OK, I was going to write about something else this morning, and then I woke up and discovered that Blogger has metamorphosed overnight while I was asleep. You won't have noticed from reading this page, but all those of us who write Blogger blogs now have a 'new look, new features, new templates' style of input page. It's certainly different. It's going to take some getting used to. And I hate it. This is probably a natural reaction to change, like when Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen reveals the outcome of a Changing Rooms makeover to a couple of startled homeowners, and I'll probably learn to live with it eventually. But sorry, I'm sitting here over breakfast on day 1 and I hate it. And here's why.
• It's dumbed down. I think all the old features are still there, and probably lots more too, but you get less of them on screen at the same time. Now it's one window, one thing, whereas before you could do nigh everything from the same blog-entry page.
• It's based on the lo-fi version of old Blogger. That's the version that users of non-standard browsers like Safari were forced to use (and I had to use while I was using a Mac in the US last month), rather than the all-singing all-dancing multitasking version the rest of us have been enjoying.
• It's designed for a different screen size to mine. This means that all the crucial windows for typing text into are the wrong size - in my case much too small, filling only half a screen. I've only written 18 lines of text so far but I've just reached the bottom of the entry window, and now my first lines are scrolling off the top out of sight. Sigh.
• I can't redraft a blog post and see what the old post looked like any more. So I can't see what all the code I'm using is supposed to look like, and make changes as appropriate. Only one or the other on screen at the same time. I think this is the innovation I hate the most.
• It's trying to be Moveable Type. It's trying very very hard indeed, almost to the point of plagiarism. Moveable Type is swish and clever and feature-packed I know, because I've used it before, but I don't like it. I got to play with MT for three weeks while I was babysitting Blue WitchDown Under, after which I told myself I'd never move over to MT myself because it was all too bitty. And now an MT clone has taken me over instead.
• Bloody American dates. The 'edit posts' page we Bloggers get to use lists everything by American date. Today is not 5/10/2004, it's 10/5/2004. It used to say "May 10 2004", which I could happily cope with.
• We now have the option to link to individual posts, rather than just jump to one post somewhere in a weekly/monthly archive. Just like MT. Trouble is, I don't like linking to just one post. I want my visitors to arrive and see the whole page, not just one small out-of-context segment. I bet very few blog visitors ever bother to click on 'Main' to view the whole page anyway. So, not for me.
• Blogger now has inbuilt comments. Excellent. Except that you have to turn on the 'link to individual posts' option before you can use them. So I don't think I'll be bothering. Haloscan, I'm sticking with you.
I think I need to come back after work and play with NewBlogger some more. I may discover lots of lovely new features, and that I don't hate it quite so much as I think I do at the moment. But, so long as I remain trapped typing withn this tiny window surrounded by white space, I'm going to take some persuading.
