Using Vlogsplosion

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[edit] Using Vlogsplosion

[edit] Introduction

Vlogsplosion originates from UFOSplode by Rudy Jahchan at Galacticast. Vlogsplosion consists of a theme designed for videoblogging and code for easily putting video on a website and getting unique RSS feeds for those videos. The theme is available at Show-In-A-Box. The Vlogsplosion code is implemented here in vPIP.

[edit] Admin Options

The Vlogsplosion defaults are set in the admin Options->vPIP Config menu. These defaults will appear in any new posts. Any changes made on the post override the default set here.

  • The type of video entries are fixed to the titles of "Flash", "QuickTime", "iPod", "Apple TV", "Mobile" and "Windows Media". These titles will appear in the post links for the videos. The default settings for these video entries are:
    1. Width and height of of the video.
    2. Whether this type of video will be the default used when clicking on the poster image.
    3. The order in which the video links will appear on the post.
    4. Whether the video entered is active on the published post or only visible when writing the post.
    5. Whether the video entered is visible on the published post or commented out. This is useful to have the video available as a feed, like for the Apple TV feed, but not embed in the published post.
    6. What the media is for or the target platform of the video
    7. The icons for the unique feeds to each media type. Right click to copy for using on the sidebar or a feed service like Feedburner.
  • If your site uses an earlier version of either UFOSplode or the prior custom version of Vlogsplosion that Michael Verdi setup, then use the "Update from legacy Vlogsplosion" button to transfer the enclosure settings to vPIP Vlogsplosion.
    The enclosure entries are transfered that match, case insensitive, the media names of "Flash", "QuickTime", "iPod", "Apple TV", "Mobile" and "Windows Media". The enclosure names of either "videoLinkImage" or "thumbnail", case sensitive, will transfer over as the poster images.

vPIP comes with an internal flash player. If you wish to use another flash player, check the "Use an external Flash Player?" checkbox.

There you enter:

  1. The url to the flash player
  2. The parameter name used by the flash player to open the flash movie. Check the documentation for the flash player to get the parameter name. For example, the Jeroen Wijering Flv Player uses the "file" (enter without quotes) parameter name in the embed FlashVars area.
  3. Whether the parameter for opening the movie is appended to the player url or in the embed FlashVars section.
  4. Any additional parameters to place in the FlashVars area, like "autostart=true".

You can share your videos with the "Offer embed code?" checkbox.

There you select:

  1. The text of the "Embed button title."
  2. Whether the embed area is CSS sytled. If not, you should provide your own styling. For details see below, Writing a Post.

Warning: The embed code points to where you have specified the vPIP javascript files. If you move those files, past embed code will not run the vPIP scripts.

[edit] Writing A Post

When writing your post, the Vlogsplosion media and settings are below the entry box.

The entries are:

  1. The poster image that will appear at the top of your published post. It will be linked to the video set to default. This can be any valid HTML <img src="..." /> file (png, jpg or gif).
  2. The thumbnail image that will be used in the archive or video gallery. The gallery feature will be implemented in a future version of vPIP.
  3. The url for the videos.</b>
  4. The width and height of the video.
  5. Whether this video will be used as the default for the poster image link.
  6. The order in which the video links appear below the poster image.
  7. Whether the video is active on when the post is published or only here.
  8. Whether the video is visible on the when the post is published or commented out. This is useful to have the video available as a feed, like for the Apple TV feed, but not embeded in the published post.
  9. The target platform of the media is shown in the For column.

Then, if you want to use another player than the vPIP internal flash player, check the "Change to an external Flash Player?" checkbox and enter:

  1. The url to the flash player
  2. The parameter name used by the flash player to open the flash movie. Check the documentation for the flash player to get the parameter name. For example, the Jeroen Wijering Flv Player uses the "file" (enter without quotes) parameter name in the embed FlashVars area.
  3. Whether the parameter for opening the movie is appended to the player url or in the embed FlashVars section.
  4. Any additional parameters to place in the FlashVars area, like "autostart=true".

Last, if your sharing Offer embed code for the video:

  1. Change the Embed button title
  2. Select whether the embed area will be CSS styled

Warning: The embed code points to where you have specified the vPIP javascript files. If you move those files, past embed code will not run the vPIP scripts.

Styling: If you turn off CSS styling for the emed area, you need to provide your own styling in a CSS file or directly in the page. The embed code area classes you can stile are:

  • EmbedCodeShareBtn = DIV containing the share button (link.)
  • EmbedMediaList = SELECT drop down control for the media type list (QuickTime, Flash, etc.)
  • EmbedCodeArea = DIV containing embed code controls.
  • EmbedCodeTable = TABLE for embed code controls.
  • EmbedCodeCloseBtn = DIV that contains close button link.
  • EmbedCodeTextarea = TEXTAREA container of the embed code.

[edit] Unique Feeds

The Vlogsplosion Unique Feeds allows you to create a variety of different types of RSS2 feeds. You can use the vPIP Feed widget to automatically have feeds for your video entries (Flash, QuickTime, iPod, Apple TV, Mobile and Windows Media). Or call the vPIP Feed script directly to customize your own feeds.

[edit] Widget

If you have Wordpress 2.2 or newer and a Theme that supports widgets (or have widgetized a theme), then you may use the vPIP Feeds widget. Go to the admin Plugins menu and turn on the vPIP Feed widget:

Then go to the Presentation->Widgets menu and drag the "vPIP Feeds" widget into the Sidebar:

Now click on the widget configure icon:

And you'll get the configuration window:

Here you can enter the Title that will appear in the sidebar for the type of Vlogsplosion feed (Flash, QuickTime, iPod, Apple TV, Mobile or Windows Media.) Select none from the combo box to not use that row.

On the last three rows, you can enter a custom call to the vPIP Feeds script. The Settings to the script are explained below in the Script section. Mimetype can usually be left blank for common mimetypes of Flash, QuickTime and Windows Media file types.

Here is the the feed entries on the page from the choices above:

[edit] Script

vPIPFeed.php is the script that creates a unique feed. It's located in the ../wp-content/plugins/vPIP/ and the ../wp-content/plugins/widgets/ wordpress folders. vPIPFeed.php is called with up to three url parameters: blogURL, media and type. Type is not required, but the parameters of blogURL and media are necessary to create a unique feed. Definition of these parameters:

  • blogURL = The url to the home page of the wordpress blog to create the feed for. For example, if your blog is at <nowiki>http://myserver.com/wp</nowiki>, then the parameter statement would be blogURL=<nowiki>http://myserver.com/wp</nowiki>.
  • media = the media specification used to filter the unique feed. These can be:
    • The video or audio file extension. For instance, to get all video files ending in mov enter media=mov
    • Wild cards to the video or audio file using * for any characters up to and ? for any single character. For example, if you name you're vacation videos starting with "vactn" like vactnRome.mov, vactnFrance.mp4, etc. Then you can have a feed just for vacation films with media=vactn*.*
    • Refering to the Vlogsplosion media titles using vs-title: <vlogsplosion media title>. For example to get all the videos entered into the iPod Vlogsplosion fields, enter media=vs-title: iPod.
    • Multiple types of entries can be put in seperated by comma (,). For instance to get all video files ending in mov, mp4 and entered in the Vlogsplosion Quicktime line for a custom QuickTime feed enter media=mov,mp4, vs-title: QuickTime.
  • type = The mimetype of the media feed. This is usually not necessary, since the vPIP Feed script can usually determine the mimetype from the media file extension. Like "video/quicktime" for files ending in mov, "video/x-ms-wmv" for those ending in wmv, etc.

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