Quick and dirty - Three column template

Several of you expressed your deep, intense, burning desire to be cool and have a three-column blog. Here's what I did.

This isn't hard, but it can be frustrating as all get out. Grab a cup of tea and open a Word document or something you can type in. I used the "find" function in word and it really helped.

Okay, let's play in HTML.

I visited Tips for New Bloggers: Three Column Minima Template. Read it. It may not make any sense, but read it anyway. There are other templates available, but this is the one I use.

Follow the directions and save your template to your hard-drive.

Now, what I did is check the little box that says "Expand Widget Templates". Go ahead and check that box. You'll see why in a bit.

Right-click to select all and copy all of the HTML. Paste it into a blank Word document. This is where you're going to make your changes.

Now, work in your document (just leave the blog alone for now). This way if you have a melt-down or just don't think you can do it you haven't done any damage.

Follow along in the tutorial adding things as it tells you to add them. Be sure to add that one little piece ABOVE the part you find. Well, only if you want your posts in the middle.

The only part I didn't do, because my template didn't have this already, was the:

/** Page structure tweaks for layout editor wireframe */
body#layout #header {
margin-left: 0px;
margin-right: 0px;
}

I skipped it. Sometimes adding junk like this can really foul up stuff.

Make all of the changes to your HTML in your document and save it.

I went back to my blog and copied the HTML to another document for safe-keeping, just in case.

I deleted all of the HTML in the HTML editor and replaced it with the newly tweaked version from Word and saved it.

Simple as that. Now there are three columns and all of my widgets are in place. Hooray!

I adjusted my header width to accommodate the banner and monkeyed with the colors.

You'll end up with your profile on both sides, but it's easy to fix under "Customize". Just drag and drop stuff to move things around. Edit or delete if you wish.

It wasn't too traumatic. Give it a shot. If you need help holler and I'll see if I can help you.

I think I'm done

I had this deep, intense, burning desire to be like all the cool kids and have a 3 column blog.

It was touch and go for a bit. At one point I thought I'd lost the whole mess. Fortunately, I did what the instructions told me to do and saved my original template.

I played with the colors a bit and finally settled on what you see. I might change them later and then again, maybe not.

I also finally figured out how to make the font bigger. Now I don't need reading glasses on top of my contacts.

I may do a little more rearranging to get things where I like them. Drag and drop is a wonderful thing.

From now on I think all of the pictures need to be centered to look right.


Anybody want an old, fat beagle that comes whether he's called or not? He howls at sirens and barks at people walking down the alley. Just kidding. He's my buddy.

Let me know what you think about the changes, even if you hate it.

Pardon the dust

I'm rearranging a bit and losing stuff left and right.