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

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by nickypoooo

That same link works on Firefox but does not work on IE7

http://radio4u.co.il/radio4u/showthread.php?p=34#post34

Your missing your height and width settings, that's why it's only showing one browser type. What do you have set for your post height and width settings in AME CP? Also, if you've upgraded to 2.5, then you should direct all your question to the new thread instead of here.

[nickypoooo]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Your missing your height and width settings, that's why it's only showing one browser type. What do you have set for your post height and width settings in AME CP? Also, if you've upgraded to 2.5, then you should direct all your question to the new thread instead of here.

Are you talking about the Container HTML?

<div align="center">
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="400" style="margin:10px 0">
<thead>
        <tr>
                <td class="tcat" colspan="2" style="text-align:center">
                        <a href="$url" title="$title" target="_blank">$title</a>
                </td>
        </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
        <tr>
                <td class="panelsurround" align="center">

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by nickypoooo

Are you talking about the Container HTML?

<div align="center">
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="400" style="margin:10px 0">
<thead>
        <tr>
                <td class="tcat" colspan="2" style="text-align:center">
                        <a href="$url" title="$title" target="_blank">$title</a>
                </td>
        </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
        <tr>
                <td class="panelsurround" align="center">

No, I mean in your global post size settings. I guess if you don't know what I mean then you must be on AME 2.0, right? Which set of definitions did you download? Because Third Time's the Charm is for 2.0, but Delta is for 2.5. If you try to use my 2.5 definitions in 2.0 then you won't get any height and width defined for your videos, so in IE, the videos won't be visible.

[kevcj]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

In AME 2.0 you edit the Container HTML under Settings to change the alignment, and in 2.5 you would edit the container template.

Where can I find the container template?

[The Geek]

IIRC, in 2.0 its in your settings. I would suggest upgrading to 2.5 (which is a seperate release to this older one)

[Finster]

Do to a lack of support for Goldbrick, and exemplary support for this hack, we just had someone install this, but most of the Goldbrick media tags did not convert. I also noticed that urls to .mov files uploaded to the site server do not render into anything but a hyperlink. Do we need to add that part 2 hack with all the xml conversions to fix that?

It looks like one needs 2.5 to change the video window size as all the 16:9 videos get the top and bottom cropped and they are a little small anyway.

Lastly, Exposureroom.com is the brand new but now defacto standard bearer for HD video streaming. Not much content there yet, but it smokes other HD video file sharing sites, you just have to figure out how you would add that on considering the same url appears to display for 3 different sizes of the same video, with the medium one being the best.

I REALLY wish playing the video would use a highslide lightbox effect. We left highslide in place for still images, but it doesn't work on AME videos, only the Goldbrick hack did.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by Finster

Do to a lack of support for Goldbrick, and exemplary support for this hack, we just had someone install this, but most of the Goldbrick media tags did not convert. I also noticed that urls to .mov files uploaded to the site server do not render into anything but a hyperlink. Do we need to add that part 2 hack with all the xml conversions to fix that?

I don't know exactly how Goldbrick worked, but if it used some type of BBCode, you can use AME's conversion tool to change those tags into special tags that AME uses.

Built into AME is just a few supported sites. For the full spectrum of supported sites, including support for local hosted media, you would need the definitions in my Add-On thread.

It looks like one needs 2.5 to change the video window size as all the 16:9 videos get the top and bottom cropped and they are a little small anyway.

2.5 is the latest stable version in the 3.8 section, but the resizing feature of 2.5 is that you can resize your videos globally. You can still resize videos per individual definition in the AME CP. You probably would still want to upgrade to the latest version.

Lastly, Exposureroom.com is the brand new but now defacto standard bearer for HD video streaming. Not much content there yet, but it smokes other HD video file sharing sites, you just have to figure out how you would add that on considering the same url appears to display for 3 different sizes of the same video, with the medium one being the best.

I maintain the Add-On threads with the collected definitions, and I periodically add sites to the request list to look over. I'll add this to the list to see what I can do. Keep an eye out there for updates.

I REALLY wish playing the video would use a highslide lightbox effect. We left highslide in place for still images, but it doesn't work on AME videos, only the Goldbrick hack did.

Wouldn't work with AME as it wasn't designed originally, but there's also the fact that AME handles more the just media, so it might make for some awkward conversions.

[Gladhatter]

And I wish to add like all programs your desires really boils down to desire and means of payment along with finding a willing coder.

While AME certainly was not coded for this as indicated all things are possible up to a point and that point is nearing infinity with the right coder a hold of it.

The question then becomes as well is the money and effort worth the final expense or is there another solution that more fits your needs or do you need to do a total rewrite or almost total rewrite or a hybrid of the two ideas.

I am not wishing to come off here as any or all knowing as I know so little. What I do know is that nearly no program offered on the market ever suits our needs and most of them we justify spending more time and money that some, many or most would to get them into a form we find suitable. This can be the same principal you may wish to apply here and may not be as well. Do not want to polute this thread with what we are doing with other code but fact is some times a set of code is a good starting point and yet just needs developed further to suit the next guy down the lane.

[Finster]

DJ, We did convert over to 2.5...after some fiddling, a web person who actually knows what they are doing compared to me got pretty much all the previous GoldBrick media tags to convert.

Is there a way for this to NOT grab the name of the video file sharing site and auto-add it to the video title name? Or better yet, substitute in a selected name added to the video title? I bet 500 downloaders want 500 different things! lol

Instead of getting the Dreaded blue M of death thumbnail, now all the videos have screengrab stills. Finally! lol.

You ARE the strongest link!

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by Finster

DJ, We did convert over to 2.5...after some fiddling, a web person who actually knows what they are doing compared to me got pretty much all the previous GoldBrick media tags to convert.

Is there a way for this to NOT grab the name of the video file sharing site and auto-add it to the video title name? Or better yet, substitute in a selected name added to the video title? I bet 500 downloaders want 500 different things! lol

Instead of getting the Dreaded blue M of death thumbnail, now all the videos have screengrab stills. Finally! lol.

You ARE the strongest link!

Just to avoid any confusion, I'll answer your question in the 2.5 thread then: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=202476