogger


6. Recent Posts Widget for Blogger

The widgets listed here would help to make your life easy as a blogger and at the same time will provide a better experience for your readers. Feel free to explore further and share some of your views here. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Top Commentators Widget For Blogger

You might have noticed the Top commentators widget in blogs powered by Wordpress. Sometimes, it is referred to as Best commentators widget. This post attempts to provide the same top commentators/ best commentators widget for Blogger/ Blogspot.

 

When I did search for the top commentators widget for Blogger, I could get very little on the net. I found one useful resource that seemed to implement the top commentators widget for Blogger. But, unfortunately, it is written in a foreign language; I believe it is in Russian language. Here is the blog, in case, you are interested: Best Commentators Widget for Blogger.

 

For those who do not understand Russian language, here is the step-by-step tutorial.  To implement this, you will need a Yahoo account as we are going to use Yahoo! Pipes for implementing the widget. So, if you do not have an account with Yahoo, go to Yahoo and create an account first before reading further.

 

1. Go to Yahoo! Pipes home page by clicking here: Yahoo! Pipes
2. Click on the "Sign In" link at the top right corner of the page
3. Login with your Yahoo user id and password.
4. Go to my Yahoo! Pipe "Top Commentators Widget for Blogger" by clicking here: Top Commentators Pipe

    

   

    

5. Once you are on the Top Commentators Pipe page, click on the "Clone" link to make a copy for your blog.
6. Once a copy is made, you will see the link "Edit Source". Click this.

    

   

    

7. It will open the Pipes flow diagram for editing. At the top of the diagram, you will see a module called "Fetch Feed".

    

   

    

8. You will change the feed to point to your blog. In the URL box in the "Fetch Feed" module, delete my blog's feed and type the following: http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?max-results=1000. The "yourblog.blogspot.com" has to be replaced by your blog's URL.
9. Once you have typed the address as shown above, click on the "Save" button at the top right.
10. Click on the "Run Pipe ..." button at the top middle. This will open another window with the results of your pipe. If you have done everything right, it should display the list of your commentators with the number of comments in brackets.
11. Click on the "More Options" button. This will open a drop-down list; click on the "Get as RSS" option.

     

     

     

12. This will open your feed for the top commentators list. Copy the feed address from the browser's address field. This should look some thing like this:  http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=1324dbad8c99bdc922ba75fee8dab73c&_render=rss
13. Now, login to your Blogger account.
14. Create a feed widget with the feed url you have just copied in step 12. If you are not sure how to create a feed widget, read my post on Recent Posts Widget for Blogger. You just have to follow the same steps as noted in that post. For the feed url, just use the one you have copied from the browser in step 12 here.
15. Name the widget as "Top Commentators".

That's it. You have created the Top Commentators/ Best Commentators widget for Blogger. Unfortunately, at this stage, this does not provide any search engine gains to your commentator. The name is only linked to the latest comment by him/ her. As of now, use this feature. Soon, we will have a better widget that would give the link to the commentators's home page.

 

I know that this is a bit technical and you may encounter some problems along the way. Feel free to shoot your questions here. I will respond to them as quickly as possible. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post.

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Popular Posts Widget for Blogger

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UPDATE on 13 May 08: This widget is no longer available as Spotplex has gone offline since 09 May 08. Please read the latest news about Spotplex here.

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In this post, I am going to share with you how to install the popular posts widget for Blogger. This widget will display a list of your popular articles, ranked by the number of views. Please read my earlier posts on Blogger hacks to know how to install the Recent posts widget, Recent comments widget, Poll widget and Related posts widget.

Current status
List of popular posts is, by far, the most difficult widget to implement and I had seen very little work on this area for Blogger/ Blogspot. Earlier, I have used a version from AffiliateBrand, which I will discuss in another post. Now, I am going to recommend another version from Spotplex, which I found more powerful.

How to install the tracking code?
The following steps will guide you through the simple installation procedure

1. Please click here to go to Spotplex home page.
2. Once the home page is opened, please click on the rectangle near the top-right corner of the page with the title “Get your Spotplex code”
   
3. Step 1: Register your blog
   • Type your blog address
   • Click on the button “Get my Spotplex code”
     
4. Step 2: Blog information
   • The title will automatically be retrieved. If you want to change it, then do so.
   • Write a simple description for your blog
   • Select the categories, maximum of 3
   • Select your blog’s language
   • Type in your e-mail address
   • Check on the “I agree to the terms …”
   • Click on the “Submit” button
     
5. Step 3: Get your Spotplex code
   • This is basically the credit to Spotplex. Choose whether you want to display an image or no image
   • Then, select the blogging platform. If your blog is on Blogger, then choose Blogger
   • Click the button “Install Spotplex Widget”
   • This will open the login page for Blogger. Login with your account and install the Spotplex widget.
     

