Launchpad In Widget provides you a way to make your content shareable across the Web. Wrap your content with Launchpad to give it Clearspring's highly recognizable "get & share" dock. The "get & share" dock allows your users to easily get your widget by simply clicking the destination of choice, e.g. MySpace, Facebook, Digg, and more...
Watch guided tour!Bring your content.
To add Launchpad In Widget sharing menu and sharing capabilities to your content, first identify what you want to share (see examples below)
Add Launchpad.
Wrap your content by entering its URL into the Launchpad console. This adds sharing tools with no coding required. Or, use our In Widget APIs to build a custom sharing experience into your widget.
Set your widget free.
You're done! Your widget can now be shared and tracked across the social web. Of course, you can always customize your sharing menu's size, color, destinations, etc. Read below to learn more.
Widgetcasting
Publish to galleries.The clearspring platform allows for you to publish your Launchpad "wrapped" widget to Galleries for users to find and grab. Currently we provide publishing to Google, Live.com, Netvibes, Yahoo! and the Clearspring Catalog Feed.
Your widget has a home.
All Launchpad widgets are given a widget home page (WHP). This allows you to provide a single URL for users to get and share your widget — all for free. The WHP also helps search engines find your creation. Learn more
Technical Specs
Requirements
Launchpad supports widgets created with:- Adobe Flash ActionScript 2 and 3
- HTML
- JavaScript
- Images (JPEG, GIF, PNG)
- Adobe Flash Player 8 or higher for Windows or Mac
- Mozilla Firefox 2 or 3
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or 7
- Apple Safari
Note: the aforementioned requirements are not fully supported by all sharing menu destinations.
Language Support
Launchpad is internationalized and has been localized for the following languages:Customize the look and feel.
The Launchpad menu can be fully customized. You can:
- Set the color of the bar background and text
- Define the color of the menu background
- Specify the color of the sharing menu dock
- Set the menu size and position
- Choose the dock, default button or a custom button
Use your own button.
Launchpad's dock is the default method for displaying the sharing menu. In some cases you may want to use your own button to launch our menu. In some cases you may want to use your own button to launch our menu. With Launchpad you can use the default button or privide the URL to a custom button. The button will be placed on your widget and can be positioned where you want it. When the user clicks your button the sharing menu will be displayed.
Add smarts to your widget.
Using Launchpad your widget gains contextual intelligence. The Launchpad "wrapper" can tell your widget information such as, in which country or zip code your visitor is located, what type of network the visitor is using, total number of installs of your widget, and more. This allows your widget to behave differently based on where it's installed and used.
For example, our wrapper can pass the viewer's network connection to the widget, allowing it, in turn, to serve content appropriate for that connection speed — a broadband user might get HD video, where as a dialup user would receive standard definition video.
Widget SEO.
With Launchpad you can add a HTML header and/or footer to your widget. When your widget is grabbed and shared the header and/or footer follows the widget. This header/footer can often help optimize your search engine rankings in ways that are acceptable to the leading search providers.
Do it yourself with the APIs.
Wrapping your content with Launchpad In-Widget provides the quickest and easiest way to make your content shareable. However you may want more control. Here is where the In-Widget APIs come in. We provide a set of APIs, for ActionScript 2 & 3 and for JavaScript, that allows you to add sharing and/or tracking to your widget.
The Menu APIs provide a way to call the default sharing menu from within your widget. This allows you to execute the Clearspring code when your user takes an action. This is great when your widget needs to load before the Launchpad menu.
Additionally, you can use our Share APIs to create a completely customizable sharing menu. Our Share APIs provide you the power to leverage the Clearspring platform without the need to use the Launchpad menu. We give you more control and flexibility.
Finally, the Track APIs allow you to extend our Analytics to your specific requirements. You can use these APIs to track user interactions with your widget and analyze the results within our Analytics system.