Got Me My Pretty Protagonize Link Badge!

Been playing some with html today. Those links to other web sites arrayed in the sidebar, while functional, looked ho'hum. They wanted gussying up. Nick, our wizard behind the curtain over at Protag, made it sound simple to do, even un'scary, and I'd been meaning to add a Protag link badge to start.

As simple and un'scary as copy-pasting the desired link badge html code into the blog template: Nick's instructions.

Blogger made the simple even simpler. No need for me to dig through all that html holding up my template, and trying to find...wherever it's supposed to be spliced in. And that precisely the kind of fiddling about I felt nervous over, because inexperienced and random fiddling's bound to result in Oopsie!, and prob'ly mess up the whole show. Turns out fiddling isn't necessary. Blogger has gadgets, y'see. Gadgets that plug into the template without need of going into the html to splice them in. From the Layout page. Simply select the gadget, and drag n'drop it wherever looks best. Might bring in a Links list, for instance, or a game, or news blurb service. I haven't explored all the gadgets yet, for usefulness, or fun factor. For my purpose today, plugged-in a gadget that inserted html code: just the thing for someone wanting to add, say, a link badge.

Simple, done, and functioning properly in seconds.

Then noticed some other Protagonists' blogs' links sent the interested not to Protag's main page, rather to the authors' profiles. Seemed a great idea: easy enough to correct by deleting the gadget if broken after my fiddling with. There was a sort of Aha moment, and I felt adventurous. The html for the link looked to be in two parts. The second: the image source for the badge itself; its dimensions in pixels the giveaway. The first part obviously being the address, the where the link would link me to. Already knew the url for my Protag profile page. Carefully added the bits. Careful not to stray. The whole thing enclosed like a poem, after all.

It worked. Wanted to play some more. But the HubbleSite's link badges must be level 2 in this game. And that one will have to wait. Did as easily plug-in a HubbleSite news link, tho. Eventually will have to figure out html enough if page element dimensions are tweakable.