Blogger Sequel: Add Custom Social Bookmarking Icons

Social Bookmarking Icons

Recently we learned how to add custom social bookmarking  icons for WordPress. Well, that lovely feature is "NO LONGER JUST FOR WP!"

I wrote a Blogger tutorial at BPWebNews, "Adding Custom Social Bookmarks to Blogger." In this BWS sequel post I'll talk about the Blogger hack and some more tips for using the WP version.

What's new in this sequel

Flickr Access to 7 Icons

I've uploaded to Flickr the seven custom icons that BWS uses in our template. You may use these on your WP or Blogger hack until you select or make your own. This should give you a jump start. Copy and substitute the image address where called for in the WP tutorial. The Blogger hack uses the first five icons in the tutorial.

	Del.icio.us	http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3041/3554373391_cd28ab7c8d_o.png
	Digg	http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3571/3555181686_fc76aa8c95_o.png
	StumbleUpon	http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3358/3554373453_a366370146_o.png
	Technorati	http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3590/3554373481_a4ea7b5152_o.png
	Twitter	http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3411/3555181740_75748aed5c_o.png
	Via RSS	http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3555/3554373435_d1f1b316eb_o.png
	Via Email	http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2480/3555181704_f4516365b1_o.png

Substitute for SimpleTwitterLink Plugin

I used a variation of the code at Labnol.org for the Blogger hack to replace the Simple Twitter Link plugin. The url compression is by bit.ly, who created a Java-script that generates and sends the twitter message. The reader has  a chance to edit the post before updating Twitter:
http://bit.ly/url Reading: (title of your post)

Using The Blogger Hack Code

1. Decide which and how many icons you want to use. Since you can not show all social networking sites, select six or seven of  the most popular.  To cover those and many more, why not add a ShareThis or  AddToAny button just above or below your custom icons. Mr. I pointed this out and how he uses the sharethis button to find the link format for other services. The hack post provides a few more link examples in the Blogger format.
2. The Blogger Hack sets all links to open in a new window. My tutorial uses the same "Styling" and most of the "Code to Display Icons" from Mr I ---  with important differences for Blogger. There are no php functions (thank goodness!) You have no interference from 'plugins' since you set the exact order for the template elements. Cool.

Summary

If you have a Blogspot blog, then give it a try. You can  just as easily add those large colorful social bookmarking icons seen on WP blogs.  So continues the challenge of fitting the square WP peg into the round orange Blogger hole. Enjoy!