You have just completed the installation of the tracking code that will track the page views on your blog. The next part is to install the Popular posts widget. Install the tracking code as explained above, otherwise the popular posts widget will not work.

How to install the Popular Posts Widget?

1. Click on the link “Get widget” just below the header

   

2. Scope: Choose “Specific blog” to display the popular articles of your own blog
3. Type: Type your blog url or the Spotplex code in the text box and then select “Popular Articles”
4. Options:
   • Choose the period for refreshing the popular articles. If you select “24 hours”, it will display your popular articles over the last 24 hours. If you select “All time”, it will display your all time popular posts
   • Choose the width and height based on your sidebar dimensions
   • Choose how many posts to display, 5, 10 or 15
   • Click on “Get this widget”
     
5. This will display the HTML code for the widget. Copy the code to clipboard.
   
6. Login to your Blogger account
7. On the dashboard, Click on “Layout”
8. On the Page elements tab, click on “Add a page element”
9. Under the page element “HTML/Javascript”, click "Add to Blog"
10. Paste the code from Spotplex and save the page element

That’s it. You have completed the installation. Wait for some time to let Spotplex collect the data. Then, the popular posts widget will start showing your popular articles with the number of views for each post as shown below:

If you have any queries, feel free to leave a comment. I will respond as soon as possible. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Poll Widget for Blogger

There are several ways to interact with your readers. The comments section for each post is one way for your readers to interact with you. If you need to find your readers' response on a particular issue, then you could use a poll.

For example, you want to find out whether your readers like your template. Then, you can include a poll on your blog with a question "How would you rate my template?". You might want to give your readers choices like "Very Good, Good, Average, Poor, Very Poor". You will get some useful information for you to take a decision.

Blogger has a standard Poll widget included as a Page element. It is quite easy and intuitive to install this widget. I won't call this a Blogger Hack. This post is mainly intended for new bloggers coming on to the Blogger platform. If you are already familiar with installing page elements, you may not find anything useful. You could go on to read my posts on related posts widget, recent posts widget or recent comments widget.

1. Log in to your Blogger account.



2. Click on the “Layout” link just below your blog name. This will take you to the “Page Elements” tab.




3. Click on the “Add a Page Element” link at the section where you want to include the poll question. You can include it in the sidebar or just below the post.




4. In the Page Elements pop-up window, you will find the page element “Poll” on top of the window.




5. Click the “Add to Blog” button. This will open the "Create a Poll" window for you.




6. Type in the question for your readers. Add the choices, one of which your readers will choose as answer. You could add more options by clicking on "Add another answer" or remove some options by clicking on "remove".



7. By default, your reader can choose only one answer. If you want to allow your reader to choose multiple answers, then click the check box "Allow visitors to select multiple answers"



8. You could set the closing date of the poll; the default is one week.



9. Click on “Save”

You have just completed adding a poll to collect data/ responses from your readers. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post.

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Recent Comments Widget for Blogger

Earlier, I have written a post on how to install the Recent Posts widget for Blogger. In this post, you will see how to install the recent comments widget for Blogger. I have to accept that I am not a great fan of the recent comments widget. While I certainly favoured the installation of the recent posts widget to enhance the blog's navigation, I leave it to you to decide whether you need a widget for recent comments. I personally feel that it is not very useful unless you have lots of visitors who contribute regularly.

Blogger do not have a standard widget for you to include easily into your blog. But, don’t worry. There is a small work-around that would help you to install the recent comments widget on to your blog. The trick is to use the “Feed” page element provided by Blogger. You just have to get a feed from your own blog. Just follow the step-by-step tutorial below that should make things clear.

1. Log in to your Blogger account


2. On the dashboard, click on the “Settings” link




3. On the Settings tab, click on the “Site Feed” tab




4. Check the field “Allow Blog Feed”. Please select either “Full” or “Short” in the drop-down menu. You have to ensure that “None” is not selected


5. Click “Save Settings” button at the bottom of the page




6. Now, click on the “Template” tab. This will take you to the “Page Elements” tab




7. Click on the “Add a Page Element” link at the section where you want to include the list of recent comments. You can include it in the sidebar or just below the post




8. In the Page Elements pop-up window, scroll down to find the page element “Feed”




9. Click the “Add to Blog” button


10. Type the comments feed URL of your own blog, which should look like http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default/. Replace the text "yourblogname" accordingly for your blog.




