What’s Up With Blogger’s New “Pages” Feature?

Wednesday was just another day  of lounging around the RV Park and, as a result, not much to blog about except what I’ve been saying for the past several days.  So, I thought I’d change course a bit and try to answer a few questions I’ve received about a new Blogger feature called “Pages”. 

Figure 1.  From the Dashboard, navigate to Posting and click on “Edit Pages”

Blogger Pages lets you publish static information on up to 10 stand-alone pages.   These pages can be accessed through a new “Pages Gadget” added to your blog’s sidebar.  Blogger uses the same editor for editing posts and pages, but pages are displayed in a separate list on your sidebar.

Figure 2.  If this is your first ‘Page’, you’ll be prompted to click New Page

Why would you want to use this new feature?  That’s a great question, and truthfully, I couldn’t think of a real good reason as to why I would ever want one.  But, it seems to have been a highly requested enhancement from Blogger users, so I guess there must be many uses that have escaped me.

Figure 3.  Create your page just as you would a normal blog

A few examples mentioned in the Blogger announcement of this feature might be to create an “About This Blog” page that discusses the evolution of your blog, or a “Contact Me” page that provides directions, a phone number, and a map to your location."  Personally, I’m o.k. with the information I’m now able to put on my sidebar and in my Profile information.

Figure 4.  Go to ‘Layout’ and select the Pages Gadget

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Pages, to demonstrate this new feature, I decided to create a page called “The Sands RV Resort” to highlight how this feature looks and how to go about making a ‘Page’.  So, how does one go about creating “Pages”.  Thankfully, it’s pretty easy and straightforward.

Figure 5.  This is the 'Add Pages’ gadget used to show links to your pages

If you think you might like to try this new feature here’s how to do it by following the example images on this blog:

1. See Figure 1 – Go to your ‘Dashboard’ and navigate to Posting, then click on ‘Edit Pages’ – this is the new added feature.
2. See Figure 2 – Here, just click on “New Page” and a familiar Blogger Edit page will display
3. See Figure 3 – Go ahead and create your new ‘Page’ just as you would a regular blog and when you are finished, publish it.  It will not display on your blog until you add a “Pages Gadget” that will provide the necessary link.  That’s step 4.
4. See Figure 4 – Go to ‘Layout’ and select the new ‘Pages’ Gadget just as you normally would when adding any new gadget to the sidebar.
5. See Figure 5 – Just save and add the gadget using the default settings as you can always change them later.
6. If you have followed these 5 steps, you will now see a new ‘Pages Gadget’ on your sidebar with a link to your first new ‘Page’.

So, that’s all there is to creating Pages in Blogger.  You can’t create or modify Pages from Live Writer either, it’s strictly a Blogger thing for now. 

Like I said earlier, I don’t know if this new feature would be of any use to us RV bloggers or not – I can’t think of anything in particular that I’d ever use it for.  I can see where it might be useful for someone who is selling something and wanted to advertise their complete product list – maybe for Mike and Pat and their Pressure Pro products? 

If you want to see how Pages looks when finished, just look at my sidebar on the right for the ‘Pages’ link.  I’d be very interested to hear your opinions on whether or not you think Blogger Pages might be of any interest to you. 

Have a great Thursday, and thanks again for visiting!