A blog with no posts is like a pub with no beer?
Previously I've explained how to only show one post on the main page - and this explanation looked at the types of screen that your non-dynamic-template blog can have (main, label, archive, post, and page). But some people who want to give their blog a home page want to go further than that, and not show any posts on the main screen at all. (Remember, the main screen is where people who navigate to your blog, rather than to posts within it, go.)
This sounds like a strange thing to do - after all, blogs are about posts.
But actually it's fine, provided you use some other tools to let readers move around the blog. I've made a 150+ page blog this way, and it works very nicely because I have organised the information and used of "key" pages (lists of bus-routes, suburbs, shopping centres, etc) with tables that link to many other posts.
How to show no (ie zero, 0) posts on the main screen?
Some people want to do this, as part of the process of giving their blog a home page. Again, it's not possible (at the moment, anyway) using Dynamic templates, but can be done with others:
In Blogger-2011:
- Choose the Options drop down from the main menu,
- Choose the Settings > Posts and Comments panel from the left sidebar.
- Enter zero (0) into the Show at most field
- Click Save Settings in the top right hand corner of the screen.
In the pre Sept-2011 Blogger:
In this interface, you can change posts-per-page on the Settings > Formatting screen to 0, and it works nicely.
Unfortunately the Design > Page Elements > edit Blog Posts screen doesn't accept 0 as a valid value, so if you later need to change something on it, you need to:
- Change it to 1 on the edit Blog Posts screen
- Make the other changes you need to make on that screen
- Save the changes
- Use Settings > Formatting to change posts-per-screen back to 0,
- Save again.
Doing this means that there is a slight period (maybe a minute or two, depending on how fast you are) when your blog will show a post on the main screen. But this is a problem that most people can live with.
What your readers see:
Unless you take steps to avoid it, your readers will see a grey box saying "0 Posts" when they look at your blog's main URL. Some of the things you can do to avoid this include hiding the "showing posts with label XXX" message, and creating a gadget that only shows on the "home" page.
Related Articles:
Limiting your blog to only have one post on the main page
Giving your blog a home page
What are dynamic view templates?
Blogger template types
.
Using tables in your blog
Displaying a gadget only on the home page
