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Monday, October 18, 2010

Customize Tabs on Pages Gadget

This one is a real quicky. In this tutorial, you will learn how to customize the tabs and its links on the Pages gadgets.


Step 1:

View your blog. Use Firefox (or any other browser that allows you to view it's source) - Right Click - View Page Source - copy everything from <ul> to </ul>

Mine looks something like this:
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/'>Home</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/search/label/homemade.html'>Homemade Posts</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/search/label/imported.html'>Other Posts</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/link.html'>Link</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/contact.html'>Contact</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/archive.html'>Archive</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/photos.html'>Photos</a></li>

Step 2:

Customize the links however you want. URL goes after href, and  the name of the tab is typed before </a>. And if you want your customizes tab to be your second tab, make it be your second line. So my customised tab looks something like this:

<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/'>Home</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/search/label/homemade.html'>Homemade Posts</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/search/label/imported.html'>Other Posts</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/link.html'>Link</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/contact.html'>Contact</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/archive.html'>Archive</a></li>
<li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/p/photos.html'>Photos</a></li>

Step 3:

Copy this code, go to Dashboard - Design - Edit HTML - Check Expand Widget Templates - and delete everything before <ul> to </ul> and replace with the above code - Save template

That's it. Note that I have omitted a little effect of highlighted clicked tab for simplicity purposes. If you want this effect to be available, refer to this following tutorial as I mentioned in there how to achieve it.

Oh, and don't forget to back up your template before attempting anything. Have fun trying.

8 comments:

  1. Thanks! good explanation. Just what I wanted. super easy.
    You're going in my bookmarks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @PancakeNinja: Good to know :) While we're still on this page, it will also be a good idea to use LinkList gadget instead of using the method above to add external links. Just that your blog will be opening a new tab for each one of your tab links.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How do you add the internal links as new pages after you deleted the pages widget? What url would you use to identify the page?

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Limbaugh: If you were referring to adding Pages links in Linklist gadget, you can find the URLs of your pages by going to Dashboard - Edit Posts - Edit Pages - View and copy the address from the address bar of your browser.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. would I be able to use target="_blank" to open up an external link in a new tab? If so where do I insert it? Thanks :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Bonnie: You certainly could. Use the following format:

    <li><a href='http://yoboytestblog.blogspot.com/search/label/imported.html' target="_blank">Other Posts</a></li>

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for all of your wonderful help! Remember seeing a post where you could change the labels to customized images (I remember seeing a Facebook and Twitter customized image on the top bar)--any chance you can explain how to do just that? Many thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete

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