collective.flowplayer 4.2.1

A simple package using Flowplayer for video and audio content

Contents

• Introduction

  • Installation

  • Uninstall

  • Usage

    • Standalone player

    • Playlist

    • Portlet

    • Inline

  • Kupu integration

    • Video

    • Audio

    • Notes

  • Configuration

  • Commercial version of flowplayer

  • Extending player runtime

  • Extending example

• Upgrade notes

  • Upgrade specific notes: from 1.0 to 3.0

  • How to upgrade

• Changelog

  • 4.2.1 (2014-07-07)

  • 4.2.0 (2014-07-07)

  • 4.1 (2014-03-20)

  • 4.0 (2013-04-18)

  • 3.1.2 - 2013-1-25

  • 3.1.1 - 2012-09-12

  • 3.1 - 2012-09-12

  • 3.0 - 2012-08-22

  • 3.0rc4 - 2011-06-05

  • 3.0rc3 - 2011-05-23

  • 3.0rc2 - 2010-11-15

  • 3.0rc1 - 2010-06-24

  • 3.0b7 - 2010-03-14

  • 3.0b6 - 2010-03-09

  • 3.0b5 - 2009-12-11

  • 3.0b4 - 2009-10-05

  • 3.0b3 - 2009-09-26

  • 3.0b2 - 2009-09-16

  • 3.0b1 - 2009-09-15

  • 1.0b5 - 2009-03-18

  • 1.0b4 - 2009-03-06

  • 1.0b3 - 2009-02-23

  • 1.0b2 - Released September 9th, 2008

  • 1.0b1 - Released September 6th, 2008

Introduction

collective.flowplayer integrates the GPL version of Flowplayer with Plone 4.x. It can play .flv Flash Video files, mp4 files or links as well as .mp3 files or links.

If you want to use collective.flowplayer with Plone 3.x, please pin version to 3.1.2 which was the latest 3.x compatible release.

Development is now focused on Plone 4.x which can be tested by Travis CI automatically.

• collective.flowplayer 4.x works with Plone 4.x

• collective.flowplayer 3.x works with Plone 3.x.

Installation

1. Add collective.flowplayer to your buildout as normal. See http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/buildout.

   • Plone 4:

     [buildout]
     ...
     parts =
         ...
         instance
     
     [instance]
     eggs =
         ...
         collective.flowplayer

   • Plone 3:

     Don’t forget to load the configure.zcml file! Please use a versions part in your buildout as shown below to specify a collective.flowplayer version below 4:

     [buildout]
     ...
     versions = versions
     parts =
         ...
         instance
     
     [instance]
     eggs =
         ...
         collective.flowplayer
     zcml =
         ...
         collective.flowplayer
     
     [versions]
     collective.flowplayer = 3.1.2

2. Install the product via Plone’s Add-on products control panel or portal_quickinstaller in ZMI.

Uninstall

Previous versions of collective.flowplayer have been known to pollute your Plone site. Uninstalling the product has proven to be difficult.

If this is the case for you, please upgrade to the latest version of collective.flowplayer and then uninstall this product.

If you have already attempted to uninstall the product, a utility view has now been provided so you do not have to first reinstall it in order to uninstall it again on your site.

Simply visit http://yousite.com/@@uninstall-flowplayer and follow the directions provided.

Usage

collective.flowplayer offers several different usage modes:

Standalone player

To get a standalone video or audio player, simply add a standard Plone File anywhere in your site and upload a .flv or .mp3 file. You can also add a Plone Link whose URL points to an .flv or .mp3 URL. The ‘flowplayer’ view will automatically be selected in the ‘display’ menu, which will show a video/audio player.

You can also do this manually, of course.

Playlist

Create a Folder with several .mp3 or .flv files or links, or create a Collection that lists such files or links. Then ‘flowplayer’ from the ‘display’ drop-down at the Folder/Collection level.

This will show a video/audio player that will loop through the media in the Folder/Collection (unknown file formats will be ignored) in order. The video player will be sized to fit the largest video in the playlist.

There is horizontal scrollable playlist displayed under the player by default. If you don’t want to display the playlist, switch off “showPlaylist” property in flowplayer’s configuration.

Portlet

To place a video or audio player in a portlet, use the Video Player portlet that is installed with this product. You can choose a Folder, Collection or File to display. When displaying a Folder or Collection, you will get a playlist much like the one described above.

Note that the player in the portlet has got a fixed size, set with CSS.

Inline

In each of the cases above, the video player is actually created with JavaScript as the page is loaded. This allows some degree of graceful degradation for browsers without Flash or JavaScript, but, more importantly, makes it easy to insert a video player anywhere, including in your content pages.

To create a standalone player, you would use markup like this:

<a class="autoFlowPlayer" href="path/to/video-file.flv">
    <img src="path/to/splashscreen.jpg" />
</a>

You can also use a <div class=”autoFlowPlayer” /> around the <a /> tag if you prefer.

