Shared Tools - Toolbox - Step By Step

Any interest in adding a cool Windows 8 UI download toolbox to your blog or website? Make your blog or website the place people go to find the latest downloads :)  I put together some resource pages that I am using on my blog and wanted to share the embed codes with you in case you want to use it on your website or blog.  Make your site the GO TO location for the latest downloads by adding this really cool looking toolbox. You make the change on your site and it will “auto magically” be update with links to the latest software when new releases come out.  I would love to see you post on your blog or website if you think the information is useful to your friends or other audiences, please do help me promote it. If you need help implementing it for your blog/website please feel free to reach out to me http://itproguru.com/contact/.   I would be happy to help you get these activated for your community.

I created some active images for the download resources.  There is a horizontal version and a vertical grid version.  For each there is a “Static” and an “Active - Live Tiles” version.  Use whichever you want (or both, all if you like)  Notice more changes are coming regularly.  You now have the option of adding your own image and link to your RSS or About page (or whatever page you want)

If you add this toolbox to your website or blog, send me an email with a link to the page that is displaying the toolbar and I will add you to the “Friends of Live Tiles Toolbox” post.  This blog gets 10’s of thousands of unique visitors per week so a link back to your site can help raise your ranking. Hope this helps and thanks for supporting Live Tiles Toolbox.

Current links included Windows Server 2012, Windows Azure, Early Experts, Microsoft Virtual Academy, System Center, Private Cloud, Hyper-V Server, More…  Plus, we are planning some really cool changes.  If you have more suggestions, please let us know.

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Add Vertical “Live Tiles” Toolbox Embed Code
Add the Vertical Grid iFrame embed code in your blog where you want the vertical images All that is required is copy the following to the source of your blog/website where you want the graphics to be displayed:
embed frame

<iframe height="380" src="http://itproguru.com/livetiles-v.htm" frameborder="0" width="250" scrolling="no"></iframe>

When you enter the code above a box shown below will be inserted.

========== Use YOUR PICTURE and URL to About or RSS =====================

Add Vertical “Live Tiles” Toolbox Embed Code
First you will need to create a picture 110 x 110 px and post that on your website or blog (or skydrive or whatever) then paste the below embed code changing the location of the images and URL links to your image and your URL link.  Add the modified Vertical Grid iFrame embed code in your blog where you want the vertical images and you are done. Put the modified version of the the following source embed on your blog/website where you want the graphics to be displayed:

====== Embed Codes for Rolling Tiles with custom static tiles ==========

<div style="text-align:center;width:240px">

<!-- CHANGE THE FOLLOWING LINE TO CONTAIN PATH TO YOUR "About Me" Page-->
<a href="http://itproguru.com/about">


<!-- CHANGE THE FOLLOWING LINE TO CONTAIN PATH TO YOUR GRAPHIC-->
<img src="http://itproguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/dan_110px_me.png"
                            title="Who is Dan Stolts?" border="0px" /></a>&nbsp;
<!-- CHANGE THE FOLLOWING LINE TO CONTAIN PATH TO YOUR RSS-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ItProGuru" target="_blank">
                        <img src="http://itproguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/MetroRSSSubscribeTile110.png" title="Subscribe to RSS" border="0px" /></a><br></div><div style="text-align:center;width:245px"><iframe style="margin:0; padding:0; border:none" width="245px" src="http://itproguru.com/livetiles-v2.htm" height="380" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>

When you enter the code above a box shown below will be inserted.

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Add Horizontal “Static” Toolbox Embed Code

Add the Horizontal Tools iFrame embed code in your blog where you want the horizontal images All that is required is copy the following to the source of your blog/website where you want the graphics to be displayed:

<iframe width="100%" src="http://itproguru.com/eplinkh.htm" height="140" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

This will add a box like the following at the location where you entered the above code.

the default is to have 6 boxes wide.  If you would like to have less boxes, change the width as follows

• Full Size (6 Boxes):    “width = 100%”
• Five Boxes Wide:       “width = 595px”
• Four Boxes Wide:       “width = 475px”
• Three Boxes Wide:       “width = 360px”
• Two Boxes Wide:       “width = 245px”
• One Box Wide:       “width = 130px”
• See Samples Page

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Deployment Hints:

• If you are using SharePoint you can follow instructions for inserting an iFrame from this post or for later versions of SharePoint see this post
• If you have other platform and cannot figure out how to add it, contact Dan Stolts http://itproguru.com/contact for help getting it on your site. 
• If you want to HIDE the Shared Tools <embed> link change the height in the embed code.  You might have to play around a bit with the numbers but I think the following will get your real close. Change the “150” in the horizontal bar to “125”.  Change the “380” in the vertical bar to “353”.  However, I strongly suggest you leave it.  This will give you easy access to setup and information page for the Toolbox so you can easily take advantage of future enhancements

Suggested Uses for the embed tools…

1. I used the Horizontal Bar to at the top and bottom of blog posts as well as in the middle of a blog post kind-of like an advertisement.  It adds color and value to the post. 
2. I used the Vertical Grid for the News in the sidebar.  You can add it to your blog as a separate widget if you prefer by adding an “unfiltered HTML” and pasting the iFrame embed.

Examples: 

1. My primary Blog: http://ITProGuru.com  (Right sidebar & bottom of page) notice I added to all pages including search, tag results, etc)
2. My TechNet Blog http://blogs.technet.com/danstolts : Added to top bar
3. Blog post with the horizontal bar added in the middle of the post (like an advertisement)

Please provide feedback.

Do you want to know how I did this?  I will be doing a detailed blog post series on how to create your own iFrame embed in the near future; watch http://ITProGuru.com to learn how.

History:

• 2012-11-13:
  • Create Shared Tools Toolbox - Vertical (2column x 3rows) and Horizontal (6column x 1row)
• 2012-11-14:
  • Create “Shared Tools <embed>“ Link on primary embed graphics
  • Add instructions on how to turn off/hide “Shared Tools <embed>” link (Deployment Hints)
  • Add Future Enhancements section
• 2012-11-15
  • Activate the Tiles - Create Vertical Live Tiles
  • Animate tiles sample 
  • Scroll through more tile options sample
• 2012-11-19
  • Activate the Horizontal Tiles - Create Horizontal Live Tiles sample
  • Allow hosting user to add their own images and url’s for the first row sample  Add Picture and Link back to host website - Dynamically allow user to add their own picture with a link back to their home page/about page/rss page

    sample 

For Full Details Watch the primary page for the tool at http://itproguru.com/sharedtools  Any comments should be placed on that site.  I will not be monitoring or updating this page (I think).

PS.  ITProGuru.com Website is an “Official Microsoft Blog” so you can trust it fully!!!!

“Friends of Live Tiles Toolbox”