Add a Floating Share Box in WordPress with Smart Sharing Plugin

Posted on April 7th, 2010 by in WordPress Plugins | 105 Comments  
Add a Floating Share Box in WordPress with Smart Sharing Plugin

We were getting enormous amount of emails from people asking us how to make a floating share box on their WordPress site. Whether it was a plugin? After collaborating with our team, we decided that it was more efficient if we create a free plugin rather than replying to each individual email.

What does this Smart Sharing Plugin do?

Smart sharing adds a floating box with social media buttons in single posts only. By default, you can pick between retweet, facebook, digg, and stumbleupon. But you are not limited to these choices because there is an option to add your own custom codes.

What is the Advantage of this plugin?

This plugin applies B.F Skinner’s Positive Reinforcement theory to social media marketing. Normally buttons are placed either at the top of the post, or the bottom of the post. While both of those positions are OK, they are not the best. If you place them at the bottom of the post, then you are expecting that the user reads all the way to the bottom. Sometimes users like the post, and they don’t read full articles. But they would still share your articles if there was a positive reinforcement. This plugin adds a small floating box which scrolls down with the user, so they can vote whenever they are done.

Read more about this plugin and Download it

About

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner mainly Syed and David.

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RuthMadison82 5 pts

This is supposed to help beginners? I cannot figure out how to download it. I go to the page and it tells me to sign up for the newsletter, so I do, and I click "download" and it tells me I'm already signed up for the newsletter, but does not give me a plugin. I'm getting very frustrated.

wpbeginner 50 pts moderator

RuthMadison82 If it says that you have already signup, then it means that you are a member of our newsletter. Look through your email because the download link was sent to you in the final welcome email of when you first signup. Otherwise, simply unsubscribe and rejoin.

Ibadullah 5 pts

wpbeginnerRuthMadison82 I tried the way you said but didn't receive any dl link.

Ibadullah 5 pts

It doesn't allow to download - Read the RuthMadison82 comment what's she saying about that!

mssbee 5 pts

Just installed the plugin. The share bar is not static like yours, it follows page scrolling. How would I make it static?

Crysislevel 5 pts

hi wpbeginner i just found out the smart sharing plugin breaks "GRAVATAR HOVERCARS" feature found in the Jetpack plugin. could u fix it? i luv ur plugin but kinda want the hovercards feature too! :(

curiouso9 5 pts

hello, nice social bar.. since i am beginner i cant configure it corectly, the bar just block my post. you can take a look here.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18291594/blockview.png

how can i fix it?

Crysislevel 5 pts

hi i added the plugin to my site. thank you for the plugin! just wondering how do you make the bar to dissapear when you reach the bottom of the page like on your site?

BijanGhorbani 5 pts

I installed this plugin and it works fine but it has disabled all the lightbox effects in my posts, which is really bad. What is conflicting with the lightbox effect in this plugin please ?

wpbeginner 50 pts

BijanGhorbani The problem is probably the placement of the JS codes.

BijanGhorbani 5 pts

wpbeginner So how do you suggest it would be best to place the JS codes ?

wpbeginner 50 pts

BijanGhorbani There are various lightbox scripts. One has to be above or below the other. If the SmartSharing scripts are above it, then they will cause the issue.

BijanGhorbani 5 pts

wpbeginner I fixed the probleme by removing the call to google jquery file in the smart-shareing.php file.

Thanks for your quick answer anyway. Great plugin :)

AbanoubWahied 5 pts

Hi, i just installed this great plugin and all went smooth, my problem is that the plugin isn't floating like the one on this page, it just sticks at a distance from the top of the page and when you scroll down it doesn't go down with you.

RobertDempsey 159 pts

Downloaded, installed and activated the plugin. Only issue is that two bars are showing up - one static and the other dynamically following the content. I'm on WP 3.1.3 using Genesis 1.6 with a child theme. Any guesses? Thanks!

wpbeginner 50 pts

RobertDempsey Disable the old version of the plugin.

RobertDempsey 159 pts

wpbeginner this is the first time I installed the plugin. Just signed up, downloaded, and installed today.

wpbeginner 50 pts

RobertDempsey Rob, shoot over an email, so I can see what is going wrong. Please include a link to your site as well.

RobertDempsey 159 pts

wpbeginner will do. I installed Sharebar as a temporary solution, so I'll switch them back later on and send a screenshot.

