So this is the new Blogger Beta…

I updated my blog to Blogger beta as they have been nagging me to do at login, so this is my first post in the new system. It's not so different. New post and other things move one click back, to the dashboard. There are also labels. No more Republish Entire Blog or Republish Index, because it just happens. Now I have to log in with my Google ID, too, not Blogger. I also tried to update the blog Template to the new Layout format for a refreshing change, and it was refreshing, but lost too much in the translation, so I switched it back. Instead of comprehensible html, or potentially comprehensible css, Blogger Beta's Layout format uses its own dialect of css which has been deconstructed by a handful of people and is described on Blogger support somewhere, if you google around. I would lose not just fonts and colors, as they warned me, but the current Nasa sun gif, (recently inadequately dressed) weather pixies, tag clouds (which have found a place to live without screwing up the page at the bottom of the body), all scripts and most images that are outside of posts. I would have to learn Blogger beta's unique css in order to recode those things back in, if that is even possible. I wonder if there is not some attempt to control the content and constrain it to mostly google-centric objects and widgets. For anyone setting up a new Blogger blog, it will be the layout format by default, so that is what you will get. For the person who is afraid to open the Template tab and tweak the html, the new drag-and-drop Layout editing will be easier. For advanced coders who can deconstruct and hack the Layout format language, it may be better, too. For those of us who are in between those two extremes, it seems that it is better to switch to Blogger beta, but not to change the Template to a Layout at this time, in my opinion. I am sure that Google has more improvements in the pipeline, so this may change.