Use Nvu to Create BlogSpot Templates?

You could probably open a saved version of any page you particularly liked and effect changes to suit the final "look" you wanted.

Save it in Firefox as an HTML page rather than a Web Page because the latter creates a directory of images associated with the html sheet, and changes all the links to point towards that directory.

Then edit and save it, and copy it to your working directory whenever you wanted to create a new one. To be on the safe side, I would suggest you name your design template.html

Just a word of advice regarding copyright on the page or pages you derive from others' work....

In the source code for an html page you can remark out (so they are not visible) comments in the way you can with xml.

Remarks are contained between opening < and closing > parentheses like a tag, but with an ! immediately after the opening like this <!

Look to see if you can find a copyright notice to the effect that they don't want others to steal their work

In any case, if you use someone else's work, you should include an acknowledgement - even in the same way I described for remarking. And also save an original of the page that does not have a copyright statement in it, in case someone accuses you later of stealing copyright material. [typo edited]

To be on the safe side, always write to the webmaster of the site where you found the layout you liked. Obtain their permission in writing.

Richard

You can use NVU (or KompoZer, that is more recent) to make an HTML template. But recent Blogger templates use a XML based language, that mixes XHTML and XML with their own namespace.

So you have the following possibilities:

1. Revert to Classic Template, download one, and modify it;
2. Use NVU (or KompoZer) to make a prototype, and port it manually to the XML Blogger Template.

#1 is easier, but #2 has the advantage you can still order widgets trough the visual schema on the Settings without manually changing the template every time you change something.

In case you decide the 2nd, here are some useful links:

• CSS from the Ground Up (actually an HTML tutorial)
• CSS Tutorial
• XHTML Tutorial
• XML Tutorial
• How To Create Your Own Blogger Template Theme

I hope I have helped!