Changing the template-name and designer-name

This article is about changing the template-name and the template-designer-name associated with your Blogger template.

If your blog has a template from Google (and indeed from many third-party template providers too), the code has a documentation section at the top, which says the name of the template, and perhaps the date it was created and the name & website of the template designer.

You can see the header in your template by editing the template in the usual way - you don't need to expand the widgets.   Near the top of the code, just after   <b:skin><![CDATA[/*   there will be something like this:


In blogs with Designer templates:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Simple
Designer: Josh Peterson
URL:      www.noaesthetic.com
----------------------------------------------- */  

In blogs with Layout templates:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     565
Date:     28 Feb 2004
Updated by: Blogger Team
----------------------------------------------- */

In blogs with Custom templates:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Rounders 2
Date:     27 Feb 2004
----------------------------------------------- */

Notice that in each case, the code is between /*  and  */
These characters tell Blogger to treat the words between them as comments and not to show them when the blog-post is turned into a web-page for your readers.

If you make changes to your blog template, it's a very good idea to make some notes about this in the documentation section, so that people who look at it later on (including you!) know what you've done and why.  For example:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Simple
Designer: Josh Peterson
URL:      www.noaesthetic.com
Updates:   August 2010:  removed shadow around outer body border - as per instuctions from XXX (because it looks ugly in IE)
----------------------------------------------- */

But as well as this, you can also make changes to the existing information, for example:

/* -----------------------------------------------

Blogger Template Style

Name:     Simple

Designer: Josh Peterson and Freda Frog

URL:      www.noaesthetic.com

----------------------------------------------- */  

Any elements in Blogger (eg the attribution gadget) that use the existing data will pick up the change you make.   In the example above, the attribution gadget becomes:

You can also change the template name, for example

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Not-quite-so-Simple
Designer: Josh Peterson and Freda Frog

URL:      www.noaesthetic.com
----------------------------------------------- */

Changing the template-name has two side effects:

• It makes it possible to successfully delete the attribution gadget (by either unlocking and removing it, or commenting out the code) and

• Your blog may not get any new features and bug-fixes that Blogger apply to existing templates (ref Disadvantages of editing your template).

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Related Articles:

Deleting the attribution gadget

How to edit your blogger template

Disadvantages of editing your template.