Since June 10, 2010 Blogger has a new tool for creating template. Indeed any automated platform has to deal with the question of webdesign. Whether it is about server for e-shops, websites for blogs or alternative turn-key solutions, automation of designs remains a recurring problem. No need to return to the issues of method, but we all the same noticed that all professionals or suppliers of such solutions had to answer this problem with varying degrees of success. Of course it is unthinkable to design web application on these platforms that run continuously. Automation is therefore the crucial point and let's see how Blogger handled it.

By enabling the template creation tool, you access a menu that is divided into different stages. This menu is located at the top of your browser and just below is a preview of the rendering. This choice is certainly not original but offers a good variation from the link usually used for previewing and requires an extra tab or open another browser. A good point for Blogger: the small active separator that can "expand the preview". First one can choose a model from a list that appears via an horizontal scrollbar and below possible alternatives for the given model. This choice allows the tool to stay compact but its usability is maintained only if the choice is limited. This is precisely the case. To the left of this menu one can find visual state of the blog - the orange box - in miniature. This little vignette is not very relevant since it is far too small to provide information about the design of the blog. We can all better appreciate the layout. It would have probably been better to sub-divide the preview with "before" and "after".

Let us follow an example with our beautiful Kameleoon blog on Blogger, whose design was made with Kameleoon:

I choose the third model from the left and the changes are previewed in stride (one to two seconds):

And a colorful theme!

It must be disconcerting to see how easy to use tool. Let's move to the control of the background. There is a recall of the background image with a small chart that offers colors that complement well.

Clicking on the pad of the main color you can change it via the color chart that appears. The thing which is a shame and rather illogical, is that this option is possible even when nothing happens on a background image .. What logic! In short, this operation will be preferred if there are issues with themes using transparency.

Now the tab "Layout" is more conventional and resumed what was already present in the layout editor of Blogger.There's no little new since the dressing itself disappears.

The last tab called "Advanced" allows you to choose the lokk and feel item by item.This is probably the most interesting point to refine choices. You'll find a choice of fonts and editable colors whith the chart above or directly with the hexadecimal value of the color. At the bottom you can also choose to add a part written in CSS. To edit the html one must leave this editor and go through the classic edition menu offered by Blogger.

Conclusion: Blogger has expanded its platform with a template editor. The main strength lies in its simple and intuitive logic and its near perfect ergonomics. However, the limited choice of templates and themes affect the range of this strength. Besides the advanced customization is limited to the color most of the time. For the effects more "spectacular" one must go through the addition of CSS, which is obviously beyond the reach of the average user. This weakness in the customization reinforces the notion that the choice of Blogger was to give a very simple tool.It is kind of a shame and we are left wanting more. Little improvements would probably be possible by adding effects without sacrificing ergonomics. One limitation remains the choice of theme and its variant which can't grow significantly. In fact the horizontal scroll is not the most pleasant for those who aren't equipped with a modern mouse. There probably lies the main weakness of this tool: it will be very difficult to extend it with a database of themes and variations due to radical ergonomic choice.