Constant Contact Labs Developer Blog
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Now announcing Facebook JMML tab customization! Posted Thursday, October 14, 2010 28 Comments
Constant Contact Labs is pleased to announce some new customization of our popular Facebook Join My List application. The new features allow users to add an introductory paragraph, customize the call to action and imbed an image into the tab. This customization was one of our most frequent feature requests. You can take a look at these customizations in action here.
In addition to adding the customization we took this chance to reorganize and condense the Applications Settings page. We now have Account, Introduction and Lists sections. The Account section is the same as before, this is where you link to a Constant Contact Account. The Introduction section is all new and this is where you can customize the main tab. We condensed the two old list sections into one section, other than that, they are the same.
Now, lets dig into what you can do now.
The Introductory paragraph is where you can explain what people are signing up for. You can add as much text as you want, if you write enough it will push the rest of the tab (including the signup box) down the page.The Call to Action is the prompt that appears right above the signup box, feel free to give it a little flair!
The last field, Image URL for image to display, will add a picture hosted on the web to the tab. This one has a few more restrictions that the other two. It will scale any large image down so that it will fit inside the box, though it will keep aspect ratios. (Keep in mind really large images will take some time to load and won’t be displayed until they are all loaded and scaled down.) Also, this needs to be a link to an actual image, not just to a website, or it won’t display.
I hope you enjoy customizing your JMML tab!
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05/16/12
Alex wrote:
Hi Constant Contact,
How can we change the text fields on the second screen of the Join My List app? I’d like to add fields that are important to us and eliminate some of the others we don’t care about and therefore would prefer our subscribers not be asked.
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Samira | 3:26 PM October 14, 2010
This is great, thanks so much. As visual designers we’ve found that the jmml list tab didn’t fit in with the rest of our visual identity but now, we can adapt it to suit our company’s personality.
Jim Garretson | 3:28 PM October 14, 2010
Hi Samira, Great! We’re happy to hear it - let us know what you create.
John Walker | 5:04 PM October 14, 2010
This is great news! I was hoping that Constant Contact would make a change like this on the facebook app. Good job!
Greg Douglas | 4:15 AM October 15, 2010
This is awesome!! Is there any way to format the text and change the background color?
Joseph Henrich | 9:50 AM October 15, 2010
I’m glad to hear you guys like it. Greg, right now the background is still fixed. What were you looking for as to formatting?
Debbie | 4:31 PM October 15, 2010
Is there also anyway to change the name of the tab. We are a business and the “Join My List” really doesn’t fit well as it sounds like a “personal” list rather than a company list. I think it would be better to say “Join Our List” or even better “Join our E-mail List”. Just my two cents.
Joseph Henrich | 4:47 PM October 15, 2010
Hi Debbie, unfortunately the tab name is the same for all users and can’t be changed, you are free to add a description and to change the prompt text to something more specific to your business though.
Shaun | 5:04 PM October 15, 2010
2 request
1) For web address in intro paragraphy to be clickable
2) For image to be clickable to a web link?
Susana Field, The Steamboat Gal | 5:20 PM October 15, 2010
Very cool! I called and asked for this when you first came out with the Facebook application, and am very grateful for your speedy response!
Elizabeth Gordon | 5:35 PM October 15, 2010
Hi there. This is great, but I am having a problem with the image portion. Is there a size requirement? Thank you!
Scott Kosak, RacingIn.com | 5:37 PM October 15, 2010
THANK YOU for adding this customizability!
One hopefully simple request? Have the BUSINESS LOGO at the TOP of the page… After all, you don’t put your logo at the BOTTOM of a piece of letterhead or your website, do you?
Jim Garretson | 6:14 PM October 15, 2010
Hi Shaun, We don’t offer a way to add links now, but thanks for letting us know you’d like to see it added!
Jim Garretson | 6:16 PM October 15, 2010
Hi Elizabeth, There’s no requirement - images that are too large will be scaled down. If your image isn’t showing up, but the image link works in your browser, the issue may be that the site hosting your image won’t let Facebook link to it directly.
Jim Garretson | 6:19 PM October 15, 2010
Hi Scott, The image is placed at the bottom for two reasons: first, so that you can include any size image you’d like and it won’t push the signup form itself way down the page; second, because most Fan Pages already use a logo as their page photo! Think of this logo as more of a watermark than a letterhead :-]
Sally Witzky | 9:13 AM October 18, 2010
Hey, thanks for this update. It looked a little plain before so this is a welcomed update.
Joan | 10:49 AM October 18, 2010
Nice! A couple of questions… what’s the ideal target size for the image (similar to Elizabeth’s question), and can it be hosted in our CC library? Would that make it load quicker?
Jim Garretson | 10:54 AM October 18, 2010
Hi Joan, The maximum size we can show your image is 400px on a side - but if your image is larger, we’ll automatically scale it down.
You can absolutely post an image in your Constant Contact MyLibrary, and link it from there! It may or may not load more quickly, because it needs to go to Facebook before it comes back out to the person viewing the page, but it’s still a great idea. Here’s how to find the URL for a MyLibrary image: http://conta.cc/9iar0A
Joan | 11:21 AM October 18, 2010
Thanks. That helps me know which image I want to use.
Bobby | 2:08 PM October 18, 2010
What about the background image? Are we able to change the entire look and feel of the join page using our own background image as well?
Joseph Henrich | 2:50 PM October 18, 2010
Hi Bobby, the background is fixed to ensure everything displays correctly. Tab width varies greatly based on browser, window size, and target page. Since we can’t guarantee how a custom background image would display, we decided to go with a logo image that we could be sure of.
Julie | 3:59 PM October 21, 2010
Nice addition, thank you. Have already updated our tab. Next on the wish list - does/will Constant Contact provide image hosting? It would be excellent to be able to point to images in our Constant Contact image library if we don’t have the ability to host images ourselves. Thank you!
Joseph Henrich | 4:10 PM October 21, 2010
Hi Julie,
You can host your image using your Constant Contact MyLibrary (it’s free to upload 5 images, I believe), and you can link to the image from there.
For information on uploading an image to MyLibrary, please look here:
http://conta.cc/aqOTCx
And then look here for how to get the URL for the image:
http://conta.cc/9eoeuC
Marc | 2:07 PM October 23, 2010
Localization?
The application looks great and I’m looking forward to deploying it on the pages I administer. Can you let me know when you expect to support localization for the prompts, tab name, etc.
Also, is it possible to select which fields are shown in the ‘Additional contact info’
section?
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Joseph Henrich | 3:19 PM October 23, 2010
Hi Marc, glad to hear you like it. The tab name can’t be changed, but right now you can edit the front tab to be in a different language. Customization of the Additional Contact Info page is one of the things I’d love to get to.
Linda White Dove | 10:04 AM December 6, 2010
Is there any way to make the font larger, or to bold some of the font?
Joseph Henrich | 10:54 AM December 6, 2010
Hi Linda, currently there isn’t a way to change the font or font size. Thanks for your input and we’ll add it to our list of requests.
Sylvia | 9:41 PM January 29, 2011
Hi I am trying this app for a client and really need to change all request data to spanish, is that possible
Joseph Henrich | 12:46 PM January 31, 2011
Hi Sylvia,
Right now you can change the text on the first tab to be whatever you want including another language. However, right now we don’t support customization of the second page. Allowing for the customization of that second page is one of the things we’d like to get to, thanks for your input!