Creating the homepage layout

With Showpad's homepages feature, you can design visually appealing homepages with groups of content tailored to what you wish your sellers to see when logging in. When creating a homepage, you can add numerous content blocks to the canvas, including text, image galleries, Showpad assets, or Experiences. Maybe you've created a new Experience you want users to know about. Feature it on the homepage! 

In this article, we explain how to create a homepage and the various content blocks you can use.

Note: Homepages share the same functionality as our Pages feature. We built helpful Illustrator and Photoshop templates to get you started. You can download the templates at the bottom of this article.

You need this to succeed

• A Showpad admin account or a promoted user account with 'Manage Content' permission
• Available for Showpad Coach, Content, and Platform users
• Showpad Content or Coach Plus or Ultimate Package
• Gallery blocks are available on the Ultimate package only 

The quick way to awesomeness

1. Go to Library 
2. Select the Homepages tab
3. Create a new homepage
4. Add the desired content blocks 

Do this step by step

• Create a custom Homepage
• Add content blocks to your Homepage:
  • Text
  • Gallery
  • Assets
  • Pages
  • Experiences
  • Courses
  • Spacers
  • Buttons
  • Videos

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Create a custom Homepage

1. Click the Library tab and choose the relevant division, if applicable.  Select the Homepages tab.
2. Click the Create New Homepage button. 
3. Start by adding a name for your homepage and click Create.
4. To add content blocks to your homepage, drag and drop them onto the canvas. Lines will appear when you drag content blocks to the canvas, and you can choose to create a new section or add the block to an existing section. These sections will be used for styling your homepage later on. You can create up to four columns wide of content blocks, but you cannot resize the width of the blocks.

   Note: The maximum page width is 1100px, and the maximum margin size is 250px on each side.

   
5. Click the Preview options at any time during your Custom Homepage creation to see how the page will look for assigned users. If you have users on iOS, it's important to use the Phone and Tablet preview options to make sure your Custom Homepage views well on all platforms. Once you're done, click Edit to resume creating your homepage.

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Adding content blocks to your homepage 

While working on your homepage, remember to click Save so your changes aren't lost. Select the content block you like to learn more about.

• Text
• Gallery
• Assets
• Pages
• Experiences
• Courses
• Spacers
• Buttons
• Videos

Text

1. To work with text block content, click in the text box on your homepage to open the edit panel on the right.
2. In the text block editor, type what you want to write in your text block. It will automatically start to populate on the homepage.
3. Change the appearance of your text with the rich text editor functionality. Choose your font, font size, font style, and color. You can also create bulleted or numbered lists, include hyperlinks, and remove the formatting.
   

Gallery

Gallery blocks are available for customers with a Showpad Ultimate package. 

1. Click on the gallery block to open the edit panel. 
2. Drag and drop images from your device into the Content section of your gallery block, or select Browse to find and upload the files you're looking for. Currently, you can add up to five images to the gallery.
3. Under the design section, check Fit to block if you want your images to zoom in to fit the block. Depending on the image block size and the size of the image, it may be cropped when selecting Fit to block.
4. Choose whether or not you want margins around the images. Remember that the image gallery will not expand beyond the page maximum width of 1100px, even if no margins are selected.
5. If you have uploaded multiple images, you will see the option to Show Thumbnails. If selected, you will have display navigation of all images in the library with thumbnails showing below the main image. 
6. If you have uploaded more than one image, you will also see the option to Automatically transition from one image to the next. If you check this selection, a slider will appear where you will choose the duration between transitions in seconds.
7. To edit or delete an image from the gallery, hover over the image. You will see an edit icon and a trash icon.
8. If you choose Edit, change the focal point in the image by dragging the box to your desired focal point. The image to the right will preview how this changes the appearance of the image.
9. While editing an image in the gallery, you can attach a link to the image. An image can be linked to an Asset, Page, Experience, or URL.
10. If you want to link your image, select the type of content you want to link to from the drop-down menu, select the Type if desired, and then search for and select the content.
11. To delete an image from the gallery, hover over the image and click the trash icon.
12. When you've finished creating your image gallery, click Save.

