JW Player for Flash

The JW Player for Flash is the Internet’s most popular and flexible media player. It supports playback of any format the  Adobe Flash Player can handle, as well as HTTP and RTMP streaming and various XML playlist formats. A wide range of settings (flashvars) can be set and an extensive javascript API is available. The player's skinning functionality allows you to completely customize its look and its plugin architecture allows you to easily extend the player with features such as sharing, analytics and adserving.

There's a separate overview page for the JW Player for Silverlight?.

Documentation

General

Read these pages if you want to get started with the JW Player:

• An overview? of the player structure and functionalities.
• All flashvars? for customizing the layout, behaviour and files to load:
  • File properties?
  • Layout?
  • Behaviour?
  • API?
  • Config XML?
• All file formats?, streaming types and XML feeds you can play:
  • Single Files?
  • Youtube Videos?
  • Livestream.com?
  • HTTP Streaming?
  • RTMP Streaming?
  • XML Playlists?
  • Bitrate Switching?
  • JWPlayer Namespace?
• Crossdomain security? restrictions and solutions.

If you want to learn about embedding the player (or another Flash movie) on a website, the  swfobject wiki is the place to go.

API

These pages are for javascript and actionscript developers that want to interact with the player:

• All API Calls? for javascript and actionscript:
  • Initialization?
  • Reading variables?
  • Sending events?
  • Setting listeners?
  • Plugin methods?
• All events? that are broadcasted by the player:
  • Controller events?
  • Model events?
  • View events?

Check out the plugins section (below) if you want to modify the player itself. Using plugins is preferred over building a custom player.

Skinning

These pages are for Flash designers that want to create custom skins for the player:

• How to skin the player? using Flash CS4.
• A skin reference? that contains the name and nesting of all elements.

A couple of high-quality skins (including .fla and fonts) are available as free download in the source browser.

Plugins

These pages are for actionscript developers that want to extend the player's functionality:

• Building plugins? to extend the player's functionality.
• Compiling plugins? using the free, cross-platform Flex SDK.

We also have a handy plugin development SDK you can use to quickly start building plugins. It contains a copy of the testing page and some plugin templates.

Source code

The source code of each version of the player can be obtained through the source code browser (click the zip links at the bottom). Full changelogs for each version can be obtained through the ticket browser. Here's the direct links for the 4.x range so far:

• Version 4.6 download and changelog (note that this version must be compiled with Flash CS4)
• Version 4.5 download and changelog
• Version 4.4 download and changelog
• Version 4.3 download and changelog
• Version 4.2 download and changelog
• Version 4.1 download and changelog
• Version 4.0 download and changelog

The absolute latest (unstable!) version can be checked out through  Subversion:

svn co http://developer.longtailvideo.com/svn/trunk/as3

If you don't have a Subversion client, check out  Tortoise (Windows) or  SC Plugin (MAC).

Plugins

In the addons section of our public site, a lot of plugins are available for use with the JW Player. Here's the documentation of the plugins we built ourselves:

• Age Gate?
• Audiodescription?
• Autostarter?
• Captions?
• Clickproxy?
• HD?
• Infobox?
• Livestream?
• Logobox?
• Metaviewer?
• Qualitymonitor?
• Revolt?
• Searchbar?
• Sharing?
• Snapshot?

The compilation tutorial? explains how you can compile the source code of these plugins yourself.

If you want to build your own plugins, also read the plugin building tutorial? and download our handy plugin development SDK. It contains a copy of the testing page and some plugin templates.