Sometimes fancy blog templates look great, but one of the problems I’ve found is that a lot of fee blog templates have elements I like - and elements I would prefer to change. A lot of the time I want something that works without a lot of tinkering with the code. Ultimately I want a basic blog template with easily changeable colours and that isn’t limited to a narrow choice of topics. Frequently I find myself using the Minima template from Blogger. One of the limitations of the Minima Blogger template is it’s 2 column design. I search around quite a bit but couldn’t find a 3 column version of Minima for Blogger that I was happy with. Actually I found very little in the way of 3 column versions of Minima. So I decided to invest the time to build a solid 3 column version of Blogger’s Minima template (originally by Douglas Bowman of stopdesign.com) and make it available for download. I call the template Minibox because I did decide to add some extra outlines to the sidebar widgets and the main blog content. Blog Template Features:
- XML template for new blogger
- Change colors from within blogger
- Compatible with Blogger drag-and-drop layout editor
- Ad-free - No forced ads
- AdSense compatible - Put your ownAdSense ads on your blog
- Same variable and CSS section names as Minima so if you’re familiar with the Minima CSS and Blogger XML code it will be easy to read and modify the Minibox template code.
Installation Tips:
- Backup your current template. Blogger let’s you download your current template as a backup, or you can cut and paste the template into a text file.
- The method I’ve been using is to open the new template in a text editor and copy and paste it overtop of your existing blogger template code (Go to ‘Edit HTML’ in the ‘Layout’ tab of your Blogger customization/administration page). Do NOT expand widgets before pasting the new template code. My template file does not include the expanded widget code (no changes were necessary).
- Also, if you have already have custom widgets on your blog (maybe you created a link list, or added a picture in your sidebar), you need to take some extra steps to avoid wiping them out with the new template. I will post another article on how to do this if someone needs some help. In the meantime leave a comment if you have any questions or run into any installation problems and I will try to respond as quickly as possible.
- If you’re blog is relatively new or you don’t mind reconfiguring your widgets you can just upload the XML file (Go to ‘Edit HTML’ in the ‘Layout’ tab of your Blogger customization/administration page) after you download it from below.
DEMO LINK: Minibox 3 Column Demo
DOWNLOAD LINK: Minibox 3 Column Blogger Template v1.2 (Right-click and ‘Save As’)
If you don’t right-click and save as your browser will try to display the Blogger template and you will get an error.
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