clearspring - the widget network.

You have several options for getting your widget out into the world, and it all starts with one or more seeding points -- locations that you set up and from which initial users can obtain your widget.  All Clearspring-enabled widgets get the viral sharing options (via the dock that sits below your widget and the menu that it pops up), so the idea is that once the widget is initially seeded, users will then be able to get it from existing instances, without having to go back to some central seeding point.  Of course, if you are a site developer or owner and want to allow users to obtain your widget from your own site, you can do that as well. 

Using your Widget's Code

The most common way to seed your widget from a site or page of your own is to just include the Clearspring-enabled widget in that page.  Users will see your widget there, and can use the standard dock to  get it for themselves, wherever they want it.

You can get the code to include on your page from the Widget Console, using the Share it -> Get the Code tool.

If you need to specify certain configuration parameters for your widget, you can use the URL scheme to do this; read more about this in the Overriding Parameters topic.

Including the Launchpad Menu on Your Site

If you are seeding the widget from your own site, the Launchpad viral sharing menu can allow you to directly entice your visitors to grab your widget with some simple HTML. You can read all about Launchpad in this section.

Launchpad is available in the Widget Console, using the Share it -> Launchpad tool.

The Clearspring Widget Homepage

Each and every Clearspring-enabled widget can optionally be given a homepage on the Clearspring site. This page allows visitors to grab your widget using any of the supported viral services, and even to leave you comments and ratings. You can hand out links to this page however you want, and some of our gallery syndication partners and indexing search engines will even suck your widget in from this page.

It's up to you whether or not your widget has a public homepage, you can set this from within the Widget Console, using the Share it -> Widget homepage tool.

The Widget Homepage itself is fairly customizable, all from within the management console. For example, you can change the page layout:

• Normal: The normal template will auto-resize any widget that is wider than 400 pixels
• Wide: The wide template DOES NOT resize the widget and is suitable for any widget that exceeds 450 pixels in width
• Tall: The tall template DOES NOT resize the widget and is suitable for widgets less than 450 pixels in width and greater than 400 pixels in height

If you can code CSS, you can even customize the look of the entire page by specifying your own custom stylesheet.

Note: If your widget is dynamically registered via Launchpad, as opposed to being registered via URL, then it will NOT have a Widget Home Page until it has been shared at least one time.

Publishing to Widget Galleries

If you want to allow your widget to be visible in various external Widget Galleries, Clearspring can help you there as well.  You can use the Widget Console's Share it -> Publish to galleries tool to publish your widget into the leading galleries.  Putting your widget into any of these galleries doesn't change the fact that you're widget will have all the Clearspring features, but it will also be visible to users of those gallery sites.  For widgets that don't need a tremendous amount of context and make sense to be distributed outside of your own website, the gallery publication option is a great one.

Creating a Facebook Application

If you'd like, you can take your destination support a step further bu making your Flash widget into a Facebook application. Read more about this option here.

Using the Placement API

If you are distributing your  widget from your own website, and want to be able to hand visitors code snippets that they can use to embed your widget, you can actually generate these using our Placement API.  The API lets you ask the Clearspring system for code snippets for specific configurations of specific widgets.  This is a powerful mechanism for sites that want greater control of the user experience of giving code to users.