Flowplayer

Description

Using Flowplayer video player in your Plone add-ons.

Introduction

Flowplayer is a GPL'ed Flash-based video player.

Plone integration exists as an add-on product:

• http://plone.org/products/collective-flowplayer

Creating a custom Flowplayer

Here is a walkthrough how to create a custom content-type with a video field which plays the uploaded video using Flowplayer in a page template with parameters you define.

Dexterity model definition:

from plone.namedfile.field import NamedFile, NamedImage

class IPortletSource(form.Schema):
    """ Portlet source content
    """

    videoFile = NamedFile(
                title=u"Video file",
                description=u"Upload video file from local computer to show mini-video-player in the portlet",
                required=False
                )

Helper view Python code:

class MiniVideo(grok.View):
    """ Render a mini Flowplayer (inside portlet)
    """

    grok.context(IPortletSource)

    def hasVideo(self):
        """ Check if plone.namedfile field exist and has a video file uploaded on the context item.
        """

        return self.context.videoFile != None

Helper view template:

<div class="video" tal:condition="view/hasVideo">

    <!-- The href references the FLV file. It is not safe to use XHTML
        style self-closing tags here. -->
    <tal:video define="video nocall:context/videoFile"
         tal:condition="nocall:video">
            <a class="flow-player" tal:attributes="href string:${context/absolute_url}/@@download/videoFile/${video/filename}">
            </a>
    </tal:video>

    <!-- Helper for Javascript which is used to determine location of
        Flowplayer resource files -->
    <span class="flowplayer-site-url" style="display:none" tal:content="context/portal_url" />

</div>

Using the view:

<div class="portletSimulator">

    <div tal:attributes="class string:ls-portlet ${context/extraCSS}">

      <h3 tal:condition="view/has_title"
          tal:attributes="class string:portletHeader ls-portlet-header">
        <a class="header"
           tal:omit-tag=""
           tal:content="context/title" />
      </h3>

      <div tal:define="videoView nocall:context/@@minivideo"
           tal:replace="structure videoView" />

    </div>

</div>

Javascript, registered in portal_javascripts, doing the magic:

/**
 * Bootstrap flow player.
 *
 * Call this when DOM is ready ( jq(document).ready() ).
 */
function setupPortletVideo() {

    // Site base URL must be available in some hidden variable
    // so that we can build references to our media resources
    var urlBase = jq(".flowplayer-site-url").text();

    console.log("Video set-up:" + urlBase);

    // Iterate through all links which are tagged as video on the page
    // Use a special marker class for videos which we want to configure ourselves
    jq('a.flow-player').each(function() {

        console.log("Found flowplayer");

        var self = jq(this);

        // Config help
        // http://flowplayer.org/documentation/configuration/index.html
        // http://flowplayer.org/documentation/configuration/clips.html#properties
        // Styling properties http://flowplayer.org/documentation/configuration/plugins.html
        var config = {
                "clip": {
                    "scaling": "orignal",
                    "autoBuffering": true,
                    "autoPlay": false,
                    },

                "plugins": {
                    // Note that + must be escaped as %2B
                    "audio": {
                        "url": urlBase + "/%2B%2Bresource%2B%2Bcollective.flowplayer/flowplayer.audio.swf" },
                    // Disable control plug-in
                    // On mouse over Play button still appears
                    "controls" : {
                        "url": urlBase + "/%2B%2Bresource%2B%2Bcollective.flowplayer/flowplayer.controls.swf",
                        playlist:false,
                        fullscreen:false,
                        mute:false,
                        time:false,
                        }
                    },

                    // http://flowplayer.org/documentation/configuration/player.html
                    // debug : true,

                log: {
                    // Enable debug output (lots of it)
                    // level  : 'debug'
                    },

                }

        config.clip.url = self.attr('href');

        // Create Flowplayer by calling its own JS API
        var player = flowplayer(this,
               {"src": urlBase + "/++resource++collective.flowplayer/flowplayer.swf"
               }, config);
    });
}

jq(document).ready(setupPortletVideo);

Needed CSS:

/* Videos */

a.flow-player {
        display: block;
        width: 235px;
        height: 180px;
}

Note

if your player is not displayed on the page load, but is displayed after you click somewhere to the player container area, be sure there is no HTML code nor text inside the player container HTML tag. Such code/text is considered as player splash screen and player is waiting for click to the splash.

Non-buffered MP4 playback fix

MPEG4 files must be specially prepared (quick play fix), so that the playback starts instantly and the player does not try to buffer the whole file first

• https://twitter.com/moo9000/status/253947688276594688