Show Thread Enhancements - AME 2.0 -Auto Media Embedding for posts, blogs, visitor and group messsages

From the creators of French and Toast comes a sweet and sticky enchanement to the New York Times best-seller: AME - Auto Media Embedding

AME 2.0 - The Embedder Strikes Back!

AME has won Mod of the Month for Spetember 08. Thanks!

Note that 2.5 Gold has been released. Click Here.

Discussions for AME 2.5 RC 1 start here

AME 2.0 is the next version of the "Mod of the Month" winning media embedder that:

• Allows user to simply 'paste' in a URL (i.e. a youtube link) without needing to know any special tags. However instead of displaying just the URL, it will show the media within the post
• is lightweight as it does all of her chores without the overhead of having 1 bbcode per pattern or trying to parse a post every single time it gets displayed with a bunch of patterns. AME radically reduces overhead and speeds up processing. The only time ame will kick in is after creating a new post or after editing an existing one (or if an ame tag is found)
• is extensible. She allows you to add, edit, delete, import and export patterns. That way you can decide which services to support, how they should look and then share them with others! At time of typing this, there are over 150 media sites that have been contributed by vBulletin.org members
• can extract the title (requires your server to allow url wrappers with fetch_contents)
• can extract embed code from sites whose URLs do not contain sufficient information to embed the video
• can rebuild your old posts to convert your 'other' mediaish tags into URL tags.
• can rebuild your old posts, blogs, comments, visitor and social group messages to convert URL tags into ame tags where needed
• can convert her codes BACK to url codes so you're not stuffed with a bunch of dead tags if you uninstall!
• won't uglify your site by having videos appear in quotes, php, code or html blocks (blech!)
• can be globally disabled
• can be excluded from forums
• can exclude usergroups
• can be toggled on/off per post, blog, comment, visitor and social group message
• would cook dinner for you if she had arms
• can wrap the output in a 'container' with original URL
• has a super comprehensive admincp help system. Yes, I actually took the bloody time to add all the info you need into vB's admincp help system. If you ask a silly question in this thread that is addressed in the help system, you will be taunted.
• is fully phrased
• has hooks around integral operations so you can extend it
• Supports embedding in vbBlog, Visitor Messages and Social Groups.
• Can be disabled in one or more of the following sections: Posts, vbBlog, Visitor Messages and/or Social Groups

Apart from the additional areas of support around vbBlog, Visitor Messages and Social Groups, little has changed about AME since version 1.0 released over a year ago. I cleaned up a few minor bugs, trimmed and updated the default definitions.

Which sites are supported?

At time of counting this, there are about 170 sites supported. But I have only included a few common standards as default (yahoo, youtube, myspace, google and Amazon). Why only these? AME was designed with its own import and export system that enables users to create or modify definitions and share them with the community. This keeps the system lightweight, customisable and saves us all from having to upgrade every time a media site changes their URL structure or if I add another site.

Check out the 'add ons' section of this post below to see availible add-ons.



Installation/Upgrade

• Upload the contents of the forums folder into your forums directory and import the product-ame.xml file into your product manager (if upgrading, choose 'yes' to overwrite previous installation).
• After installation, make sure that the system is on (admincp->AME CP->Settings)
• Then you may want to try to rebuild old URLs via the tools option.

Big thanks goes out to all those in the community that have supported this mod. Especially Digital Jedi Who has created about 155 definitions for this system alone!

Change Log


2.0.2 - fixed added slashes in quote blocks (DoH!), vm advanced error and incrimented product version. You need to replace include/ame_bb_code.php and re-import the product-ame.xml to upgrade
2.0.1 - fixed missing backslashes in code blocks

2.5 Pre-Release information

Attached to this post is pre-release of version 2.5

2.5 is a pretty major upgrade from the 2.0 series and adds the following functionality to 2.0:

• New in Beta 3 - Validation ability. This will help prevent media being embedded that can not be embedded (i.e. youtube videos that the author has stipulated can not be shown off of youtube). This option requires the extraction option to be turned on and a valid validation regexp. I have included one in the default youtube version. When a video on you tube gets embedded, but the author doesnt allow embedding, a link (with icon) is shown instead.
• Ability to prevent non authorised usergroups from viewing (see Readme file in zip for more info)
• Usergroup permissions (edit usergroup to adjust edit/view permissions)
• Template driven system - uses templates now instead of 1 master replacement (see Readme file in zip for more info)
• Signatures supported
• Different sizes and template configurations for each supported zone (posts, blogs, groups, visitor messages and signatures)
• A couple new hooks (Mainly to support a future add on for AME media in profiles)
• Notfication system (similar to vB's to check for errors)
• Definition keys for easier updating of definitions and to use in templates
• File caching system which radically reduces processing
• And more that I cant think of off the top of my head!

Note that while previous definitions will work with the new system, they will not be sizeable by zone. Since DJ helped with the private beta testing, I am sure he will be releasing 2.5 versions of his definitions soon.

