Well, I have this thing up and running fairly well... Adding the AFTR widget was easier then I expected. I used the Add "HTML/Javascript" gadget with the code from the Widgets page for the 800 wide version. Its seems to fit well with the layout I've chosen.
Migrating from my custom software to Blogger wasn't as difficult as I expected, save one area - the meta tags. I have yet to get the meta tags for Title, Description, Author, and Keywords working without editing the template by hand and completely screwing it up. This one has been absolutely frustrating to no end. I've been building web sites for over ten years and given my level of frustration, I can only imagine what a true novice blogger feels. It really does open the door wide for WordPress, TypePad or some other platform.
I've read several ways to add the meta tags by hand, but I really don't want to go that way as it can be a real pain and seriouly limits the use of templates. Going the manual way means adding the meta tags back in every time changes are made to the layout. Thats just not a good way to go, especially for beginners. One would have thought that Google would have used the proper metrics since they are a search engine. In all honesty, it seems Google is self defeating its own system.
In the interim, I've programmed the AFTR spider to pull the meta data from a blog's RSS. While its not the best way to go, its significantly better then trying to figure out Blogger's crazy mechanics. I personally am not interested in becoming an expert in "Blogger Babble" and its probably safe to assume neither are most of Blogger's users....
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