Widgetbox Blog - New on Widgetbox

Introducing Mobile Web Apps: Go Mobile in Minutes

Widgetbox — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:03:00 +0000

We're extremely excited to announce the launch of our newest product —mobile web apps.

Starting today you can make and distribute a feature-rich mobile app in minutes without writing any code. New mobile web apps are compatible with iPhone and Android devices—allowing you to reach your mobile audience without an app store.

New Twitter Display Options

Widgetbox — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:57:38 +0000

This month we're excited to announce three new display options for your Twitter content— Lists, Search, and Favorites. All three options give you additional means of moderating what Twitter content appears before your audience while allowing you to include content from different Twitter accounts.

A New Way to Showcase Your Video Content

Widgetbox — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:32:14 +0000

This month we added a new feature to our

Video Gallery widget that makes it even easier to showcase single videos.

The Slideshow format is our newest display type for the Video Gallery widget. Along with our existing Filmstrip, Gallery, and List display types it allows you to easily display your video content in a professional-looking widget. The Slideshow format gives you the option to showcase your video content one video at a time without any thumbnails appearing. In true slideshow fashion, the new format allows viewers to click through your video content by clicking "next" and "previous".

Inform Audiences with the Video Widget

Widgetbox — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:33:53 +0000

The Video Gallery widget—the newest addition to our Pro widget collection—allows you to easily assemble your Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo content into a professional-looking video gallery.

With the Video Gallery widget you can inform audiences of your services and products with videos such as screencasts, recorded conferences, demos, product showcases, and more.

Once you’ve added all your videos, you can further personalize your widget by arranging the order and changing the titles of your videos, and customizing the look and feel of your widget.

To help you get more out of your Video Gallery widget, we also recently added a social sharing feature that allows users to post and share content from your Video Gallery widget to their Facebook and Twitter pages.

As with all of our Pro widgets, all users can make a Video Gallery widget, but Pro users get even more customization options for their widget.

Make your own Video Gallery widget »
Go Pro to take advantage of Pro features »

Our Mobile Site Builder Gets Even Better With Two New Features

Widgetbox — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:35:28 +0000

Last month we were excited to introduce our new Mobile Site feature, and this month we are pleased to announce two brand new feature enhancements for your Mobile Site—Facebook Fan Pages and new sharing capabilities.

Facebook
In addition to Twitter, blog feeds, Google Maps, and more, you can now add a Facebook Fan Page to your mobile site. Simply enter your Facebook Fan Page URL and your content will be automatically imported. Best of all your mobile site content will dynamically reflect any new updates to your Fan Page.

Share to Twitter, Facebook, Email, and Text Message
Starting this month, users can easily share your mobile site with others via Twitter, Facebook, email, or even text message! The new share feature allows your mobile site to go viral as people share your site with others. As a Publisher Pro or Business Pro subscriber you can get even more viral exposure by customizing the About section of your site.

Make a mobile site and start using the new features »

How We Created Customizable Themes with CSS3

Widgetbox — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:00:31 +0000

George Penston
Director of User Experience

As part of Widgetbox's new staff series—we'll be bringing you occasional guest posts from members of the Widgetbox team.

We recently released a new product that allows you to quickly build out a mobile site for your web site. These mobile sites are accessible on popular smartphones that use WebKit for the native Internet browser experience. iPhone, iPod touch, Android devices, and Palm Pre all use WebKit for their browsers and support all of these features to varying degrees. There were a bunch of great features available in WebKit’s implementation of CSS3 that we made use of but there were two standout features I really wanted to highlight here. First, we wanted to create a tab menu button with icons much like the ones found on the iPhone. But since we also wanted to make it possible to customize the look of your mobile site, we wanted to find a way to make the icons flexible enough to adapt to customizable colors. We accomplished this by taking advantage of the -webkit-mask-box-image property. With this, we were able to create simple black and white icons that then were used as masks for the button. These masks work much like masks do in Adobe Photoshop or Flash. Not only did it allow us to let a custom color be used for the icons, the selected state was easy to achieve by just changing out the background to a gradient. So this simple icon: Is nicely transformed to this: And then almost easily switched over to a selected: All this was accomplished with a couple of lines of CSS:


.tabmenu .feed a div 
  -webkit-mask-box-image: url(assets/tabicn-feed.png);
}
.tabmenu a:active div, .tabmenu a.enabled div 
  background: -webkit-gradient(linear, 38% 0%, 60% 70%, from(#dde9f0), to(#3fc5f8), color-stop(.6,#79b2ec),color-stop(.7,#2e91e5));
}