Thanks!

the plugin isn't working with twentyten theme, wordpress version 3.1.2. How come?

Just tried it with Twenty Ten theme, and it seems to work fine.

!! It does work! I just hadn't realized there was a separate settings button in the side panel. Nonetheless, the Retweet and Facebook buttons should be check by default IMHO. Anyway, you guys are great! Thanks for the reply.

Like wpbeginner.com's share bar it is not attached to the browser edge as such, so to make it a little better for various screen resolutions just make it fixed to the content and this way the share box will just be cut off when the browser window is resized!

I replaced the php code for the share box css (in the plugin's .php file) for static css:

.sharepost{float:left; border:1px solid #E8E8E8; margin-right:10px; position:fixed; background:#FFF; margin-left:-100px; width:60px; z-index:0}

.sharer{padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #e8e8e8}

This will get you started, but you'll have to do all future adjustments from your wordpress plugin editor in the .php file!

What changes did you make to the plugin to get it to be invisible on your site in mobile browsers?

When I load my site on my mobile, the plugin overlaps the content.

If you could share here, that would be very helpful. Thanks!

We do not know why WP Tap is showing the default theme content. Our plugin should only display on the theme because we are adding the code into wp_footer hook.

I have installed the plugin on a wordpress 3.01 installation and although the installation went through ok and I set up the options, nothing appears on my blog posts.

Would you be able to take a look at it? The site is linked to me name

thanks.

The plugin is not able to register itself to the footer. You might have to check that function out. A lot of users had this issue when running on Thesis. We are working on a new version of this plugin, which will be kick ass.

is there any this type of script which i can use html site??

You can add this on a static site, but you won't have any backend feature, so everything has to be static. Just add the CSS from this plugin...

This plugin worked fine until I upgraded to wordpress 3.0, now its telling me that the plugin causes a fatal error.

What can I do about this?

Just checked the plugin with 3.0 (it works fine). It must have been a problem working with another plugin. Can you please email us the details about your site (site name), the plugins you are using etc, so we can further assist you.

I have it installed on my website but unfortunately the StumbleUpon icon isn't working appropriately. If you click on Stumble, it tries to stumble a certain page, for lots of posts.

How do I fix this?

thats a wp_query error on your site. There is a query running without being resetted.

Really light weight and nice plugin. (will advice you to make it more lighter :) - and never use jquery with it)

however, like many people here, i was not able to make the plugin work with my theme too (using thesis 1.7) however i've solved the issue by making change in the code by replacing your get_footer to wp_footer. hopefully it will make some changes in your next release :)

for those who need to fix the issue that the slider is not shown at all after activating the plugin, i've explained the steps here: http://nabtron.com/smart-sharing-plugin-now-showin...

I meant the code add_smartsharing()

The code ain't working. I just added to my page template and it doesn't show up @ all.

Is there a particular place in the page template where it needs to be added?

Hope to hear from you soon. Cheers ;-)

Thanks for an awesome plug-in. I've been searching the worldwideweb over for something like this. ;-)

In this very page, I see that the retweet and Fshare thingy disappears for lower resolutions (for 1024x768 and 800x600). How do I achieve this? It's such a nice plugin, but doesn't look good when it floats over page text when in the aforementioned resolutions.

You would have to disable the auto addition, and then add the function manually where you want to call it. We are working on expanding the options of this plugin.

Thanks for the reply! Any idea when you might be releasing an updated version of this plugin?

Thx for this plugin. Got a problem. My facebok share button, when i publish it cant show the name of the article anymore? And not the picture either? Can I solve this?

I have activated this plugin and its not showing up on my page? Not sure whats going on here but i'm pretty sure I've done everything correct.

Your theme is not compatible. You would need to add the function add_smartsharing(); in your single.php

I just uploaded the plugin and I love it, but I'm getting a 404 error with tweet meme. Tweet meme worked just fine when I had the individual button installed. I only need to enter my twitter name, right? I deactivated the original meme I had installed, and cleared my cache, but it still shows up with a question mark. Help?

Which site are you using this on?

Thank you for sharing this /AWESOME/ Plugin!

It's not showing up on my website, Don't know why or even how to begin troubleshooting

It does not work automatically with all themes. You would need to add the following function in your single.php file add_smartsharing(); << remember to wrap it around with PHP and it will work.

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