Display Thumbnails for Popular Posts in Blogger

I wanted to show thumbnails in my Popular Posts and I achieved this by using CSS.

Prerequisites:
The Popular Posts widget must be added to the Sidebar in your Blogger template.
Posts have a featured image. In Blogger, this is generally the first image in the post's HTML content. My featured image is 550px by 550px.
Post title and image thumbnail must be checked on the widget configuration options.

Modify the code below and replace #sidebar-right-1 with the name of your right sidebar section and replace #PopularPosts1 with the name of your popular posts widget/gadget.

Search for  </head> and paste the CSS below just above  </head>
The CSS

 <style type='text/css'>  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul{padding:0;margin:0;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 .item-thumbnail a{clip:auto;display:block;height:auto;overflow:hidden;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 .item-thumbnail{width:130px;height:130px;border-right:5px solid #fff;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px !important;position:relative;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 .item-thumbnail img{position:relative;height:auto;width:100%;padding:0;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul li{float:left;margin-bottom:5px;max-height:130px;min-width:250px;overflow:hidden;}  
  #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child{background:#E7717D;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li{background:#C2CAD0;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li{background:#E7717D;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li{background:#C2CAD0;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li{background:#E7717D;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 ul li:first-child + li + li + li + li + li{background:#C2CAD0;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 .item-title{font:13px &#39;Arial&#39;, sans-serif;text-transform:capitalize;padding:5px 2px 5px;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 .item-title a{color:#000;text-decoration:none;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 #PopularPosts1 .item-snippet{font:13px &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,Times,FreeSerif,serif;padding-right:5px;}  
   #sidebar-right-1 .#PopularPosts1 .widget-content ul li{padding:0px 5px 0px 0px!important;}  
 </style>  

The :first-child CSS pseudo-class represents the first element among a group of sibling elements. In this case, it targets the first popular post in my list, li:firstchild.
To prevent my popular posts thumbnail from being pixelated I changed the following statement

 <b:with value='data:post.featuredImage.isResizable ? resizeImage(data:post.featuredImage, 72, &quot;1:1&quot;): data:post.thumbnail' var='image'>  

to

 <b:with value='data:post.featuredImage.isResizable ? resizeImage(data:post.featuredImage, 550, &quot;550:550&quot;): data:post.thumbnail' var='image'>  

The images in my post are 550px x 550px.

How To Use Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) in IIB

JAXB enables IIB via the Java Compute Node to work with a model of message data as Java object classes. This Java object model can be accessed and manipulated by using getter and setter methods.

In IIB Toolkit import the XML schema into your application.

Create a message flow with a JavaCompute node, select the Process via Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) class template.

Click Finish.

Select a Message Model Schema file or container with schema from which JAXB Java Object Classes will be generated. Select option to Generate JAXB Java Object Classes from Message Model Schema for us in the Java Compute Node Class.

Type the Java Target Source Folder and the Target Java Package and click Finish.
Accept the default values on the next screen and click Finish.

The JAXB Java object classes are visible in the Application Development view, under the JaxbAppJava(in my case) source folder of the Java project that you selected in the wizard.

The next thing to do is to process the message body data by using JAXB Java object classes, the JAXB Java object classes are a Java object representation of your message.

The code below shows some JAXB code that reads a record from the payload using a getter method.