=== Plugin Name === Contributors: SaltwaterC Tags: xhtml, embed, flash, video, embedding, swf, youtube, google video, metacafe, trilililu, dailymotion, myspace tv, spike, ifilm, vimeo Requires at least: 2.0 Tested up to: 2.3.3 Stable tag: 0.2.3.2 XHTML Video Embed is a simple yet powerful way to add flash content to your WordPress blog. == Description == XHTML Video Embed is a simple yet powerful way to add flash content to your WordPress blog. The plug-in uses a simple syntax which is based on few BB-like tags. The supported tags along with the supported services is described into the preferences panel of the plug-in which also serves as self-documentation. I wrote this plug-in because I was kinda unhappy with the existing solutions since I really care about the XHTML validation of my blog and other stuff such as the usability while maintaining the security. If you also care about these things, then this plug-in might be the solution for you. Most of the video services provide the embed code which can be placed into your posts, but most of the time the code is broken because it uses proprietary HTML tags such as embed. Another downside is the fact that embed itself is rejected by WordPress in certain cases (aka when using the rich text editor - TinyMCE). The plug-in is also safe. When adding content by using XVE, its engine makes sure that the disallowed chars which could harm your blog are filtered by regular expressions. You won't hurt your blog by adding potentially harmful content. Eg: URLs altered in a bad way which can be used for Cross Site Scripting attacks. This is a rare situation, mostly theoretical, and it involves a lot of factors, including your own lack of attention. Well, even these kind of situations are now prevented from the XVE plug-in engine. Features: 1. Unified sizes for all flash objects (based on file type) 1. Admin panel which allows you to check which services you would like to use and other various options (since v0.2). This panel also provides self documentation. The self documentation and options are now collapsible in order to use the space more efficient (since v0.2.3). 1. Unified custom sizes for the flash objects (since v0.2.2). 1. Transparency for the object which exceeds the actual resolution of the SWF file. Another flash parameter is the quality which defaults to "best" (since v0.2.3). 1. Generic SWF support as video resolution (since v0.2). 1. YouTube embed support. 1. Google Video embed support. 1. Metacafe embed support. 1. Trilulilu embed support (video, audio, image) - yes, this is more that videos ;). Full compatibility with Trilulilu's own WordPress plug-in. 1. Dailymotion embed support (since v0.2.3). 1. MySpace TV embed support (since v0.2.3). 1. Revver embed support (since v0.2.3). 1. Spike (ex iFilm) embed support (since v0.2.3). 1. Vimeo embed support (since v0.2.3). == Installation == 1. Upload `xhtml-video-embed.php` to the `/wp-content/plug-ins/` directory 1. Activate the plug-in through the 'plug-ins' menu in WordPress 1. Check the preferences panel (Options -> XVE) for more details and fine tuning == Frequently Asked Questions == = Does the plug-in affect the blog's performance? = The impact should be minimal as the code is very efficient. The page load time is increased though as the browser needs to download data from the external service(s) when loading a certain page. However, checking off the support for the video services which you don't use should make the plug-in even faster as it does fewer passes over each blog article which is displayed by WordPress. This reduces the so called "bloat" by using only the video services which you would like to embed. = The flash object isn't displayed. Did I do something wrong? = This question doesn't have an exact answer. The flash won't load if the video service times out. Check if it works. This could be your error as well, so check the permalink if it's intact. For best results, use the URL provided by the browser's address bar. If this isn't the case, and the video service is in uptime, but the flash object still won't load, then maybe one of my security policies is too restrictive for that video sharing service. Drop me a comment on the plug-in's official page which is located on my blog. I'll try to reproduce the issue, so please provide the URL which makes the plug-in to malfunction. = Why the plug-in doesn't have a quick-tag support? = Basically one of the main reasons is the fact that my JavaScript skills are less than average. I am mainly a PHP/MySQL coder. The other main reason is the fact that actually the lack of interface makes the plugin to be compatible with lots of WordPress versions without any update to the XVE core (yes, I love code portability). It should be compatible with v1.5 (untested), but I don't recommend it, so that's why the WordPress page specifies v2.0 as minimal version. = What should the PHP host support? = The PHP host should support PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) as the plug-in uses them to match and replace the tags from your post with the properly formated flash objects. = The tags should be written as described into the documentation? = The tags are case insensitive, so the plug-in works for either [youtube] or [YouTube], etc. Your choice. = What's the supported syntax for the contend between the tags? = For generic SWF the URL should be an absolute path to the .swf file. If you're not using pretty permalinks, then you can use a relative path. For externally hosted SWF files obviously you need to use an absolute path. For the supported video services you need to use the permalink to the file you would like to embed within your blog. For video services such as MySpace TV which use both "VideoID" and "videoid" into the permalink, the plug-in matches the VideoID text as case insensitive. This applies wherever is possible. = Does the extra parameter(s) from the permalink break the behavior of the plug-in? = If the URL is properly formatted (eg: you copy the URL from the browser's address bar), then everything should be OK. Some video services like YouTube use sometimes extra parameters within the URL besides the video ID. Other services such as Dailymotion use a permalink structure which isn't very friendly, but XVE handles it nicely as long as the video ID is valid. = Why the plug-in supports only flash objects? = Because it just works. I spent countless hours on figuring out how to embed various video types under various platforms and I was kinda dissapointed. I am not just a Windows user, I also use Linux, FreeBSD with Linux compatibility for Flash Player, ocasionally Mac OS X, so I would like to see it working, no matter which is the OS. Most of the video services use flash players for the same reason. = How's the compatibility with various WordPress versions? = Pretty good actually since the code itself doesn't use anything from WordPress code base except the hooks which add the extra functionality, and the functions which manage the options. = Do I have to use the credits link? = No, that's not mandatory. Actually, that options comes as disabled by default. If you would like to help me spread the plug-in, then use the option as checked. It places a small "Powered by XHTML Video Embed" under all the inserted flash objects. If the option is disabled, then the credit is placed as XHTML comment which is ignored, but it can be seed by the visitors who view the XHTML source of the page which contains the object. If you don't like having this within your source code, then comment the line which places this message.