Once you have created your account click the “My Desktop” menu option on our web site. This will take you to a fresh empty desktop that should look very similar to the image shown below:

To the upper right hand corner of the window is the main Sharetops menu; this is where you will spend much of your time initially. The name of the currently active desktop is displayed to the bottom left, whilst the Sharetops owner user name is displayed to the bottom right

The profile section of Sharetops allows you to add information about yourself and your interests. You can also set your status, which represents what you are currently doing. To access your user profile, go to the Sharetops main menu and choose Profile; this will open up the profile window shown below:

The information found in this window is your profile on Sharetops and will be visible to your friends and visitors to your Sharetop. As this information is public we suggest that you only add information that you do not mind sharing with other users

When visiting another users Sharetops, you can select the My profile option from Sharetops main menu to view the Sharetop owners profile.

There are a number of ways to add items to your desktop including:

The add item button allows you to add links to web resources by either selecting from a preset list of elements or by adding them manually.

The library button allows you to upload items such as images and photos to Sharetops which you can then add to your desktop directly from the library browser

Web search allows you to search the web and add items from within the search results directly to the desktop

Web link borrowing allows you to steal web elements that you find on others Sharetops. Note that you can prevent others stealing your web links by unmarking the “Shared” attribute in the web items properties

Web link sending allows a user to send links directly from their desktop to another user’s desktop via the desktop messaging system. The recipient is given the option to accept or ignore these items

These methods will be covered in more depth in the following sections

Once you have added an item to your desktop you can drag it around, change its properties or open it up by double clicking it. When an item such as an image is opened up it is opened in a new window which you can drag around and resize.

Sharetops supports an asset library that allows you to upload images and photos directly to Sharetops. You can then add these items to your desktop directly from the library browser. To open the Library browser click the Library button located on Sharetops main menu. The library browser will look similar to the image shown below:

The library browser window allows you to upload images / photos to Sharetops so that you can use them on your Desktops. Please note that you are fully responsible for any content that you upload to Sharetops, so please ensure that you do have the appropriate rights to use the images in the capacity that you intend to use them.

To upload an image or photo to Sharetops click the Add Image button located to the bottom left of the Library Browser. This will open up a file open dialog that allows you to select files that you would like to upload. Please note that only files of type JPG/JPEG and PNG are supported and that each file can be no larger than 1MB (1048576 bytes) in size. Once the file has completed uploading it will appear in your library asset list.

To add an image or photo from the library browser to your desktop simply click the “green add button” situated to the left of the image thumbnail.

To delete unused or unneeded images and photos simply click the delete button situated to the far left of the image thumbnail.

Proceed to Step 2 - Adding a predefined link to the Desktop