clearspring - the widget network.

The Widget Console allows you to customize  the Launchpad In-Widget API sharing menu.  To customize the menu for an on-page widget, locate the widget in your My Widgets listing and click "Edit".  From the Edit Widget section click the "Menu" button on the left.  

The left side of the customization section provides you all the available options for customizing the menu, which will be discussed below.  On the right side a preview of your content and the menu will be displayed as you had created the menu.  if you did not provide any content when you created the menu you will only see the menu.

Now lets get customizing

Code Type

Select the language that you are creating your widget.  This will make sure that the Launchpad In-Widget API code generated will meet your development requirements.  The API is supported in the following development languages:

• ActionScript3
  
• ActionScript2
• JavaScript
  

The latest Launchpad sharing menu is available with our ActionScript3 and JavaScript APIs.  If you are using ActionScript2 you will gave access to the previous version of the sharing menu, which provides all the sharing capabilities of the current menu, but does not allow for customizing the menu.

Share Menu

As a developer you can choose to take adavntage of the full code library or just what is needed for sharing.  The Share Menu option allow you to select which APIs you need.

The Default Menu option provides access to all aspects of the API, menu, sharing and tracking.  While the Sharing API provides the core sharing and tracking services but not the menu.  Using the Sharing API allows you to create your own sharing menu experience using the Launchpad sharing platform.  Finally if tracking is all that is needed then select the Just Tracking option.  This gives you the power to add tracking capabilities to your widget.

If you select using the Default Menu the other options are available to customize the menu using the console.  Note that all these customization can be made and updated via the APIs, the console makes it easier to get started. 

Color Theme

Select the color options for the menu when it is displayed.  We provide you four pre-defined themes, with the ability to tweak the color, or to fully customize the menu colors yourself.  If you select Custom as your choice, the color values of the last theme select will be pre-populated.

To change any of the menu colors simply click entry box and enter the HEX color value.  Also, when you click the entry box a color picker will be displayed.  This makes it easier to select the color you want.

Menu Size

The size of the menu that will be displayed is fully customizable.  We provide two options:

• Full: the menu will use as much space as available on the widget
  
• Custom: define the exact size of the menu for your widget
  

To help with sizing the menu a sample preview page, below the selections, is available so you can better gauge the size of the menu on an actual Web page..

The menu will continue to display to a size of W:165 x H: 155.  When you scale below that size the menu is no longer available, however a single button, with "get & share this widget", will be available.  When a user clicks that button they are directed to the the widget home page so a user can grab your widget an post it to their favorite destination.  In addition to a minimum size, there is a maximum size the menu can be, which is W:999 x H: 800.

Services

The services sections allows you to choose which services you want on your menu.  All services that are available from Clearspring are displayed in the list.

Use the Filter option to show groups of services; Post is all social networks and personal sites, Bookmarks are the list of all bookmarking sites, Desktop is all support desktop widget platforms, and Embed if you want someone to grab the embed code.  To add or remove any of these simply select the check box. 

Menu Options

The Launchpad Menu has several optional capabilities which can be selected.  The current list of options are:

• Gloss Effect: allows you to select if the menu will have a gloss or a matte look
• Services on the Popular Tab: display the list of services in the Popular tab as icons or a list
  
• Show the Embed Code: display the embed code on the front of the menu.  You can also select the number of lines of embed code to display
  
• Show Info Tab: display the option for users to view information about your widget

What do you want to share

Launchpad In-Widget allows you to define what content will be shared.  The console allows you easily copy and paste the content, typically your widgets embed code, you which to share.  This content can be HTML for any text, images, object (Flash, Movies), etc.

When adding your content, be to read up on templatable content.  This will allow you to set parameters which will be set at share time.  This goes hand in hand with any configurable content of your widget.