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CFVIDEOPLAYER comes to OpenBD
The CFVIDEOPLAYER tag has been introduced to the core base of OpenBD and is available as part of the nightly builds. It will be rolled into the upcoming 1.0.2 release.
This tag was first introduced to the CFML community by Railo, the other CFML alternative runtime, some time back. We hadn't seen a need for it until members of our steering committee started discussing it and was soon decided that it should be part of our offering too. We'd like to thank Railo for inspiring a new generation of multimedia tags to be part of the CFML language.
We've based it on the popular and open source flash player, FlowPlayer which is shipping with the core distribution of OpenBD.
CFVIDEOPLAYER lets you quickly embed video, photo slideshows and audio streaming into the page without having to worry or wrestle with the logistics.
<!--- Multiple Clips ---> <cfset clips = ArrayNew(1)> <cfset clips[1] = "http://blip.tv/file/get/Twobydit760.flv"> <cfset clips[2] = "http://blip.tv/file/get/N8inpasadena-Flowers457.flv"> <cfvideoplayer video="#clips#" playlist="true" stop="true" autoplay="false"> <!--- Single Clip ---> <cfset singleClip = "http://blip.tv/file/get/N8inpasadena-Flowers457.flv"> <cfvideoplayer video="#singleClip#">
You can pass in a single URL to a clip, or alternatively pass in a cfarray of URL's and it will automatically play each clip in turn. This could allow you to insert a short pre-amble (or advert) at the front of your main video.
You have control over whether the player auto starts, width, height, fits to screen, hide various controls, and whether or not you want the user to be able to click on the video to be taken to another page.
There is no pre-requirements to using CFVIDEOPLAYER, just drop it into your CFML page and enjoy.
You can see the CFVIDEOPLAYER in action here at our live demo site. Showcasing the latest nightly builds.
Comments (14)
@Magnus--we're using FlowPlayer so we will support the functionality available in that player. I notice there are some MP3/audio plugins so we would have to look at whether or not it makes sense to tap into those.
I'll put in a ticket for the request so it's on our radar. Thanks for the suggestion!I just want to play audio. Will it work for that? It is possible to not have a screen image when it is just audio? If not, are there plans for this?
@Bill i am behind you 100% regarding the bloat of HTML pages. That is why I have been working on a new model for delivery of this extra client side technology without taking the lazy approach of just dumping the JS straight into the HTML page.
CFAJAXPROXY is one that i am working on at the moment, and my goal there is to keep the in-page HTML to an absolute minimum. Now as CFVIDEOPLAYER proved, there is some teething issues to be worked out with various browsers, but thats where i find the power of open source really kicks in. We can throw this over the wire much quicker and earlier and instantly we get CHEERS or JEERS! :)@Bill--I don't think your comments are off-topic at all. We're always interested in hearing what people think about the direction we're taking with things, which is another reason we're going to continue to throw ideas out to the OpenBD community as early as we can. So never be afraid to let us know what you think!
@Alan, Yeh, I figured as much but just wanted to see how far it was being thought out.. I have used a number of video players and wanted to see about the ease of doing it with a tag.. But I probably won't change.. I did however switch to flowplayer this morning.. it's pretty good in comparison to some..
One a related, but off topic note, I'm personally of the mindset tht tags like these and the CF Ajax tags don't really have a place in an application server per se. When CFWindow, CFDIV, CFLayout, etc came out, i took a quick look, laughed and moved on.. Thats def one of the things I'm liking about openBD.. keeps file size small, keeps the http request from being swollen, etc.. any bloating is directly attributed to my actions and controllable 100%..Sure we could do that -- but is there any documentation on how this works anywhere? We will naturally add in the necessary functionality to keep with Railo, as they are considered the "spec lead" for this particular tag and its important to support it and extend it where possible.
So yes, the inner tags we did toy with, but felt there was an easier quicker way to simply throw a list of video URL's to the player. This is why we love open source and the ability to perform nightly releases as we quickly garner the feedback from the community and make the corrections where necessary. Nightly builds are as much about experimentation as they are about bug fixes. ThanksWhy not supporting multiple videos the same way Railo does with tag cfvideoplayerparam?
@Bill -- if you need that much control over the player, then i would advise you simply manage the flowplayer SWF yourself. There is a lot of functionality contained within that player
Make sure you update the full /WEB-INF/ folder when you are updating your existing OpenBD installation.
This is why its released in the nightly build, so we can test deployments.Few things that come to mind off the top of my head:
a) any provision for encrypting the filename? Some players accomplish this with a simple toBase64() on the filename.. b) I spend an enormous amount of time making sure that JS files load thru a preconfigured front end. That being the case, I didn't see the .js files in the bluedragon folder anywhere so that I could either minify them, or even better, request them via a particular url.. I guess what I'm asking is where is the insertion point for this, should I need to change a few minor things.. c) Whats the future of this look like? I'm guessing that this is just to ease the setup / config, and I'd still have to do custom things via JS? A parameter I could see myself using alot is "watermark image".. d) last but not least, the ever popular embed code.. Is the full URL fed into the JS that creates the player? I typically wrap a player w/ a DIV, give it an ID and copy the innerHTML to my "Embed Video" area.. If the urls used here are relative, this would pose a problem.. Man.. It just came out, and I'm doggin it.. What a jerk! :-PDo I need to download and install flowplayer from their website? I put in the code and see the generated Object, and it looks to point to "data='load.cfres?f=/flowplayer/flowplayer-3.0.5.swf'". Is the flowplayer embedded in the release (OpenBD Ready To Run) or do I need to download it. If download, where in the root is it looking? BIN?
ThanksYes, no problems at all.
Cool. Does 'video' have to be a URL? Could it be a file name relative to the cfml file as per Railo? e.g. "videos/intro.flv"
Added a ticket http://code.google.com/p/openbluedragon/issues/detail?id=94