11. Click on “Continue”


12. In the window that pops up, you can configure your feed. Type in a suitable title for your page element, like Recent Comments or Latest Comments


13. Select the number of comments to be displayed. Blogger allows only a maximum of 5 items to be displayed


14. You can choose to display the date of the comment and the author name if you want. You will see a preview of your feed in the box


15. Click on “Save Changes”

That's it. You have added the list of recent comments.

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A quick round-up of September 2007

Only in September, I started to look at this blog seriously. The statistics show that I am just going in the right direction.

1. I did apply a new template to this blog. While there are still many glitches to this template, the nice look keeps me stuck with it.

2. I also got the approval from PayPerPost for this blog recently.

3. The hot newcomer to blogosphere this month is certainly BlogRush. While it is still in its early days, it is a potential winner for bloggers. We will wait for few more months to see the impact of BlogRush.

Some of my popular posts written in September:

• New Template for this blog


• How much is my blog worth?


• 63/100: That is the grade of this blog


• Blog Review: Calling All Palauans


• Recent Posts Widget for Blogger

Some of the interesting posts from other bloggers written in September:

• Make Money Online with Youtube from JohnChow.com


• Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog from ProBlogger.net


• Using Categories and Tags Effectively on Your Blog from ProBlogger.net


• How to make visitors not come back to your blog - 5 Tips from BloggingTips.com


• Typo Tips from BloggingTips.com

Enjoy blogging. Best of luck to all bloggers for a better October month.

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Related Posts Widget for Blogger

I have discussed before about the importance of providing various navigational aids for your reader, like a list of recent posts or a list of categories. A list of related posts is another important feature that should be implemented in each and every blog.

The longer you keep the visitors on your blog, the better. When a visitor reads a post on a particular category, it is natural to assume that he will probably be interested in other posts under the same category. This will improve the page visits and the length of the time a visitor spends on your blog.

I have discussed about the importance of tags in one of my previous posts Why should I tag my posts? In addition to the benefits discussed, tags help to extract a list of related posts for your current post. I have tried a few widgets for related posts available for free on the net. I have listed them below. Feel free to explore further on the respective sites:

1. Hoctro’s Place: This seems to be the starting point for others, who came out with few modifications. Even though there are some enhancements from others, which I have discussed below, I still like Hoctro’s version. It requires the code to be copied to just one location. It comes in handy as a widget. You just need to modify the default URL to your blog’s URL. If you like to set the maximum number of posts to be displayed, then there is an option to change this.

2. Jackbook.com: This is a slightly modified version from Hoctro’s. The advantage here is you need not modify the code to point to your blog. The process is already automated. Jackbook also overcomes one drawback in Hoctro’s version, which displays the current article also under the related posts. Another change is that the related posts will be displayed only on the item page and not on the home page. In Hoctro’s version, you could choose to do both. If you are not familiar with HTML, then I would recommend Jackbook’s version, as it is very simple to install.

3. Purplemoggy: This is a bit difficult compared to the above two, as it requires the code to be copied/ modified at a few places. I tried once, but it didn’t work for me. I am not sure why it is so. But, you can try to see if this works for you.

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Recent Posts widget for Blogger

If you have regular visitors, they are more interested in your recent updates since their last visit. By providing a list of recent posts, you are making their stay at your blog pleasant. Blogger do not have a standard widget for you to include easily into your blog.

Don’t worry. There is a small work-around that would help you to install the recent posts widget on to your blog. The trick is to use the “Feed” page element provided by Blogger. You just have to get a feed from your own blog. If it’s still fuzzy to you, the following step-by-step should make things clear.

1. Log in to your Blogger account
2. On the dashboard, click on the “Settings” link




3. On the Settings tab, click on the “Site Feed” tab




4. Check the field "Allow Blog Feed". Please select either "Full" or "Short" in the drop-down menu. You have to ensure that "None"” is not selected


5. Click "Save Settings" button at the bottom of the page




6. Now, click on the "Template" tab. This will take you to the “Page Elements” tab




7. Click on the "Add a Page Element" link at the section where you want to include the list of recent posts. You can include it in the sidebar or just below the post




8. In the Page Elements pop-up window, scroll down to find the page element "Feed"




9. Click the "Add to Blog" button


10. Type the feed URL of your own blog. In the example below, I have typed my feedburner feed for my blog. You can also use the Blogger’s default feed URL http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/post/default. Replace the yourblogname accordingly for your blog.




11. Click on "Continue"


12. In the window that pops up, you can configure your feed. Type in a suitable name for your page element, like Recent Posts or Latest Posts




13. Select the number of posts to be displayed. Blogger allows only a maximum of 5 items to be displayed
14. You can choose to display the date of posting and the author name if you want. You will see a preview of your feed in the box
15. Click on "Save Changes"

You have added the list of recent posts. More importantly, you have taken another important step to make the navigation of your blog easier for your readers.

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