Please note that 2.5 is a pre-release so there will be issues. If you want more stability, use 2.x until this version becomes gold FWIW: The only items currently outstanding are to add some missing admincp help. The rest is working as intended as far as I can tell

nJoy

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by xtremeoff-road

So if it is a google video, why is it not showing? Did you not say that google videos would embed fine?

The problem is that a google video URL will now show a youtube page, or a vimeo page, or a thousand others (even though the URL is a googles). This just changed and pretty much screws any chance to be able to decipher an embed code automatically.

[dieselpowered]

Originally Posted by The Geek

The problem is that a google video URL will now show a youtube page, or a vimeo page, or a thousand others (even though the URL is a googles). This just changed and pretty much screws any chance to be able to decipher an embed code automatically.

Ahhh ok, so what do we do so that these types of urls are just pruned with a hyperlink bb code versus changing them to a box with nothing in them if it cannot embed?

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Yes, did the one you posted not embed for you? I tested it on my forum and it embedded okay

It embeds fine on previous versions, just not on 2.5 or so it appears in this case.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by xtremeoff-road

Ahhh ok, so what do we do so that these types of urls are just pruned with a hyperlink bb code versus changing them to a box with nothing in them if it cannot embed?

If the site their displaying is a supported site, you can embed the link to that page instead. Like this video is not a Google Video, but a YouTube video. The YouTube link is right there. Or this one. It's a MetaCafe video. No link, but Google lets you close the side bar and just open the site in a full frame. Just grab that URL. As long as you have the appropriate definitions from my Add-On, most of those sites I see on Google are supported, with the exception of Forbes.com. But I'll try and get to those eventually.

It embeds fine on previous versions, just not on 2.5 or so it appears in this case.

I tried on 2.5RC1, the latest release, and it appears to be working for me. Is the latest definitions still installed?

[dieselpowered]

Hmmm well all I can say is I did an upgrade...then because the permissions were not correct, I edited and then saved the thread to make sure it was updated...at that point is when it stopped working.

[The Geek]

I am utterly confused here. If you are asking why the google video was working before the upgrade and now it isnt... than its because its coincidence. They changed format about the same time you upgraded. Google video will more than likely not be supported moving forward and I can't actually think of a system that could.

The engine that controls the embedding hasn't really changed very much since 2.0.2, its mainly just been optimised and additional areas of support added.

HTHs

[sweeps78]

If you had a post that had AME AND another media bbcode and then ran the conversion tool so that particular post only had a URL and an AME tag, then when you rebuild, set the Ignore Previous to yes so that it won't skip that post.

I do have the Ignore Previous set to yes. This ignores the posts though, which I didn't think I wanted, so I also tried to set it to no and ran it. Neither one worked

[The Geek]

So if I understand correctly, there is a post that has a URL in it that didnt convert (inside your test forum)?

If so, please provide the URL you think should be working so I can test it on my end. Secondly, make sure you have disabled any potentially conflicting add ons (like the other media one).

[sweeps78]

here's the URL of the thread that I have in my test forum:

http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=2466

Here are the steps that I did:

I created that new thread, adding two links: one link using the media tag, the second link using the ame tag.

Next, in admincp -> AME CP -> Tools, I ran the convert tool. When I checked the thread above after I ran the conversion, the media tag was changed to a url tag, and the second url, as expected, was not changed and was still using the ame tag.

Finally, again in admincp -> AME CP -> Tools, I ran the Rebuild -> Posts. I chose the options that I stated in this post and ran the rebuild.

There were a couple of problems with the rebuild. The main problem, is that the url that was changed from the media tag, was not changed to an ame tag. The other problem with the rebuild is that I specified it to go back a week, but when I clicked Save, it displayed 29 pages, with only 3 of them being within that specified week.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by xtremeoff-road

Hmmm well all I can say is I did an upgrade...then because the permissions were not correct, I edited and then saved the thread to make sure it was updated...at that point is when it stopped working.

So, your saying that this link that you posted doesn't embed: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...70482484764613?

[KURTZ]

hi, just installed this great mod (i mean the RC1) but when i tried to update my signatures i've got this error

Database error in vBulletin 3.7.3:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT count(userid) total FROM usertextfield WHERE 1=1 AND (signature LIKE '%[/url]%' OR signature LIKE '%[/ame]%' OR pagetext LIKE '%[/nomedia]%');

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'pagetext' in 'where clause'
Error Number : 1054
Request Date : Thursday, October 2nd 2008 @ 07:08:13 PM
Error Date : Thursday, October 2nd 2008 @ 07:08:13 PM
Script : http://www.fniv.it/board/admincp/aut...ds=10&zone=sig
Referrer : http://www.fniv.it/board/admincp/aut...build&zone=sig
IP Address : xxxxxxxxxx
Username : KURTZ
Classname : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.51a

how i can fix that? thx

edit: i just tried to put a video into my sign but it doesn't works ...
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