JW Player for Flash

  1. Overview
  2. All Flashvars
  3. Supported Formats
  4. Crossdomain Security
     
  5. API Calls
  6. Events Overview
     
  7. Skinning in Flash CS3
  8. All Skin Elements
     
  9. Building Plugins
  10. Compiling Plugins

JW Player: Events Overview

Internally, the player is split up into three central components; the Controller, the Model and the View. The Controller takes care of user and API input, the Model manages the actual playback and the View manages all interfaces. Here's some more info.

Each of the three has a set of events it can fire, thereby controlling each other. By listening to these events through the API, external scripts and plugins instantly get state updates of the player. The API also offers the ability to trigger events of the View (for example sending a PLAY event, after which the player starts playback).

Note that some events are sent by both the View and the Controller (e.g. SEEK). The View then sends the raw event to the Controller, who checks its values (e.g. if the position isn't < 0). The corrected value is immediately thereafter broadcasted by the Controller (a new SEEK event).

Controller events

Here's an overview of all events the Controller sends. Regardless of the event, the Controller always includes these three parameters:

  • id (String): ID of the player in the HTML DOM. Used by javascript to reference the player.
  • client (String): A string representing the client the player runs in (e.g. FLASH WIN 9,0,115,0).
  • version (String): A string representing the major version, minor version and revision number of the player (e.g. 4.2.95).
ControllerEvent.ITEM
Fired when the player switches to a new playlistitem. The new item will immediately start playing. The currently playing item is always available through the item flashvar. Parameters:
  • index (Number): index of the new view in the playlist.
ControllerEvent.MUTE
Fired when the sound is muted or unmuted. The current mute state is always available through the mute flashvar. Parameters:
  • state (Boolean): the new mute state. If true the player will mute.
ControllerEvent.PLAY
Fired when the player toggles playback (playing/paused). Parameters:
  • state (Boolean): the new playback state. If true the player plays. If false the player pauses.
ControllerEvent.PLAYLIST
Fired when a new playlist has been loaded into the player. The current playlist is always available through the API. Parameters:
  • playlist (Array): A reference to the new playlist.
ControllerEvent.RESIZE
Fired when the player is resized or enters/leaves fullscreen mode (which is effectively also a resize). The current fullscreen state, width and height are always available through the fullscreen, height and width flashvars. Here's more info on resizing. Parameters:
  • fullscreen (Boolean): The new fullscreen state. If true the player is in fullscreen.
  • height (Number): When resizing is turned off (default), this is the height of the Display. When resizing is turned on, this is the overall height of the player.
  • width (Number): When resizing is turned off (default), this is the width of the Display. When resizing is turned on, this is the overall width of the player.
ControllerEvent.SEEK
Fired when the player is seeking to a new position in the video/sound/image. Parameters:
  • position (Number): the new position in the file, in seconds. Two and a half minutes correspond to a position of 150.
ControllerEvent.STOP
Fired when the player stops loading and playing. The playback state will turn to IDLE and the position of a video will be set to 0. No parameters.
ControllerEvent.VOLUME
Fired when the volume level is changed. The current volume is always available through the volume flashvar. Parameters:
  • percentage (Number): new volume percentage. Can be 0 to 100.

Model events

Here's an overview of all events the Model sends. Regardless of the event, the Model always includes these three parameters:

  • id (String): ID of the player in the HTML DOM. Used by javascript to reference the player.
  • client (String): A string representing the client the player runs in (e.g. FLASH WIN 9,0,115,0).
  • version (String): A string representing the major version, minor version and revision number of the player (e.g. 4.2.95).
ModelEvent.BUFFER
Fired when the playback buffer changes. The buffer indicates how long the player still has to load before starting playback. When the buffer is emptying during playback, stuttering may occur. The bufferlength flashvar allows you to set the size of the buffer (is 1 second by default). Parameters:
  • percentage (Number): percentage in which the buffer is filled. Can be 0 to 100.
ModelEvent.ERROR
Fired when a playback error occurs. The player then automatically stops. Parameters:
  • message (String): the error message, e.g. file not found or no suiteable playback codec found.
ModelEvent.LOADED
Fired when the player is busy loading the currently playing video/image/sound. Parameters:
  • loaded (Number): the number of bytes of the file that are currently loaded.
  • total (Number): the total size of the file in bytes.
  • offset (Number): when HTTP streaming is used, this is the offset in bytes where the video last started playing.
ModelEvent.META
Fired when metadata is retrieved by the model. This can be a wide range of data, e.g. video data like width, height or bitrate, embedded captions and images, RTMP status messages, cuepoints, id3 tags or RTMP bandwidth values. All metadata items are sent as separate parameters with this call.
ModelEvent.STATE
Fired when the playback state of the video changes. Use this to check when a video has started (newstate=BUFFERING), is paused (newstate=PAUSED) or finished (newstate=COMPLETED). The current state is always available through the state flashvar. Parameters:
  • oldstate (IDLE, BUFFERING, PLAYING, PAUSED, COMPLETED): the previous playback state.
  • newstate (IDLE, BUFFERING, PLAYING, PAUSED, COMPLETED): the new playback state.
ModelEvent.TIME
Fired when the playback position is changing (i.e. the videosound/image is playing). It is fired with a resolution of 1/10 second, so there'll be a lot of events. This is needed for tight timing with e.g. closed captioning. Parameters:
  • duration (Number): total duration of the file in seconds. Two and a half minutes correspond to a duration of 150.
  • position (Number): current playback position in the file, in seconds. Two and a half minutes correspond to a position of 150.

View events

Here's an overview of all events the View sends. Regardless of the event, the View always includes these three parameters:

  • id (String): ID of the player in the HTML DOM. Used by javascript to reference the player.
  • client (String): A string representing the client the player runs in (e.g. FLASH WIN 9,0,115,0).
  • version (String): A string representing the major version, minor version and revision number of the player (e.g. 4.2.95).
ViewEvent.FULLSCREEN
Fired when the user wants to enter/leave fullscreen. This only works in actionscript, and only as a direct result of a mouseclick. The current fullscreen state is always available through the fullscreen flashvar.Parameters:
  • state (Boolean) {optional}: the new fullscreen state.
ViewEvent.ITEM
Fired when the user wants to play a specific playlistitem. The currently playing item is always available through the item flashvar.Parameters:
  • index (Number): the new item to play.
ViewEvent.LINK
Fired when the user requests to navigate to a link. Parameters:
  • index (Boolean) {optional}: When set, this is the playlistitem whose link the player navigates to. When not set, the link of the current item is used.
ViewEvent.LOAD
Fired when the user wants to load a new file or playlist. Parameters:
  • object (String): this can be the url of either a single video/song or a playlist. The Controller will auto-detect this and start the file loading.
ViewEvent.MUTE
Fired when the user wants to mute/unmute the player. The current mute state is always available through the mute flashvar.Parameters:
  • state (Boolean) {optional} : The new mute state. If omitted, the Controller will perform a toggle.
ViewEvent.NEXT
Fired when the user wants to play the next playlistitem. No parameters.
ViewEvent.PLAY
Fired when the user wants to pause or resume the player. Parameters:
  • state (Boolean) {optional} : The new playback state. If omitted, the Controller will perform a toggle.
ViewEvent.PREV
Fired when the user wants to play the previous playlistitem. No parameters.
ViewEvent.REDRAW
Fired when the user wants to issue a redraw of the canvas (e.g. after a resize or after showing/hiding the playlist). No parameters.
ViewEvent.SEEK
Fired when the user wants to seek in the current image/video/sound. Parameters:
  • position (Number): the new position in the file, in seconds. Two and a half minutes correspond to a position of 150.
ViewEvent.STOP
Fired when the user wants to stop loading and playing. No parameters.
ViewEvent.VOLUME
Fired when the user wants to change the playback volume. The current volume is always available through the volume flashvar. Parameters:
  • percentage (Number): new volume percentage. Can be 0 to 100.