This would be replaced by a video player showing the video in video-file.flv, starting with a splash screen image from splashscreen.jpg. The image is optional, but if it is specified, the player will be sized to be identical to the image.

You can also get a more stripped-down player by using:

<a class="autoFlowPlayer minimal" href="path/to/video-file.flv">
    <img src="path/to/splashscreen.jpg" />
</a>

For an audio player, you can use:

<a class="autoFlowPlayer audio" href="path/to/audio-file.mp3">
    This text is replaced.
</a>

You can also use class=”autoFlowPlayer minimal audio” to get a very small audio player (essentially just a play button).

To get a playlist, you can use markup like this:

<div class="playListFlowPlayer">
    <a class="playListItem" href="path/to/video.flv">Video one</a>
    <a class="playListItem" href="path/to/video.flv">Video two</a>
    <img src="splash.jpg" />
</div>

You can also add ‘minimal’ and/or ‘audio’ to the list of classes for the outer <div /> to change the appearance of the player, or add ‘random’ to get a randomised playlist. The splash image is optional.

Kupu integration

Kupu is now deprecated. This section is kept for old Plone 3 installations.

To make it easier to use the type of markup outlined above to insert a video or audio player into a Plone content item, this product installs a few Kupu paragraph styles. You can use them like this:

Video

1. Insert the image you want to use as a splash image. You should insert this “inline” (rather than left/right floating), preferably in its own paragraph.

2. Select on the image, and make it link to the .flv or .mp3 file you want to play.

3. Select one of the Video or Audio styles from the styles drop-down.

Audio

1. Create a link to an mp3 file, e.g. out of some text. Again, place it in its own paragraph.

2. Select one of the “Audio” styles from the styles drop-down. The “left” and “right” styles will produce a small player floating to the left or right. The “Audio” style will produce a larger player on its own line.

Notes

• it is not possible to detect clip width/height from the mp4 file now

• 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.

• player is correctly created only if player container is < div > element (Kupu does it automatically if Audio and Video styles are used). Using other containers (eg. p) is not supported currently.

Configuration

Flowplayer supports a large number of configuration options. A few of these will be set based on the markup used to render the player (e.g. the playlist buttons will only be rendered if there is a playlist, and most controls will be hidden in ‘minimal’ mode). Most other options can be set in the ZMI.

In portal_properties, there should be a new propertysheet called flowplayer_properties. Options set here are passed through to the player’s JavaScript configuration (make sure you use the right property type). For string properties, you can use the placeholder ${portal_url} to refer to the URL of the portal root. This is useful for things like watermark images or player plugins.

Properties starting with word “param/” are considered as Flash configuration properties. You may set properties like src (player flash file), wmode, quality, allowscriptaccess etc. Just use eg. param/wmode as property name and eg. ‘opaque’ as property value.

‘’’Important note’’’ Since playlist configuration is a generated javascript file included in portal_javascript, you must reload portal_javascript after global player configuration is changed or portal_javascript must be running in debug mode (not reccommended for production sites). Go to ZMI/portal_javascript, scroll down and pres “Save” button after your flowplayer_properties are set.

Since FlowPlayer3 uses more complex properties and plugins infrastructure, most of visual properties are defined as a plugin configuration (e.g. control bar is separate plugin with own set of properties). If you want to configure FlowPlayer3 plugin, you should define it’s flash file using property syntax eg. plugins/controls/url which generates configuration item in form:

{
 plugins : {
           controls : {
                        url : 'VALUE OF PROPERTY'
                      }
           }
}

To configure color of control bar volumeSliderColor, define property: plugins/controls/volumeSliderColor set to value ‘lime’, which generates the following config:

{
 plugins : {
           controls : {
                        url : 'VALUE OF PROPERTY',
                        volumeSliderColor: 'lime'
                      }
           }
}

All control bar configuration properties are described on Controlbar plugin documentation page.

General informations about the configuration options may be found at the FlowPlayer configuration page. Please note, it is not possible to specify events in the Plone’s flowplayer_properties sheet now (eg. onBeforeFinish event).

Useful configuration examples from http://flowplayer.org:

• Custom tooltips and texts

• Controlbar color generator

Commercial version of flowplayer

Use these parameters in portal_properties/flowplayer_properties (you can use different versions of course):

param/src = http://releases.flowplayer.org/swf/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.7.swf
plugins/controls/url = http://releases.flowplayer.org/swf/flowplayer.controls-3.2.5.swf
plugins/audio/url = http://releases.flowplayer.org/swf/flowplayer.audio-3.2.2.swf

and of course you need to add a “key” property with your license’s key.

See http://plone.org/products/collective-flowplayer/issues/10 for details.

