Tongue Twister

Any blogger who recently have tried to add or edit a gadget (page element) which did not have a title for the gadget must have come across this problem - the gadget cannot be saved without a title. Error message - "Required field must not be blank"

One way to solve the problem is of course to give them what they want - a title for the gadget. But then many don't want that, so how?

There is a simple solution, a trick if you may, to this problem. Put the HTML comment tag

<!-- -->

into the box (field) for the title. Such HTML comment tag will not be displayed in any browser.

Further, if you wish you can put some texts between the comment tag, it too will not be displayed

<!-- these text will not be displayed -->

Note: Had I typed in the comment tag exactly as you see it above, it would be invisible to you. You may be interested in how I got around it. Refer to How to display special characters or ways to display HTML tags in posts and comments

Additional note: For those not familiar with HTML comment tag and not confident about how the comment tag will appear after posting, you can try a test post or just copy-paste the following script:

<!-- this is a pair of HTML comment tag -->

into the post editor, Preview, and presto, the comments disappear!

"Is there a way to not have comments for a post in the body of the blog or post? I would like to have a "comment" page that readers can go to and comment there, but not on the post itself."

You can easily set any individual post to either allow or don't allow comments. You will have to first go to Dashboard, click SETTINGS > COMMENTS and set the blog to show comments:
Comments (.) Show ( ) Hide


All you need to do now when publishing a post is to click POST OPTION at the bottom left corner of the post editor and select one of the 3 options:
( ) Allow
( ) Don't allow, show existing
( ) Don't allow, hide existing

If you want to center (or align left or align right) the post title, sign into Dashboard > DESIGN > EDIT HTML to open the template editor and search for .post h3 (use ctrl+F) or code that may look something like those below (code below for Minima template, yours may be slightly different):

Reminder: Always backup template and backup gadgets before editing the template.

.post h3 {
margin:.25em 0 0;
padding:0 0 4px;
font-size:140%;
font-weight:normal;
line-height:1.4em;
color:$titlecolor;
}




The just add this line text-align:center;


.post h3 {
text-align:center;
margin:.25em 0 0;
padding:0 0 4px;
font-size:140%;
font-weight:normal;
line-height:1.4em;
color:$titlecolor;
}


preview and if OK, save template.

If you want to align the post title to the left or to the right, just substitute text-align:center; with either text-align:left; or text-align:right;

Note: If you can't find the relevant code, let me know what template you are using via my contact form

While blogs started as web logs or weblogs (chronological publication of personal thoughts or diary) and thus characteristically have a date header like the one above this post, but because blogs have now become a convenient way of putting content online, many have been using blogs for other purposes more like a typical website, many bloggers want to get rid of the typical date header.


That is not difficult to do. Sign into Dashboard > Design > Edit HTML to open the template editor and look for the block of code like the one below (for the Minima template, yours depending on your template may be slightly different):


/* Posts
-----------------------------------------------
*/
h2.date-header {
margin:1.5em 0 .5em;
}




and just add this line: visibility:hidden; for example like below:

/* Posts
-----------------------------------------------
*/
h2.date-header {
visibility:hidden;
margin:1.5em 0 .5em;
}


and the date header will be gone.