Creating a Responsive Recent Posts Slide for Blogger using Labels

Blogger is a popular platform for bloggers due to its simplicity and ease of use. However, customizing the layout and functionality of a Blogger blog can be a challenge, especially when it comes to creating responsive slideshows or carousels. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to create a responsive recent posts slide using labels in Blogger.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following:

A Blogger account and a blog with some content.
Basic knowledge of HTML and CSS.
Familiarity with the Blogger post editor.

Creating the Slide

First, let's create the HTML structure for our responsive recent posts slide. We will use labels to filter the posts and display them in the carousel.

Go to your Blogger dashboard and select your blog.
Click on "Layout" in the left sidebar and then click on "Add a gadget".
Select "HTML/JavaScript" from the list of available gadgets and click "Configure".
Replace any existing code with the following:

<div id="carousel">
  <ul id="postsList"></ul>
</div>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.5.1.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function () {
  // Your JavaScript code goes here
});
</script>
<style>
/* Add your custom CSS rules here */
</style>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Replace the existing HTML structure with the above code -->

Fetching and Displaying Posts

Now we will use JavaScript to fetch and display recent posts based on their labels.

Update the <script> tag with the following code:

$(document).ready(function () {
  // Set up variables for the carousel and labels
  const carousel = $("#carousel");
  const postsList = $("#postsList");

  // Fetch posts based on labels using Blogger's API
  function getPostsByLabel(label) {
    return $.getJSON(`https://www.blogger.com/feeds/${window.location.host}/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&max-results=5`, data => {
      const posts = data.feed.entry;
      const filteredPosts = posts.filter(post => post.label.$t === label);
      return filteredPosts;
    });
  }

  // Display the fetched posts as list items in the carousel
  function displayPosts(posts) {
    postsList.empty();
    for (const post of posts) {
      const li = $("<li></li>").html(`<a href="${post.link}">${post.title.$t}</a>`);
      postsList.append(li);
    }
  }

  // Initialize the carousel with recent posts from all labels
  function initCarousel() {
    const labels = ["label1", "label2", "label3"]; // Replace with your desired labels
    let allPosts = [];

    for (const label of labels) {
      getPostsByLabel(label).then(posts => {
        allPosts = allPosts.concat(posts);
        displayPosts(posts);
      });
    }

    // Add your responsive carousel initialization code here
  }

  initCarousel();
});
</script>

Replace the labels array with the labels of the posts you want to display in the carousel. Make sure to include jQuery for the JavaScript to work correctly.

Save and close the HTML/JavaScript gadget.
Go back to the "Layout" tab, find your new gadget, and drag it to a desirable position on your blog.
Preview your blog to see the responsive recent posts slide in action!

This tutorial should provide you with a good starting point for creating a custom responsive recent posts slide using labels in Blogger. Keep exploring and modifying this code to suit your unique needs and style. Happy blogging!

Published July, 2017