Using Bootstrap with Blogger Templates

Well, some of you may have been waiting for my second part of the Wordpress vs Blogger review. But, I was sidetracked by a much more ambitious project - merging the dynamic Bootstrap web framework with Blogger. I knew initially that this would be quite a challenge to get it right - and was I correct in that assumption. Note: since this was written I was able to successfully replace this tutorial's Bootstrap 3 code with the Bootstrap 4 and new JQuery libraries. The newer Bootstrap CSS code has not yet been tested. More to come...

So just what is Bootstrap? You can go over to their site and read up, but, at a very high level it is designed as a starter kit for dynamic web UI layouts that utilize CSS and Javascript for a great user experience. If you've seen sites like this one, or this other one - you'll see how Bootstrap can be beautifully extended. In the case of Blogger almost all of their templates are very static and were designed in the 2005-2010 time frame. In the last few years the web has exploded with new, dynamic web frameworks that have reactive interactivity without page refreshes.

The easy path to my task would have been to strip out the entire Blogger template and add Bootstrap in its place as some of these template providers have done. But, if you read my Best Blogger Templates article you know that I am a stickler for keeping Google Blogger as pure to its original intent of a dynamic layout and user substitution of design elements vs a copy-paste of some Wordpress or other template like Bootstrap and just getting it to work.

How to Use Blogger on the iPad

As I noted in my previous post using the free default Blogger iPad application produced by Google can be done but has severe limitations. Thankfully I'm now sitting at the very same table using a different 3rd party application (which I will describe in a moment) that makes Blogger on the iPad a joy to use. In fact, I may just end up using this app more than my laptop for future posts. This isn't the only Blogger iPad application, I'm sure. But, it comes to the top of the list when you search the App Store at Apple. Let me dive in deeper on this.

My choice for Blogging on the iPad

The app I selected is called BlogTouch Pro (version 2.6.5) by Alexandru Denca. I had downloaded the free version initially but found immediately that the feature/functionality was so much greater than the Google tool that I just ended up buying it for only $4.99.

The first thing I noticed was the full editor feature set that was sorely lacking in the Google tool. I mentioned in my previous article that the smaller font size in the Google editor was driving my eyes crazy and made it mostly unusable for an iPad Mini (a larger iPad would probably be ok). Well, right away I altered this post's font size and now have a very comfortable screen to view and type on. I really like that the editor also fills the entire window with a very clean look.

Blogger on the iPad - Part 1

I love my iPad mini - in fact, I find myself using it more and more for most of my day to day work and even my home business work. Now that I have a Zagg keyboard for it as well I find it even easier. Some of the research I've been doing over the last few months is on what the best Blogger app is for the iPad. Blogging on the iPad is convenient and works great if you're traveling or on the move. Frankly, I hate carrying around a laptop on vacations and have fully adopted my both my iPhone and iPad for any remote work.

That said, there still are some problems with using Blogger mobile apps. The iPad mini is small and compresses your screen size significantly. Additionally, viewing web sites or using online tools becomes more problematic due to the sites switching to mobile modes which can be reduce usability especially for those sites that have been designed for full laptop or desktop work.

Google's Blogger Tool for iOS

I must say I was excited to see that right away Google had created an iOS tool (version 2.1.7.2) for both iPhone and iPad specifically for Blogger that was free in the App Store. I immediately downloaded it and began trying it out.