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

[Creative Liquid]

never mind, figured it out. You may have to reinstall your flash plugin.

[Greenskull]

I'm having a problem...it was working great until a few days ago. For some reason, when I post a link it either A: Doesn't work or B: Makes it just a bunch of HTML. Help!

[The Geek]

Can you provide an example?

[Lizard King]

It is nice to see you back online Sam

[The Geek]

Hey Lizard, nice to see you still about too

FYI all:

I am now back from my vacation and gearing up to head out on a business trip to Athens. I have finished the first beta of what will now be 2.5 and it is being tested while I find time to do some code clean up. To whet your whistle and give you an idea as to why I have gone from version 2 to 2.5 in a couple weeks time... here is a smackle of what is included in the next version:

New in 2.5:

• Ability to prevent non authorised usergroups from viewing media (see limitations below)
• Full usergroup permissions support (edit user group to adjust edit/view permissions per zone)
• Template driven system which uses templates now instead of 1 master replacement (see note on conditionals below)
• New zone: Signatures!
• Different sizes and templates for each supported zone (posts, blogs, groups, visitor messages and signatures). That means that AME's in signatures can have no container table around the media and be small, but those in posts can have special ones with larger size videos
• A couple new hooks. This is to support an AME add on for profiles I prototyped.
• