[[PlayerToc(plugins)]]
= Sharing plugin =
This plugin adds sharing functionalities to the player. Either through the dock or through the controlbar, the plugin offers links to two screens:
* In the '''embed''' screen, an embed code for the specific video can be copy-pasted.
* In the '''share''' screen, a link to thesite for this specific video can be copy-pasted. This screen also offers shortcuts for posting this link to:
* [http://twitter.com Twitter]
* [http://www.facebook.com/ Facebook]
* [http://www.myspace.com Myspace]
* An email message
This plugin is compatible with version 4.3 of the player, since it needs to be able to place buttons in the controlbar. For 4.5+, the plugin can also place the buttons in the dock (preferred, since the buttons are clearer). If the [wiki:FlashVars dock is set to false], the button will be shown in the controlbar again.
== Examples ==
Here is an example of the sharing plugin in action. Below is the string of flashvars used:
[[JWPlayer(450,260,file=/player/testing/files/bunny.mp4&dock=true&plugins=sharing&sharing.link=http://bigbuckbunny.org/&sharing.code=%3Cembed%20src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.longtailvideo.com%2Fplayer%2Ftrunk%2Fas3%2Fplayer.swf%22%20flashvars%3D%22file%3D%2Fplayer%2Ftesting%2Ffiles%2Fbunny.mp4%22%20width%3D%22400%22%20height%3D%22300%22%20%2F%3E)]]
{{{
/player/testing/files/bunny.mp4&plugins=sharing&sharing.link=http://bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/trailer-page/&sharing.code=%3Cembed%20src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.longtailvideo.com%2Fplayer%2Ftrunk%2Fas3%2Fplayer.swf%22%20flashvars%3D%22file%3D..%2Ftesting%2Ffiles%2Fbunny.mp4%22%20width%3D%22400%22%20height%3D%22300%22%20%2F%3E
}}}
Note that the code is fairly lengthy, since a full embed code needs to be set. See below ''embed'' section for a workaround.
Here is another example, this time using the controlbar instead of the dock and only the '''share''' feature:
[[JWPlayer(450,260,file=/player/testing/files/bunny.mp4&plugins=sharing&sharing.link=http://bigbuckbunny.org)]]
{{{
file=/player/testing/files/bunny.mp4&plugins=sharing&sharing.link=http://bigbuckbunny.org
}}}
== Configuration ==
The plugin is loaded with the flashvar ''plugins=sharing''. This will automatically load the latest version of the plugin straight off our servers. It offers two additional flashvars:
* '''sharing.code''' (''undefined''): Set this flashvar to an embed code for this video. When set, the '''embed''' button is shown. '''Be warned that this embed code must be URI escaped''' or the code will break the other flashvars of the player. Here's [http://webcoder.info/reference/URIEsc.html info and a tool] on URI escaping.
* '''sharing.link''' (''undefined''): Set this flashvar to the url of a webpage where the video is shown. When set, the '''share''' button will appear.
If the regular [wiki:FlashVars link] flasvar has been set instead of the ''sharing.link'' flashvar, the plugin will still show the share dialog, of course using the '''link''' flashvar. You can prevent this by setting the '''sharing.link''' flashvar to ''none''.
If the [wiki:FlashVars title] flashvar has also been set, the plugin uses that as subject for the sharing links.
When the flashvar ''dock=true'' is set (for the 4.5+ player), the buttons are displayed in the dock. When this flashvar isn't set, or the player is pre-4.5, the buttons are displayed in the controlbar.
There is no support for per-playlistentry embed / link codes. So if you use a playlist, the same codes will appear with every item. Additionally, only the link / title '''flashvars''' are supported for the sharing screens, not the link / title vars of playlist entries.
== Embed ==
There's a lot of different options available for the embed code. For example, you could offer javascript, iframes, embed tags, object tags or embed-in-object tags to your visitors in this code. To keep the code short and simple, we recommend the simple, regular '''embed''' code. Here's an example:
{{{
}}}
The [http://webcoder.info/reference/URIEsc.html URI escaped] value of this embed code (for the '''sharing.code''' flashvar):
{{{
%3Cembed%20src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.longtailvideo.com%2Fplayer%2Ftrunk%2Fas3%2Fplayer.swf%22%20flashvars%3D%22file%3D%2Fplayer%2Ftesting%2Ffiles%2Fbunny.mp4%22%20width%3D%22400%22%20height%3D%22300%22%20%2F%3E
}}}
This code may still get very lenghty when a lot of flashvars are being used. There is a workaround for this: rewriting the player URL serverside to inject the flashvars. This is something we do at [http://www.bitsontherun.com/via/longtailvideo/ Bits on the Run] too. For example, you could save the player with flashvars in your database and then offer a unique player URL for each setup in the embed code:
{{{
}}}
Now, the server will get a request for the file ''players/8238592.swf''. It can extract the ID from this request, do a lookup in the database and then rewrite this request to the following file:
{{{
/player/trunk/as3/player.swf?file=/player/testing/files/bunny.mp4
}}}
Now the '''player.swf''' is being loaded. The flashvars (querystring) are loaded into the player too, without them needing to be printed in the embed code.
== Source code ==
The source code of this plugin can be obtained [changeset:HEAD/plugins/sharing?old_path=%2F&format=zip in a zip] (click the zip links at the bottom) or through [http://subversion.tigris.org/ Subversion]:
{{{
svn co http://developer.longtailvideo.com/svn/plugins/sharing
}}}
If you don't have a Subversion client, check out [http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ Tortoise] (Windows) or [http://scplugin.tigris.org/ SC Plugin] (MAC).
You don't need Adobe Flash to modify this plugin. Instead, you can edit the plugin with any text editor you like. The plugin can be compiled with the free, cross-platform [http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=flex3sdk MXMLC compiler]. See our [wiki:PluginsCompiling plugin compiling overview] for more info.