Extending player runtime

It is possible to extend player configuration or modify player behaviour runtime using javascript plugins. Collective.flowplayer uses flowplayer.js for embedding player into page. It is the most general version of embedding which allows all kinds of configuration of the player. Please read Documentation of Flowplayer JS API for more details. The most important for player extension is Player retrieval part and description of Player configuration and Clip configuration. A lot of player scripting examples may be found at Scripting demo page and Scripting documentation

Extending example

collective.flowplayer creates Flowplayer instance from all .autoFlowPlayer and .playListFlowPlayer containers on the page. You may retrieve first player eg. by:

$f()  or flowplayer()

or iterate through all players on page using:

$f("*").each

To be able to configure player runtime, you must first create custom javascript file and include this file to page or add it to portal_javascripts registry. Since flowplayer uses jQuery to initialize itself, you must use jQuery syntax as well. Example of js skeleton:

jq(function () {

    // your javascript code goes here

})

Let’s create concerete example. The most visible one is Javascript alert:

jq(function () {

    $f().onPause(function() { alert("Don't pause me!")})

})

or (for all players on the page):

jq(function () {

    $f("*").each( function() {
                    this.onPause(function() { alert("Don't pause me!")})
                  })

})

TIP: If you are using Firefox and have the Firebug Add-on installed, then you can try the examples yourself against every possible Flowplayer demo on flowplayer.org or your own site. Activate Firebug console and enter:

$f().onPause(function() { alert("Don't pause me!")})

Try to start/pause player now. Alert window should be displayed.

Upgrade notes

Upgrade specific notes: from 1.0 to 3.0

Flowplayer configuration changed a lot from Flowplayer 2.2 used in collective.flowplayer 1.0. Most of Flowplayer properties are migrated automatically, but there are few troubles.

• Contents of “player” property is not migrated. If you are using commercial or customized version of Flowplayer2 please obtain updated version or don’t upgrade collective.flowplayer at all!

• Properties usePlayOverlay, useNativeFullScreen, controlsOverVideo, controlBarGloss are not migrated and are deleted during migration process. There are no direct equivalents in Flowplayer 3

How to upgrade

• force buildout to use new version of collective.flowplayer (check if version is not pinned, use bin/buildout -n)

• restart zope instance

• go to portal_quickinstaller or Add/Remove products controlpanel and reinstall Flowplayer product

• go to ZMI - portal_setup - Upgrades tab, select collective.flowplayer:default profile, click “Choose profile” button. There should be ‘Upgrade collective.flowplayer (1.0 - 3.0)’ step available. Make sure step is checked and press Upgrade button. If the upgrade step is not shown and you are sure (even unsure) you migrated to the latest version already, press ‘Show’ button to show old upgrades and run upgrade step manually. It should be safe to run the upgrade step several times.

• Read README.txt to check how to configure custom properties of your Flowplayer instance

Changelog

4.2.1 (2014-07-07)

• Brown bag release, late javascript loading was broken and did not load flowplayer at all. [do3cc]

4.2.0 (2014-07-07)

• Complete uninstall profile. [thet]

• Set our properties on install, also when kupu is not available. Fix the zcml condition for loading kupu.zcml. [maurits]

• Load Javascript later, so that slow image loading does not result in too small flowplayer windows. [do3cc]

4.1 (2014-03-20)

• fix profiles to not be defined twice [vangheem]

• provide a more complete uninstall [vangheem]

4.0 (2013-04-18)

• Include keul’s fix he did for 3.x release. Updated zcml directives for dexterity usage. Close #3 [keul, saily]

• Use different install profiles if no plone.app.collection module was found which is default for Plone 4.0.x and Plone 4.1.x versions. [saily]

• Pep8 cleanup [saily]

• Focus development to Plone 4.x and add test buildouts for all Plone 4 versions including a travis test for all of them. [saily]

• Upgrade to plone.app.testing and remove collective.testcaselayer [saily]

• Upgrade to latest V1 bootstrap [saily]

• Use version 4.0 since we focus development to Plone 4.x now. [saily]

• Plone 4.3 compatiblity. [pbauer]

3.1.2 - 2013-1-25

• Define initFlowpalyer variable and add optional param “area” to load flowplayer on a specific area. [mathias.leimgruber]

• Clean up init.js [mathias.leimgruber]

• Updated italian translation [keul]

• Updated Flowplayer to 3.2.15 [tom_gross]

3.1.1 - 2012-09-12

• Fixed manifest.in [jensens]

3.1 - 2012-09-12

• Added width and height configuration in file edition video tab (first loaded from metadata, leave empty to reload from metadata) [jriboux]

• Fixed base profile being installed instead of default. http://plone.org/products/collective-flowplayer/issues/16 [jriboux]

3.0 - 2012-08-22

• Update Flowplayer to 3.2.14 [encolpe]

• Include simplejson only on Plone 3 environment [keul]