This would normally require several CSS sprites to be built to get even close to what’s going on here, but with that said, it would be next to impossible to allow for total control of coloring of the button icons and the button bar the icons are within. The other CSS3 properties that really went a long way for us to allow for custom colors in our themes is a clever mix of -webkit-gradient along with RGBA attributes. These two combined allowed us to recreate glossy button bars that are semi-transparent without using any image sprites whatsoever. Why go to all the effort of not using a semi-transparent PNG image sprite to achieve a gloss effect? We were building a mobile product so every image download was carefully considered. Reducing the amount of HTTP requests going back and forth between the mobile site would help to keep the site as fast as possible. Creating our tab bars completely with CSS3 style rules made this possible as well as providing the capability to choose a custom color to apply to a theme. We created two themes (Poly Vinyl and Frosted Glass) out of our six initial themes that can be customized further by choosing a theme color. So anyone building a mobile site could choose a color that matched their site or brand. Being a UX designer who has designed and developed for a variety of browser capabilities through the years, it’s hard not to get excited about designing solely for WebKit-based browsers (both desktop and mobile). The modern features offered in Safari, Mobile Safari, and Chrome bring web and user experience design closer to a true application development workflow. If you’re a web or UX designer, you owe it to yourself to set aside some time or find a project to really explore these new world capabilities. It truly is remarkable. For more on the CSS3 visual effects mentioned, visit Apple’s Safari Dev Center (login required): Masks, Gradients Also, be sure to check out this cool technology in action out in the Widgetbox Mobile Site Builder. You can try it out for free here: http://www.widgetbox.com/mobile/make/.

—When George isn't writing his next book on Photoshop, he's living where the playas play (with his wife and kids of course).

Introducing our New Video Gallery Widget

Widgetbox — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:15:35 +0000

We recently released the newest member of our Pro template collection: our brand new Video Gallery widget!

The Video Gallery widget allows you to easily assemble your video content into a professional-looking video gallery. Automatically import your videos from Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo—or choose to manually add videos by entering an embed code or a web address (URL) to a video’s page.

With the Video Gallery widget you can choose to have your videos play in-widget, or have them play on a separate page. Once you’ve added all your videos, you can further personalize your widget by arranging the order of your videos, changing the titles of your videos, and customizing the look and feel of your widget with different themes and styling options.

Pro account users get even more customization for their Video Gallery widgets, including: 16 themes, multiple settings, and advanced stylings of fonts and colors. As with all Pro widgets, Pro users can also opt to remove the Get Widget button and go ad-free on their widget. Go pro for free and start taking advantage of these additional features.

Make a Video Gallery widget »

Add Even More Customization to Your Blidget

Widgetbox — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:40:45 +0000

Widgetbox has gone Blidget crazy! Last month we introduced the Pro Template in-Blidget feature to allow you to include polls, quizzes, countdowns, and more in your Blidgets.

This month our development team decided to continue with the whole “Make the Blidget Even More Awesome” theme, and released some very cool new tab style options to allow you to further customize the appearance of your Blidget.

New features include:

Two new tab style options: Our new portfolio and bar tab styles allow you to add even more customization to the appearance of your Blidget’s tabs

New shape, color, and text options: Decide on the shape, color, and text appearance of your tabs

Interaction states: Just introduced interaction states allow you to change how your tabs appear when users click on or hover over them

Tab positions: Customize the alignment of your tabs

To take advantage of these just-released features, Go Pro for free with a 7-day trial.

Get started making a Blidget »

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Promote Your Brand's Content to Over 2 Million People

Widgetbox — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:35:29 +0000

After months of development, testing, and feedback, we’re very excited to announce our new self-service
Ad Campaigns!

Our new Widgetbox Ad Campaigns are designed for companies and brands who want to promote their widgets to a larger audience. You’ll drive more installations of your widgets and promote your brand’s content on the Widgetbox platform.

With our unique ad campaigns you'll turn your content into customized widgets that you promote throughout the Widgetbox site. You'll be able to turn your blog, Twitter feed, YouTube video, or just about any other content into an appealing widget for potential customers. The dynamic nature of the widget allows your content to be more relevant and engaging to your audience than any traditional static banner ad.

Best of all, advertising with Widgetbox Ad Campaigns allow you to achieve multiple marketing goals with single ad units. You'll increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.

Get started today with Widgetbox Ad Campaigns »

Learn More »

Share Your Blog, Twitter Updates, or YouTube Videos with Widgetbox Blidgets

Widgetbox — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:22:55 +0000

Pioneered by Widgetbox, Blidgets are widgets built from your feed-based content: a blog feed + a widget = a blidget!

Simply enter in your blog or feed-based address (URL) and your feed will automatically be converted into a Blidget you can share with others.

Examples of content feeds that can go into a Blidget include:

As with all of our widgets, Blidgets can be placed just about anywhere: MySpace, Blogger, Facebook, TypePad, iGoogle or your favorite website.

To further customize your Blidget and take advantage of some just-released features, Go Pro.

The new features available to Pro subscribers include:

Feature Pro templates in-Blidget. Pro users can use template widgets to easily create customized content such as slideshows, polls, forms, or countdowns, and include that content as separate in-Blidget tabs.
Include different scrollbar designs or opt to hide the scrollbar. Choose from three distinct scrollbar designs—or opt not to display a scrollbar altogether.
Limit the number of posts or videos that appear. Pro users can decide how many posts they want to appear in their Blidget—as few as one post or as many as they'd like to share.

Get started making a Blidget »

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