Blog Navigator

This is the instructions for the Blog Navigator system. It will take you through the changes you need to make to your Blogger template to add this functionality to your pages.

Using Blog Navigator, readers can click buttons or links on your blog's main, archive and item pages to allow them to quickly jump between comments, articles and archives. For discussion, troubleshooting and extensions, please see Freshblog. If you've got some nice template hacks to show off, please post a pointer for us!

Step One: Your Blog Settings

To build the links, the Blog Navigator requires knowledge of your archives. As this differs from blog to blog, you'll need to enter the values here.

Please enter the URL for your blog:


Now enter the archive path for your blog:

Next, please select the method that your blog is using ?:

FreshTags Archive     Menu Archive     List Archive    

Step Two: Paste into Template

Please select (ctrl-A), copy (ctrl-C) and then paste (ctrl-V) the code below into the designated areas of your Blogger Template. It's probably a good idea to make a copy of your template before you start hacking with it.

Template Header


Put this in your header, before </head> but after your FreshTags code (if you're using it).


Template Post Item


This goes with your Blog Item code, just after the <BlogItemTitle> tag.


Template Post Comments


Please put this after your <BlogItemComment> tag in your comment code section.


Template Footer


Put this at the top of your footer div, outside the </Blogger> tag.


Help With Archive Code

In order to work properly, this script needs to recognise your archive (ie list of links to your archived pages). Since there are a lot of ways of presenting your archive, the script needs to be told which method you use. Here, we go over the most common methods.

The first and simplest case is if you use FreshTags blog navigation system (check the blog roll on the right for examples). The second is if you use a drop-down menu. For this, you'll need to check its name; if it's not "archivemenu" then please edit the script provided here. The last one is if you use a simple list of links, starting with the most recent and ending with the most current archive.

If you're not sure which case fits you, you can use this test button (below) to find out. Simply load your blog in another browser window, click this button, copy/paste the code into the address bar of your blog's browser and check the results. If it looks good (ie no errors, the count reports the number of archives and the first/last archive look like valid URLs) then you're set. Otherwise, try another method and re-test.

Failing that, you can try knocking together your own code in the window provided below. The idea is to produce an array called archives with the URLs of your archives (chronological order ie oldest first). You can use the Test button for testing. As a last resort, get in touch at Freshblog and we'll help you out.

Archive Code:



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