Creating a Blogger XML Theme with ChatGPT Codex: A Review of Applying It to 4 Blogs

When you run multiple blogs on Google Blogger, you start noticing one inconvenience after another with the default theme or existing template. I also found it necessary to revise my theme after running into issues with menus and thumbnails.

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At first, I tried to fix problems with the existing Blogger XML theme, such as menus not displaying properly or thumbnails disappearing. The publicly available third-party XML file I was using had also become increasingly complex and bloated, so it was time to reorganize the entire structure.

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But the more I looked at what needed changing, the more I thought it would be better to create a new design and structure rather than keep adding patches to the existing template.

So this time, I decided to create a Google Blogger theme from scratch using ChatGPT Codex 6 Astra and 6.1 SOL.

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I described the design and features I wanted in detail, then checked the results myself whenever Codex changed the code.

This was not a vague request to build a website, but a project involving the themes of four blogs that were already in operation.

My first requirement was that posts should be easy to read on both desktop and mobile.

I prioritized a readable layout over eye-catching decorations. I asked to keep the existing menus and links wherever possible and add the features I needed.

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I organized the main requirements as follows:

• Responsive design for desktop and mobile

• Keep existing menus and category links

• Display recent and popular posts

• Thumbnails and blog search

• Dark mode support

• Display 24 posts in the main feed

• Next-page navigation

• Place ads appropriately within the list

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For the main page in particular, I chose a list-style design with one post per row. Titles and thumbnails were arranged so they could be viewed at a glance. The page displays 24 posts, with navigation to the next page.

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Rather than inserting ads arbitrarily, I adjusted them to appear appropriately between posts in the list.

After I explained these requirements in conversation, Codex worked by modifying the Blogger XML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Not every feature worked correctly right from the start.

While revising the theme, issues sometimes came up, such as existing menus disappearing or thumbnails not displaying.

The problem I remember most was an XML parsing error caused by a conditional expression that Blogger does not support.

Even if the code looks plausible, it cannot be applied to the theme if the Blogger editor does not accept it.

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In these cases, I passed the error message shown in the editor directly to Codex, asked it to identify the cause, and revise the relevant section.

The arrows in the main post list also initially appeared but did not actually navigate between pages. I revised them to make the links work properly.

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One thing I learned clearly through this process was that having AI write the code does not mean the work will finish itself.

It was essential to test the theme by clicking the menus in the preview and on the live blog, and checking that the post list and thumbnails appeared as intended.

An important goal of this project was to unify the designs of the four blogs while retaining the features each site needed.

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If the code is managed entirely separately for each site, the same changes have to be repeated four times whenever the shared design is updated.

To reduce this duplication, I managed the shared CSS and JavaScript on GitHub, while keeping each blog’s menus and settings in its own XML.

This made it possible to manage the shared design in one place while reflecting each site’s distinct character and features.

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I also kept the existing tags for the primary and trip domains to retain the 5-language selection feature, and added a feature for selecting news by region to the news blog.

The blogs use the same design framework, but their features differ to suit each one’s purpose.

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See the post above for instructions on connecting a domain to Google Blogger using Cloudflare.

After revisions and testing, I applied the new Blogger XML template to my actual blogs.

I checked it on desktop and mobile in turn, verifying that key features such as menus, thumbnails, search, and page navigation worked properly.

The biggest thing I learned from using ChatGPT Codex was that being specific about the result you want is just as important as what you ask AI to create.

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Simply asking for a pretty blog produced different results from clearly specifying requirements such as the number of posts in the list, ad placement, and keeping existing menus.

When an error occurred, explaining which screen showed the problem and what happened, rather than just saying it did not work, helped identify how to fix it.

In the end, this Google Blogger theme creation projectwas not a task that AI completed entirely on its own.

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I set the requirements, Codex wrote and revised the code, and I repeatedly checked the results on the actual blogs until the work was complete.

If you want to customize a Blogger template yourself, even without much web design experience, you can try an AI coding tool such as ChatGPT Codex. However, you need to check for XML errors, make sure existing features are retained, and verify that everything works properly on the live site.

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