>>> I GET AN ERROR MESSAGE WHEN UPLOADING MY TEMPLATE FILE
When you get any error message when you try to install your template file, please do the following:
1. open the zip-file that holds all your blog files
2. clip or copy the template file (the file with extension .XML)
3. and paste this file outside the zip-file
4. then follow the installation instructions again
Your template file needs to be outside the zip-file to install it correctly!
>>> THE INSTAGRAM WIDGET LOOKS DISTORTED/IMAGES ARE NOT SQUARES
When your Instagram feed at the bottom of your blog or in the sidebar looks like one of the images below, you can easily fix that.
This distorted look is caused because you uploaded images to your Instagram account and you did not crop them into squares before you published them. It is very important that you only use square shaped images on your Instagram feed. If you upload images to Instagram without cropping them into a square, the Instagram Widget will show these images in the shape they were uploaded, messing up the look of the widget. The solution: upload your image to Instagram, crop it immediately into a square, then use filters if you wish, add text and hashtags and publish it.
>>> THE INSTAGRAM FEED DOES NOT SHOW IMAGES AT ALL
When you have set up your Instagram widget correctly but it does not show any images at all, this can be caused by two things:
• your Instagram account is new and you have not published any images yet on your account
• or, you have set your Instagram account to 'private' - make it 'public' to activate the feed widget
>>> YOUR SOCIAL ICONS ARE NOT WORKING
If you bought your template in my store between January 2017 and January 2019 the you might experience trouble adding other icons. This is caused by a major software update from the company that supplies the icon codes. If this has happened to you, please contact me via Etsy and I will sort it out for you.
If you bought your template after January 22, 2019 your icons should work properly if you follow the exact instructions in this website. Still having problems? Please contact me on Etsy.
>>> THE SHARE BUTTONS IN THE POST FOOTER ARE NOT WORKING
When you get any error message when you try to install your template file, please do the following:
1. open the zip-file that holds all your blog files
2. clip or copy the template file (the file with extension .XML)
3. and paste this file outside the zip-file
4. then follow the installation instructions again
Your template file needs to be outside the zip-file to install it correctly!
>>> THE INSTAGRAM WIDGET LOOKS DISTORTED/IMAGES ARE NOT SQUARES
When your Instagram feed at the bottom of your blog or in the sidebar looks like one of the images below, you can easily fix that.
This distorted look is caused because you uploaded images to your Instagram account and you did not crop them into squares before you published them. It is very important that you only use square shaped images on your Instagram feed. If you upload images to Instagram without cropping them into a square, the Instagram Widget will show these images in the shape they were uploaded, messing up the look of the widget. The solution: upload your image to Instagram, crop it immediately into a square, then use filters if you wish, add text and hashtags and publish it.
>>> THE INSTAGRAM FEED DOES NOT SHOW IMAGES AT ALL
When you have set up your Instagram widget correctly but it does not show any images at all, this can be caused by two things:
• your Instagram account is new and you have not published any images yet on your account
• or, you have set your Instagram account to 'private' - make it 'public' to activate the feed widget
>>> YOUR SOCIAL ICONS ARE NOT WORKING
If you bought your template in my store between January 2017 and January 2019 the you might experience trouble adding other icons. This is caused by a major software update from the company that supplies the icon codes. If this has happened to you, please contact me via Etsy and I will sort it out for you.
If you bought your template after January 22, 2019 your icons should work properly if you follow the exact instructions in this website. Still having problems? Please contact me on Etsy.
>>> THE SHARE BUTTONS IN THE POST FOOTER ARE NOT WORKING
First check if your blog is set to Private:
1. Go to section Settings
2. Select 'Post comments & Sharing'
3. Scroll down until you see Blog Readers. If it is set to Private then set it to Public and see if they work.
If the share icons still do not work after checking your blog has been set to ‘public’, do this:
If the share icons still do not work after checking your blog has been set to ‘public’, do this:
1. Go to section Layout and open the Blog Posts widget
2. Enable (check off) the Show Share Buttons options
3. Save the changes
2. Enable (check off) the Show Share Buttons options
3. Save the changes
>>> THE COMMENT COUNT IN THE BLOG POST FOOTER IS NOT WORKING
When your blog post footer is displaying '0' comments while there are actually comments on your blog posts or the comment count part of the footer is completely missing, this is because you are using a third-party option to display comments. The two most common third-party comment options are Google+ comments & Disqus comments.
Due to the coding of the template, your comment section is set and styled primarily to support Blogger comments.
In case you want to keep your Google+ comment option
Blogger works closely together with Google, since Blogger is part of Google. Therefore it should be possible to show Google+ comments in your template. But if you have installed the template and the comment counter stopped working, this is what I would recommend:
1. go into your Blogger dashboard and select 'Settings'
2. then select 'Posts, comments & sharing'
3. now disable the Google+ comments by clicking the 'No' option
4. save the settings with the orange 'save settings button'
5. now leave your blog and blogger completely (log out of blogger)
6. after a few moments log in to blogger and your blog again
7. go back to the Google+ comment option and set it to 'yes' again
8. save the settings once more - hopefully this activated the comment counter again
Should the comment counter still display a '0' when there are actually comments there, follow steps 1 to 6. Upon login in again to your blog, do a template re-installation. Just upload the template as described in the TEMPLATE INSTALLATION page. After installing the template, follow instruction steps 7 and 8 to switch on the Google+ comments.
In case you have Disqus comments installed
Unfortunately the Disqus widget is interfering so much with the template coding that it does not show the comment counter at all in the post footer. That part is missing (see image below). So unless you don't mind missing part of your post footer I do not recomment using Disqus comments.
>>> THE RELATED POST WIDGET DOES NOT SHOW UP UNDER MY POSTS
This widget is activated by the labels you give your posts. It will group posts with the same label and show 4 of them as related posts. But of course you MUST USE labels to make it work! Not using labels would be the number one reason for this widget not to show itself. If you don't know how to add labels to your post, please check out page 'BLOG POST SETTINGS'. It will show you how to start adding labels.
>>> MY POST IMAGES TOUCH THE POST TEXT - THERE IS NO BORDER
My templates are mainly created for bloggers that want to show off their images over the full width of the blog post area. If you prefer smaller images on the left or right side of your blog post text you will notice that the image has no border and therefore touches the text.
This can be solved by adding a little border space around the blog post image. This is done in the coding, so please contact me if you want this extra space around your images. I can add it to the blog template if you wish.
Keep in mind though that it will no longer be possible to spread out an image over the full width of the post area once border space is added around it. So it is an either/or choice.
>>> WHAT TO DO IF YOUR TEMPLATE GETS MESSED UP
Sometimes you make a change to the template, be it adding a widget or something else, and all of a sudden it looks like the template is completely broken and you have no clue what caused it. The blog looks like a mess.
My advice in such a case is to do a re-install of the template file. Just follow the instructions on the 'TEMPLATE INSTALLATION' page again and see if such a blog re-fresh solves the issues.