1- Launchpad Installation
Launchpad is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to display a stylish landing page while working on your site's content and theme.
Installing via FTP
- Unzip the launchpad.zip to find the launchpad folder.
- Connect to your web space using an FTP client and upload the theme folder to the wp-content/plugins/ directory.
- Log in to your WordPress admin panel and go to Plugins
- Locate theplugin and click the Activate link.
Installing via WordPress
Note: If you are not running the latest version of WordPress, some menu options and screenshots may vary.
- Log in to your WordPress admin panel and go to Plugins > Add New
- Click the Install tab at the top.
- Click the Upload link
- Click the Browse button and navigate to the location of your launchpad.zip file. Select the file and click Open.
- Click Install Now to begin the installation.
- Wait for the success message, then click Activate.
2- Launchpad Options
Launchpad comes with its own configuration options, similar to a WordPress theme. Click the Launchpad link in your admin sidebar to begin.
General Settings
The Basics
To Save your settings as you go through each tab, click the Save button in the upper-right. You may also preview your progress anytime by saving and then clicking Preview. Please note that some settings, such as custom backgrounds, may not appear in the preview.
Activate Launchpad by toggling the Activate switch on the main settings tab. Only administrators will be able to view the full WordPress site by default. If you would like Authors or Editors to be able to preview your site, select the lowest role to limit from the drop-down menu. All other visitors will see the Launchpad landing page who do not have the role you select or higher.
Launch Timer
Enter a date and time for when you plan to launch your new website (and turn off Launchpad so everyone can see your homepage). Use the format provided in the Launch Date field. Checking the Automatic Launch box will deactivate Launchpad when the timer runs out so you don't have to. Uncheck the Display Count Down Timer box if you do not want to use the timer at all.
Introduction
Check or uncheck the Display Site Tagline box to show or hide the tagline as set under Settings > General in WordPress. You may also enter a custom Introduction title and page content. Content is pre-formatted by the plugin using paragraphs and should be kept pretty short. Video urls from Vimeo, YouTube and any other service that supports oEmbed may be pasted in the video URL field to display the video on your landing page. Use the full URL to the video in your browser address bar, not the short url used for sharing.
Newsletter Management
Launchpad comes with support for Campaign Monitor sign-up forms, which connect directly to your Campaign Monitor account. You may enter your username and a title for your sign-up form such as "Subscribe,""Join Our Newsletter," or "Get Updates!"
Copyright
The final setting on the General tab is to hide the Obox logo and provide your own copyright text, if desired. To make the copyright symbol (©), hold down Alt and type 0169 then release.
Look & Feel
Choose from one of the default themes to set the font, style and color scheme, and select which type of font you want to use.
Typekit
Fonts may be further defined via Typekit, Adobe's professional-grade font service and library with hundreds of thousands of premium fonts. Don't have an account? You can get a free intro account on the Typekit homepage.
Custom Logo and Background
Check the logo and background boxes to upload your own graphics. Once uploaded, Save and ensure the images you want to use are selected (the border will turn gray). You may also choose from any of the pre-loaded backgrounds provided by us.
Social Links
Check the box to enable the social links icons to appear. Enter your full profile URL for each service you wish to show. Launchpad currently supports up to 6 networks: Facebook, Vimeo, Tumblr, WordPress, Youtube and Twitter. To customize which networks appear here, see the theme customization guide in the links at left.
Home Page Order
You can easily change the order each element appears by dragging and dropping the section labels on this page. Click a label and hold down the left mouse button to drag it into position, then release.
Custom CSS
For those of your familiar with CSS styling, the Custom CSS tab allows you to enter any CSS you wish to customize the page elements. To grab a class, right-click the element and choose Inspect Element (not available in IE)
Launchpad: How to Add More Social Networks
Apollo's Look and Feel tab and custom css area should be all you need to give your landing page a makeover, but if you want to customize advanced aspects of the page, such as adding a widget area or more social networks, the below key will help you locate the files and code you need to change.
Customize Social Networks:
Option 1: Upload your own social icons to wp-content/plugins/launchpad/themes/apollo/images and rename them to facebook_32.png, tumblr_32.png and so on. Use the corresponding field to enter the network URL (you can match totally different networks to the labels. For example, you may overwrite Vimeo with Flickr if you like, even though it still says Vimeo in the control panel.
Option 2: To completely modify the social links panel, open the themes/apollo/social-links.php and functions/settings.php files on your computer.
settings.php
Edit or Add additional networks following the structure on 175 through 194.
Example:
add_settings_field(
'flickr',' Flickr', array(&$this, 'apollo_input'), 'apollo_social_options', 'apollo_general_settings', array('flickr', 'text', ', ')
);
social-links.php
If you edited an existing network, edit the corresponding code in the social-links.php to change the name and image location/filename. If you are adding networks, insert your code before the </ul> on line 19 or following the "endif" of the previous button code.
Example:
<?php if(isset($apollo_social_options["flickr"]) && $apollo_social_options["flickr"] !== ""): ?>
<li><a href="<?php echo $apollo_social_options["flickr"]; ?>" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/flickr_32.png" alt="" /></a></li>
<?php endif; ?>
Launchpad: Error trying to install
1. Re-download the plugin to ensure your file was not damaged
2. Ensure you are uploading the plugin using the Plugin installer, not the theme installer. (see Installing on the left for instructions)
3. Unzip the package and ensure you have a launchpad folder containing four folders and an index.php.
4. Upload this folder using an FTP client to your wp-content/plugins directory.
5. If you have WordPress installed in a sub-directory, ensure you have completed these instructons