• Removed buggy support for image files [keul]

• Fixed a bug that still looks for flowplayer_properties even if the product is uninstalled. [keul]

• Fixed tests [keul]

• Fixed filename lazy property for ChangeLinkView [encolpe]

• Changed portlet permission from “Manage portal” to the better “Manage portlets” [keul]

3.0rc4 - 2011-06-05

• Fixed wrong GS import step dependenciences. Fixes http://plone.org/products/collective-flowplayer/issues/12 [naro]

• added script for rebuild all .po files [keul]

• added italian translation [keul]

3.0rc3 - 2011-05-23

• fixed http://plone.org/products/collective-flowplayer/issues/8 ValueError(“Can’t commit with opened blobs.”) [naro]

• Update to Flowplayer 3.2.7 and latest plugin versions. [elro]

• Only generate a minimal config global object. Move remaining javascript to a separate file in a resource directory to simplify checking with jslint and customisation. [elro]

• Add french translation [toutpt]

• Make kupu setup conditionnal. Fix the kupu import step dependency. [kiorky]

3.0rc2 - 2010-11-15

• Dexterity behavior and view for file content. [elro]

• Split base configuration out from AT specific configuration. [elro]

• Updated to Flowplayer 3.2.5 (plugins updated to latest version) [naro]

• Added iPad/iPhone javascript plugin. Plugin is avalable to custom use, but not included in javascript configuration by default. [naro]

• Fix metadata parsing of links caused by redesign with new parsing framework. [thet]

• CSS simplification. [thet]

• Don’t set flowplayer’s width per javascript for audio files. Let it be set by css. Besides a simplification this change also allows easy overriding. [thet]

• Don’t hide flowplayer controls in when loading audio files [thet]

• Code cleanup in events.py [thet]

• Metadata extraction with hachoir library instead of own flv-only implementation. Code partially taken from p4a.video. [thet]

• Test fixes and cleanups [thet]

• made zope2 products from collective.flowplayer to be able to provide uninstall profile. [naro]

• implemented first part of the uninstall profile [naro]

3.0rc1 - 2010-06-24

• Updated Flowplayer to 3.2.2 [naro]

• Fix to address Flash 10.1 issue. [dunlapm]

3.0b7 - 2010-03-14

• Do not fail if Kupu is not available [naro]

• added z3c.autoinclude plugin [naro]

• Fixed handling of audio player if created from Kupu. [naro]

3.0b6 - 2010-03-09

• Updated Flowplayer to 3.1.5

• Partially fixed class=”autoFlowPlayer minimal audio”. Class minimal in combination with audio still causes problems. [naro]

3.0b5 - 2009-12-11

• Removed @@ prefix from collective.flowplayer.js in javascript registry. It probably confused Safari and Chrome. Thanks dahoste for pointing to this issue. [naro]

• Flowplayer updated to 3.1.4; modules updated to the latest versions [naro]

• Added headerparsing to IVideo-enhanced links. This allows using the scaling property clip/scaling for links [tom_gross]

3.0b4 - 2009-10-05

• Depend on plone.app.jquerytools: plone.app.jqtools was renamed and the package removed, so new installations would break. [optilude]

• use IFileContent instead of IATFile to be able to handle ATBlob as well.

• added empty upgrade step for such version changes which does not require any upgrade. This is not apparently good solution. [naro]

3.0b3 - 2009-09-26

• URL passed to flowplayer must end with known media suffix (flv, mp3, mp4 etc.). URL http://portal/folder/myvideo is not valid source for Flowplayer, but http://portal/folder/myvideo?e=.flv is. Thanks to Milos Prudek for pointing to this issue. [naro]

3.0b2 - 2009-09-16

• added missing plone.app.jqtools zcml include [naro]

• It is possible to specify flash parameters using param/… properties. ‘player’ property were changed to ‘param/src’. This may be used for setting eg. param/wmode to ‘opaque’. [naro]

3.0b1 - 2009-09-15

• Updated to flowplayer3 - Please read Upgrade notes and Readme

• new option showPlaylist toggles horizontal playlist below the player in the folder/collection view mode. Images and styles are taken from this example: http://flowplayer.org/demos/plugins/javascript/playlist/horizontal.htm

1.0b5 - 2009-03-18

• Have the event handlers make sure they’re working with an object from a site where collective.flowplayer is installed. [davisagli]

1.0b4 - 2009-03-06

• Move the Plone dependency into the buildout to avoid the problem reported in http://david.wglick.org/2009/heads-up-watch-out-for-dependencies-on-plone/

1.0b3 - 2009-02-23

• Added support for links

• Added test coverage

1.0b2 - Released September 9th, 2008

• Fixed portal_javascripts rendering traceback [optilude]

• Fixed image player view bug [optilude]

1.0b1 - Released September 6th, 2008

• Initial release