We have released a new update of the FV Player, which brings some changes that are not immediately visible because they concern mainly the backend, but that doesn’t make them any less exciting!
The version number is 6.1. We based our version numbers on core Flowplayer engine for a while (that’s why it was 6.0.5.x before), but there are no more Flowplayer 6 versions to be released and we don’t like these long version numbers anymore.
FV Player Pro latest version remains 0.8.17.
Getting Rid of the Video Tag
Up until now, FV Player was using the HTML5 <video> tags for rendering the player’s information into the content of your page. However, one code was responsible for the markup of single videos, and a completely different one was used for playlists. With the latest release, FV Player says goodbye to using the video tag and will use the HTML5 data attribute instead. This will unify the code of the single videos with playlists, making it more stable and resistant to bugs and will allow websites to load FV Player using Ajax even when it uses playlists.
The <video> tag is not in the page source anymore
WPLMS users - it’s no longer necessary to enter the code snippet for FV Player into the “WPLMS – Footer – Google analytics” as documented in Compatibility with FV Flowplayer plugin on vibethemes.com.
Using the Schema.org Markup to Improve SEO
Schema.org, or simply Schema, is a specific semantic tag vocabulary that came up from the initiative of few of the world’s largest search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Yandex. The outcome of their joint effort is a structured data markup schema, similar for instance to Facebook’s Open Graph, but much more developed. It’s purpose is basically to tell the web crawlers what each part of the content means.
That can be very helpful for improving the way your page looks in SERPs, since it can provide information about the nature of any part of your content. For example, in the picture below you can see a result from a Google search which doesn’t contain just the basic data like title, URL and meta description, but also information like rating, price of the product and other stuff.
Example of how Schema.org markup can enhance the SERP display
FV Player will now generate every video code with including these tags:
itemprop="video" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/VideoObject"
This feature is currently available only in the Beta mode, but will be included in the release version in the near feature. To activate it, switch to Beta and go to Settings > FV Player Pro > Setup tab > Integrations/Compatibility and check the box Use Schema.org markup.
Activation of the Schema.org markup
CSS Improvements
The FV Player’s stylesheet has been moved down to increase its priority over the settings of your theme. The users of FV Player Pro should update the Pro plugin as well, since the stylesheet improvement might cause some display issues.
Note: The users who are using custom CSS selectors in their template to edit the FV Player’s interface should restrain from using the !important attribute and use wrapper IDs or classes instead.
We have also improved the CSS in a way that it will only load if FV Player is found on the page – that means in the body of the page as a regular video or in lightbox, or in any active widget. This will of course reduce the page loading time and loads the player only where it’s needed. In case of any missing player styles, you can revert this setting by activating the Load FV Flowplayer JS everywhere option in Settings > FV Player > Setup tab > Integrations/Compatibility.
Video Sitemap feature is coming.
Don’t forget:
- You can check the changelog of FV Player and the changelog of FV Player Pro to see the full list of all the new fixes, features and changes
- You can install our plugins via WordPress
- You can buy our license and become a Pro user! You will get instant access to features like advanced Vimeo, YouTube, CloudFront, and KeyCDN integration, custom video ads and branding, and many other options
- More resources, how-tos and guides are available in our Documentation
- Free support is always available on our FV Player forums
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