Google Groups now has a "My Discussions" view

This Quick-Tip is about how to see the posts you made in Google Groups - in particular in the Blogger Product Forum.

I used to be quite active in the previous Blogger Help Forum.   But since they switched to the new Google Groups based Blogger Product Forum, I've been less enthusiastic:

• The design doesn't work as well on the netbook that I use a lot of the time
• It wasn't easy to look up questions that I'd answered previously to see whether the answer was helpful.   

The old system used to tell me that there were new posts in topics that I'd posted in, so it was very easy to go back and either give more help (kind of "after sales service") or hear from people who I'd been able to help (good motivation for helping other people.).

Today I noticed that a feature which is almost as good has been introduced to Google Groups.

The left-hand navigation area now has an entry for "My Discussions".  Choosing it shows all posts with author:me. 

This is a list of posts, not a list of questions, and the ones with new posts since I last logged in are not in bold.   So it's not quite as good as the previous approach.   But it's close enough for me to take more interest in questions that I contributed to previously, which is good for both me and (I hope!) the person who asked the question.

New Blogger interface VS existing help-articles

This article explains the approach I'm taking to converting the advice in this blog to the new Blogger interface which was released in August 2011.

And it asks for ideas about the best way to describe where to find things in the new tool.

A new user-interface for Blog-writers:

Earlier this year, Google announced that they were working on a new look for the tool that we use to write our blogs.  Since then, we've been able to use this tool, in various forms in Blogger-in-Draft.

This week, they've announced that this new tool is available in "production" blogger.   ("Production" anything is geek-ese for the real version of it.)

As with lots of Google's new interfaces, there is

• A button on the old version to go to the new one, and
• A button on the new version to go back to the old one, and

Based on what's happened in other Google tools that have had new interfaces, my guess is that  we can expect these buttons to be around for quite a while.  Most probably, the option to go back won't be removed, but it will become irrelevant as ever-newer features are introduced to the "new" version only.


New front-end, old help-articles:

As well as the Blogger-help-forum, there are many other blogs (including this one) about "how to do things in Blogger".   I've described these before, and also made the Blogger-helpers-search tool which does a Google Custom Search of the best (IMHO) ones.

The new-look Blogger means that the advice in these blogs is (potentially) out-of-date, at least for people who are using the new interface.   And very soon, there will be new Blogger-users who've never seen the old interface and are really confused when someone says "go to the dashboard, choose Design > Page Elements and ..." - because they won't even know that the main Blogger screen used to be called the Dashboard.

So we've all got a challenge of updating our advice to reflect how things are done in new-Blogger.   Personally, I'm not so delighted about this:  I've spent most of my Blogger-HAT time in the last three months re-writing every single article to apply consistent formatting (Blogger-HAT started out as a place to keep all my working notes for myself) and quality standards to each article.  I will be updating my articles again, but in the meantime ...

Advice in Blogger-HAT is based on using the updated editor in pre-Sept-2011-Blogger, unless otherwise stated.

Which version of Blogger?

Today, it makes sense to talk about "new Blogger" and "old Blogger".    But it won't be long before "new" isn't so new anymore.    Personally I'm going to refer to:

Blogger	the current "production" version
Pre-Sept-2011-Blogger	The "old" version (which inludes the old and updated editor options under Settngs > Basics)
Draft Blogger	The experimental version where Google are trying out new things

Describing Blogger Commands

This week's changes mean we have another challenge in writing how-do instructions for Blogger.

Previously, the links to do things inside Blogger were labelled with text.  We could say
"go to the Dashboard, choose Edit Profile, find Identify and ...",  or even "Dashboard > Edit Profile > Identify".   And people who couldn't see where the command was could just use their Browser's help tool to search for the right place.

But now, small pictures (ie icons) are used instead.

So we need to find a way to descibe the new features which is

1. Understandable - especially by people who are new to Google / Blogger, and who don't know that the small round thing with bumps is called a gear-wheel, and is where Google usually hides the "setting" and "tools" type of commands, and
2. Concise enough so that articles and help-forum answers look readable  (eg needing to say "the small down-arrow to the right of the blog-name in the main blogger screen" every time I talk about that arrow).

Right now, I'm not sure how do this, and would love to hear any ideas you have about how I can describe the tools availabe from Blogger's screens - please use the comments below to let me know how you would like to see things described.

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Related Articles:



New Blogger interface announcement

Introducing the Blogger-helpers-search tool

Blogger-helpers-search tool

Adding a Google Custom Search to your blog

Using tables to display data in your blog.

Blogs, Blogger and bloggers - an introduction

Blogger and key non-Google products: an overview

This article is about other Google products that may be helpful to Blogger users.  Each product is briefly described, with links to the help centre, help forum, and other useful hints-and-tips article.

Non-Google products that are helpful for Bloggers:



This is not a complete listing of all other product that may be useful  it's simply a list of some that I think are key, or that I wanted to keep track of.

NB:  Always see the official documentation for official answers.

Product / Application	What it does	Where to get help
Twitter	Micro-blogging, ie posting very small (140 character) notices. Used for information sharing, but very effective for advertising in some niches.	Help centre Help forum Blogger-HAT articles
Facebook	Social networking	Help centre Help forum Blogger-HAT articles
Advertising networks	Everyone knows about AdSense, but there are lots of other advertising networkds that you can use on your blog.	Each programme has a help site. Advertising and Blogger - things to consider List of advertising programmese
Site-Meter	Statistics about your blog	Help centre Help forum
Statcounter	Another statistics tool.	Help centre Help forum
Amazon	The world largest bookstore - these days selling a lot more than books.    Different versions for the USA, Canada, UK/Ireland - and more.   Lets you put pictures of interesting things on your blog, and make money through affiliate links.	Each counrtyr's Amazon has its own Help centre and forum. BloggerHAT Amazon articles
ChipIn	Fundraising by campaign, with some helpful campaign management tools	BloggerHAT articles
Chitika	One particularly popular advertising programme	Help centre BloggerHAT articles
Flickf	An alternative photo-management tool - it also has a tool to let you search for public-domain (well Creative-Commons licensed) images that you can use in your blog.	BloggerHAT articles
LinkedIn	Social networking for your professional life	BloggerHAT articles
PayPal	Managing payments between you and just about anyone	BloggerHAT articles

What other non-Google applications are you using on, or with, your blogspot Blog?.

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Related Articles: 







Blogger and other Google products - an oveview



Understanding your Google account



File-sharing hosts:  other places to store files used in your blog



Showing a PowerPoint presentation in Blogger