Not All Template Designer "Advanced" Wizards Work

An occasional blog owner reports frustration with various "Advanced" Template Designer wizards, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

I have entered my new colour palette under "template>advanced>" - and the colours will not show up on the blog.

I even checked that the colour values were right under "Edit HTML".

This blog owner wants different background colours, than are provided as defaults - and does not understand why the wizards, that advise

Template applied.

simply don't work.

The problem, with blogs that use a "Simple" template, is that the template does not contain the CSS rules required, to allow the wizards to produce results.

Every "Advanced" wizard uses 3 elements.
Every Template Designer "Advanced" setting wizard requires 3 elements.

1. The GUI wizard (below).
2. The "Variable definitions" section, which defines the GUI wizards (below), and the CSS variables.
3. The CSS rules, that use the variables.

The "Simple" templates omit the necessary CSS rules.
Every template provides #1, and #2. "Simple" omits #3, for various wizards.


At least 3 "Advanced" wizards don't work, with "Simple" templates.



This paragraph of "Variable definitions" code appears to be common to all templates.


This is one known problem "Advanced" wizard group.

<Group description="Backgrounds" selector=".body-fauxcolumns-outer">
<Variable name="body.background.color" description="Outer Background" type="color" default="#66bbdd"/>
<Variable name="content.background.color" description="Main Background" type="color" default="#ffffff"/>
<Variable name="header.background.color" description="Header Background" type="color" default="transparent"/>
</Group>

The group requires CSS rules, which use 3 variables.
For the 3 wizards to work, the template needs CSS rules to use

• body.background.color
• content.background.color
• header.background.color

The required CSS rules just are not present, in "Simple" templates.
Each of the above 3 CSS names are present only in the "Variable definitions" section. In the "Simple" template, there are no CSS rules to make the variables useful.

I've seen this a couple times. Some templates are not complete.

"Simple" is just that.

There are solutions.
There are several possible solutions, in order of reality.

1. Use a different template.
2. Remove the extraneous code from the "Simple" template.
3. Add the necessary CSS, to use the variables defined.

Most blog owners, reporting the problem, will opt for #1 - though I suspect that this omission has caused some confusion that is not reported.