Google's Blogger adds Gadgets to Dynamic Views

About a week ago, Blogger Buzz posted their 3rd update of the Blogger Dynamic Views. In this release notice, they announced that several Gadgets are now supported. These include:

• Blog Archive
• Followers
• Labels
• Profile
• Subscribe
• Link List

These are great additions, but for those who utilize AdSense, you may find that this is only supported in the Sidebar and Classic front screen modes.

While I like the dynamic view formats, I found that one must be very careful when experimenting with the various templates. For example, if you click on your Blogger "Template" choice on the blogger sidebar, you will see a snippet view of what your blog looks like at the top of the page. Below, you will see the series of Dynamic View templates.

If you  roll your mouse over the templates, you will see a "Apply to Blog | Customize" tool tip.

But be careful, if you click "Apply to Blog" your blog template will automatically be converted!  You can revert back to the older version, but certain functionality will be lost. In particular, your Google Analytics will be gone.

The better way to play with the alternate dynamic views while not changing your physical blog is to click on the " Customize " button under the "Live on Blog" view at the top.  If you do this, you can click on the alternate Dynamic View templates and see what your blog will look like. If you don't want to change it, then just click the "Back to Blogger" link at the top (not Apply to Blog).

Two problems I discovered with Dynamic Views is that you cannot edit your html page directly or move around the widgets.  A third problem is discovering how to add the above Gadgets to your blog. If you have an existing blog containing the gadgets and simply convert it to Dynamic View, then your gadgets will automatically be transferred. However, if you do not have these on your blog and want to add them to your dynamic view, I have not found how to do this. Cheers!