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Wednesday 19 January 2011

Making a Sidebar List on Blogger.

One of my friends on Blogger has asked me how she can make a list of her Recipes in the sidebar of her blog so that other readers can easily click on the recipes and access them. There are other methods of doing this, but for this how-to, were going to use the Link Lists Gadget in order to achieve our aims. Once all of your Recipes are published to your blog, you can use the Link List Gadget to list them in the sidebar. Also its very easy to add more recipes to the list as and when you add them to your blog. Every post (and therefore every recipe) has a unique web address contained in the browser address bar. We will need all the different addresses of each recipe so that when a reader clicks on the name of that recipe from inside the sidebar, they are automatically taken to the recipe in question.

1. Firstly once you have posted up some recipes to your blog on Blogger, access your Dashboard and from there, click on Design.

Add a Gadget

2. From the Design page, click on Add a Gadget in your Sidebar area.

Choose Link List

3. In the Add a Gadget window, scroll down until you reach the Link List Gadget.  Click on the Add box (blue plus sign) in order to access it.

4. Now you need to fill in the relevant boxes. First of all give your List a Title. In this case and for this how-to I have chosen to call it Recipes.

5. Next you need to fill in the Number of links to show in the list. If you intend to have your list contain loads of Recipes, it might be better to leave this box blank.

6. Do you want your list to be sorted, either Alphabetically or Reverse Alphabetically or not sorted at all? You can set this here.

Placing the URL and titel of recipe

7. Next you need the URL Address of your recipe. To obtain this address for each separate recipe that you have posted to your blog, click onto that particular recipes title, the URL will change for that recipe, click inside the Address bar in your browser, then once it has changed colour, right click and choose Copy, and then place your cursor into the New Site URL box in the Link Lists URL address bar, right click and choose Paste. That  particular recipes address will then be added.

Copy the URL Address of each recipe

8. Give the Site a name. This will be the name of that recipe in this particular case.

9. Click on Add Link.

10. Lastly click on Save to save the Link List gadget to your sidebar.

11. To add all of your other recipes at any time, simply return again to your Dashboard then Design. Click on Edit on your Recipe Gadget and then add the new recipe’s URL address as just described and give it a new Site name. Click on Add Link then click on Save. Repeat for all of your recipes as and when you add them to your blog.

Another Recipe Added

Eventually you will end up with a long list of recipes where your readers can easily click on each recipe they are wanting to access.  You could also  make separate  Link Lists for different types of recipes as well, so you could have one Link List titled  Main Courses and then a separate list for Desserts.

Finished list of Recipes

Have fun!

TG

8 comments:

  1. THANK YOU!! SO MUCH. I have printed these instructions out so that I can get started.:-)

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  2. Beth I promised I would answer you and tell you how its done! I shall visit your site to check up on whether you have managed to do your recipe list!
    Toodie, thank you for your comment, yes, that's how its done...

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  3. Nice job on this TG. I'm glad to see you here on Blogger. I think I've given up on WordPress for a while. Harder to find friends, and I really just don't have time for more than one thing right now anyway. I hope you have a nice day!

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  4. Gerry, I don't agree as most of the Ex Spacers are over on Wordpress. I have been on Blogger (and Wordpress as well) for quite some time actually, long before it was decided to close Spaces. Try adding your new address on here to the Ex Spacers roll call so that others can find you and also add your Wordpress one as well.

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  5. Oops! Sorry Gerry just noticed that you have already done that. :)

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  6. Thank you Jennifer! I will pay your blog a visit.

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  7. Technogran - just found you by way of Bth. You have some really good information here, and it's very easy to understand (which is not often the case!).
    I'll be following. ;)

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