Changing the theme-name and designer-name

This article is about changing the theme-name and the theme-designer-name associated with your Blogger template.

If your blog has a theme from Google (and indeed the same thing applied to themes from many third-party theme / template providers too), the code has a documentation section at the top.

This section gives the name of the theme, and perhaps the date it was created and the name & website of the designer.



You can see the header in your theme by editing the theme in the usual way.   Near the top of the code, just after   <b:skin><![CDATA[/*   there will be something like this:

In blogs with Designer themes:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Simple
Designer: Josh Peterson
URL:      www.noaesthetic.com
----------------------------------------------- */  

In blogs with Layout templates:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     565
Date:     28 Feb 2004
Updated by: Blogger Team
----------------------------------------------- */

In blogs with Custom themes:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Rounders 2
Date:     27 Feb 2004
----------------------------------------------- */

Notice that in each case, the code is between /*  and  */
These characters tell Blogger to treat the words between them as comments and not to show them when the blog-post is turned into a web-page for your readers.

If you make changes to your blog theme , it's a very good idea to make some notes about this in the documentation section, so that people who look at it later on (including you!) know what you've done and why.  For example:

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Simple
Designer: Josh Peterson
URL:      www.noaesthetic.com
Updates:   August 2010:  removed shadow around outer body border - as per instuctions from XXX (because it looks ugly in IE)
----------------------------------------------- */

But as well as this, you can also make changes to the existing information, for example:

/* -----------------------------------------------

Blogger Template Style

Name:     Simple

Designer: Josh Peterson and Freda Frog

URL:      www.noaesthetic.com

----------------------------------------------- */  

Any elements in Blogger (eg the attribution gadget) that use the existing data will pick up the change you make.   In the example above, the attribution gadget becomes:

You can also change the theme / template name, for example

/* -----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Not-quite-so-Simple
Designer: Josh Peterson and Freda Frog

URL:      www.noaesthetic.com
----------------------------------------------- */

Changing the theme-name has two side effects:

• It makes it possible to successfully delete the attribution gadget (by either unlocking and removing it, or commenting out the code) and

• Your blog may not get any new features and bug-fixes that Blogger apply to existing themes (ref Disadvantages of editing your theme).

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Related Articles

Deleting the attribution gadget

How to edit your blogger template / theme

Disadvantages of editing your theme