Assets

Users will gain access to all assets on the homepage, including assets nested on Pages in the homepage. Users do not have to be assigned to an Experience containing an asset because if an asset is included on the homepage, they will automatically have access. From their homepage, users can add any asset to a Shared Space.

1. Click on the Asset block to open the edit panel. 
2. Under the General section, start by adding a title to the asset block.
3. If you'd like to add an Icon to the asset block, toggle the setting on, then drag and drop or browse for your icon to upload.
4. Under the content section, you can add content Manually by searching for assets or Dynamically using tags. If you choose Manually, search for the asset you want to include, then select it from the list. It will be added to the section.
5. You can choose to dynamically filter content by searching tags with the parameters to match ALL the tags listed, which will exclude content that doesn’t include all tags. The match ANY of these tags filter will add assets that match any single tag added. Or you can choose which content tags to exclude by adding them in the match NONE field.
6. You will see a list of the content now included in your block, and underneath, you'll have the option to limit the number of files in the block. To limit the number of files in the block, check the box, then add the maximum number of assets you wish to populate.
7. In the Settings section, choose to display assets in a grid or list view.

Pages

Users will gain access to any Page added to their homepage. However, if another Page is nested on the Page on their homepage, they will need to be assigned that nested Page via an Experience to have access. 

1. Click on the Pages block to open the edit panel. 
2. You will have the same options to set up your Pages content block as your Asset content block. However, you will add a Page or Pages. See the directions above.
3. Adding an Experience or Page to a homepage does not mean the user can access that content automatically.
   

Experiences

Users will not automatically gain access to an Experience that is added to a homepage. They must be assigned to the Experience through the Experience builder to have access to it on their homepage.

1. Click in the Experiences block to open the edit panel. 
2. Start by adding a title to the content block, if desired.
3. If you'd like to add an Icon to the asset block, toggle the setting on, then drag and drop or browse for your icon to upload.
4. Under the content section, you can select the type of Experience you would like to add to the homepage, which will help filter through available options if you have a large number.
5. In the Experience menu, type in the search for the name of the Experience you want to add to your homepage, then select it from the drop-down menu. Select Root to select the main folder of the experience.

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Courses

Notes:   - On shareable Pages, Courses are invisible to sellers or buyers.
               - Sellers can only see Courses assigned to them from the Coach Library.
               - Promoted Users must have both the 'Manage Content' and 'Manage Courses & Paths' permissions enabled to create custom Homepages with Courses blocks.

1. Drag and drop the Courses block to the desired area on your Page, and click on the Courses block to open the edit panel.
2. Start by adding a title to the Courses block, if desired. If you'd like to add an icon to the Courses block, toggle the setting on, then drag and drop or browse for your icon to upload.
   
3. Next, add Courses by searching and selecting them from the dropdown menu.
   
4. Alternatively, by clicking the Advanced option, you can browse and select Courses using filters based on Owners, Groups and Status. Select the Courses you wish to add to the Page, then click Insert items.
   
5. In the Settings section, you can choose to display Courses in a grid view or list view.

Spacers

Spacers are added to create some white space between content blocks. Click on your spacer, and use the adjuster to change the height of your spacer within the canvas.

Videos

Video blocks are used to add embedded Videos on your Pages. 

1. Drag and drop the video block from the left side menu into your desired location on the Page. 
2. Select a video from your Showpad library using the video asset dropdown menu.
3. Select the playback options. Check the box to have the video Autoplay, play Muted, or play on a Loop. Browsers do not allow videos to autoplay when sound is enabled, so if you select Autoplay, the video will automatically be set to Muted. The viewer can choose to unmute the video when viewing.

In the next article, you read more about styling your homepage.

Note: You can download Illustrator and Photoshop templates here: