Playlist supported according to feature list, but how?

Hello Martin,

thank you very much. I have downloaded and installed it which went without a hitch.

Couple of points, though:

1. Did you test it with Amazon S3 protected files or is there something special I need to do to make it work? It doesn’t really work for me, the first video plays, but then it says that the video has expired (not elegant) and the other videos don’t start when clicked. I got a 403 error when I clicked another thumbnail

2. Does the playlist feature allow for automatically starting to play the next video? Perhaps it is in there, and it just doesn’t work for me?

3. The CSS does not work well in my theme. The thumbnail icons are partly covering the main video.

4. It is not complicated to add videos to a playlist, but I personally find this implementation with all the URLs completely visible in the short code unworkable. There is no way to easily maintain or change the playlist afterwards; for me this would be a dealbreaker.

I’ve seen other products will allow for creating a playlist through the settings in the admin panel (a nice table with all the URLs and the display settings) and then you just call that particular playlist in the short code.

5. One thing about the current screen to add the videos is that you still need to fill out the top field where it just says “video”. That was not immediately clear to me, I just zoomed in on where it said “playlist”.

I hope you find these comments helpful. If there is anything particular you would like me to test, just let me know.

Janna

Hi,

Sorry for the delay: I have 4 video’s in the playlist.

Have a nice weekend,
Janna

Hi Martin,

with the CSS code the thumbnails are now arranged below the player screen properly.

Unfortunately the Amazon issue doesn’t seem to be fixed for me yet. I don’t know if it is any use, but I have a screenshot if I can post it anywhere.

The plug-in tries to move to the second video, but then it halts and it gives the error that the video has expired. If I try to reload the page and e.g. click the third thumbnail, it also gives the expired message. The link to the video is okay, when I place it first, it placed just fine.

Are you considering making a more user-friendly interface for adding and maintaining playlists? There isn’t really much “short” about the short code in a playlist with urls of four videos and their splash screens. It looks really messy in the post content and it cannot be maintained easily.

Best, Janna

Hi Alec & team,

Yes, I realize you’re still working hard on this playlist feature. And I can certainly see your point about lightboxes being fast for adding new playlists.

On the other hand I have no clue as to how you envision the final functionality, so I am commenting on the situation as it is now, because it is the only reference I have.

So while lightbox-enhancing the workflow thing might work well for adding new playlists, this is not so for editing or maintainance (change the order, replacing a spash screen, updating a video) as it currently is setup. Even if you select your shortcode, you don’t get your current data in the lightbox for editing when you click the flowplayer icon.

For a 4 video playlist, the shortcode in my post is like this:
[fvplayer src='https://s3-xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxx.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxnieuwe-alinea.mp4' width=700 height=433 splash='http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xx/wp-content/uploads/andreausb-1.jpg' playlist="https://s3-xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxx.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxga-naar-begin-einde.mp4,http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xx/wp-content/uploads/andreausb-1.jpg;https://s3-xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxx.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxnieuwe-alinea.mp4,http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xx/wp-content/uploads/andreausb-1.jpg;https://s3-xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxx.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxselecteer-tot-en-met.mp4,http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xx/wp-content/uploads/andreausb-1.jpg"]

Lots of opportunity to accidentally delete a character or whatever, while editing your posts or page. Thus breaking things. Especially in a site where multiple editors work on posts. Also imagine a video tutorial based course website where there would be 75+ playlists. That’s a lot of shortcode where things can easily go wrong when editing the various posts and pages.

Deciding to have your plugin consistently add such long shortcodes is not really a UI aspect, but a very fundamental core decision as to how fool proof the plugin will be. And also maybe flexible your plugin is going to be in the future when you may want to develop and add features. Not sure about that one, though.

I’m not married to the idea that the solution should be back-end based. I am result-oriented. A short code like [playlistmyname] is much more foolproof than the shortcode of my current 4-video playlist as pasted above.

I don’t have much experience with playlists and embedding video, but I can imagine something like this:

– A button (front-end or back-end) where you can make your playlist.
– A field to give the playlist a name
– Fields to add parameters (display size, autoplay yes/no, styling, use first frame as splashscreen yes/no)
– then fields to enter the URLs of the videos and (optionally) the splashscreens;
– also option add a text label for each video in case you want to forgo splashscreens and just have a clickable link.
– As a bonus it would be neat if you could change the play order fairly easily.
– Finally you save the thing and add the playlist to your posts or page, like [playlistmyname].

I’ve seen plugins which do something similar to the above, but they don’t have the option to play expiring URL Amazon S3 videos.

So, dream on Janna… :-)

But seriously, I am making a site with lots of video’s. E.g. the feature to have the option to take the first frame as splashscreen is a huge time saver. It’s only fair to make advanced options available for paid versions only. I don’t mind paying something for a reliable product that does what I need.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but you asked for my ‘clear ideas’:-)

Best, Janna