Featured Post with Thumbnail in Blog

Hi guys. Did you wanted to have a featured post section in your Blogger blogs? You would have probably noticed that featured sections in the WordPress blogs quite often. People normally use this section to contain their top performing posts, so that they get a further boost up by those extra impressions. As many people tend to read the featured posts, this widget works quite well.
So lets see what we are going to achieve. The widget is placed at the bottom of the test blog.

Live Demo

The widget can also be seen at the bottom of MBT where you would find some really useful resources. So lets get started and add it to our blog.

Step 1: Adding The Main Code

Go to Design >> Add a Gadget >> HTML/JavaScript. Now simply add the following code in that widget:

<div id='mbtboxes'>
<div style='visibility: visible; overflow: hidden; position: relative; z-index: 2; left: 0px; width: 100%; '>

<ul>
<li>
<div class='mbtbody'>
<a class='Fadein3' href='POST 1 LINK'>
<img height='100' src='POST 1 IMG LINK' width='170'/>
</a>
<div class='clear'></div>
<h3><a href='POST 1 LINK'>POST 1 DESCRIPTION</a></h3>
<p>POST 1 PARAGRAPH</p>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class='mbtbody'>
<a class='Fadein3' href='POST 2 LINK'>
<img height='100' src='POST 2 IMG LINK' width='170'/>

</a>
<div class='clear'></div>
<h3><a href='POST 2 LINK'>POST 2 DESCRIPTION</a></h3>
<p>POST 2 PARAGRAPH </p>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class='mbtbody'>
<a class='Fadein3' href='POST 3 LINK'>
<img height='100' src='POST 3 IMG LINK' width='170'/>
</a>
<div class='clear'></div>
<h3><a href='POST 3 LINK'>POST 3 DESCRIPTION</a></h3>
<p>POST 3 PARAGRAPH</p>

</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class='mbtbody'>
<a class='Fadein3' href='POST 4 LINK' rel='nofollow'>
<img height='100' src='POST 4 IMG LINK' width='170'/>
</a>
<div class='clear'></div>
<h3><a href='POST 4 LINK' rel='nofollow'>POST 4 DESCRIPTION</a></h3>
<p>POST 4 PARAGRAPH</p>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class='mbtbody'>
<a class='Fadein3' href='POST 5 LINK'>

<img height='100' src='POST 5 IMG LINK ' width='170'/>
</a>
<div class='clear'></div>
<h3><a href='POST 5 LINK'>POST 5 DESCRIPTION</a></h3>
<p>POST 5 PARAGRAPH</p>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>

Add Your Own Links

The widget contains 5 featured posts. So your have to configure all those posts links, images for each posts, their description and a small paragraph related to that article.

I have separated all those 5 posts areas with different colors. Note that description is the main heading for the post. So don't confuse it with a small paragraph of few lines. Check the demo if you haven't.

Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3 | Post 4 | Post 5

Step 2: Adding CSS

Now go to Design >> Edit HTML and tick the check box. And don't forget to download your template for backup purposes.

Now search for the following code by (Ctrl + F):

]]></b:skin>

Now just above this code, add the following code:

/*----------- MBT Gallery -----------------*/

#mbtboxes{height:210px;overflow:hidden;margin:0px;position:relative;width:948px;background:; border:0px solid #333; padding:5px 5px;}
#mbtboxes ul{ margin-left: 10px; padding: 0pt; position: relative; list-style-type: none; z-index: 1;  width: 100%; }
#mbtboxes ul li{ overflow: hidden; float: left; width: 180px; height: 180px; border-top:0px solid #333; margin-right:6px; padding:2px 0px 4px 0px; }
#mbtboxes ul li:hover{ border-bottom:1px solid #c5c5c5; }
#mbtboxes img{width:150px;height:100px; padding:2px; border: 1px solid #A3A3A3; border-radius:10px; -moz-border-radius:10px;  margin-top:0px;}
#mbtboxes img:hover{border: 1px solid #c5c5c5; }
.mbtbody img{float:left}
.mbtbody {position:relative;margin:0 5px 0 5px;width:170px;height:210px;display:inline;float:left;color:#c4c4c4}
.mbtbody h3{padding:5px 0;font-size:12px;font-weight:bold; font-family: verdana, sans-serif, arial; margin:0;}
.mbtbody h3 a:link,.mbtbody h3 a:visited{color:#2F97FF;}
.mbtbody h3 a:hover{color:#c5c5c5}
.mbtbody p{margin:0; padding:0 0;color:#cdcdcd;font:10px normal verdana, sans-serif, Arial;}
.Fadein3 img {
filter:alpha(opacity=80);
opacity: 0.8;
border:0;
}
.Fadein3:hover img {
filter:alpha(opacity=100);
opacity: 1.0;
border:0;
}

Now simply save your template and would be all done.

NOTE: The images that you would link to the widget, should be 170px width and 100px in height. You may like to read :

Create Blogger Backup For Images And Get Image URLs

Customization:

Say if you want to match the widget with your colored template. You can easily do that by changing the background color code that i have made bold the coded above.

background: Your Color Code;

Or you could add a border to the widget by using 1 or 2 at most instead of value 0.
border:0px

Thats all. Hope that was useful and exciting. Waiting for your feed back.
Cheers!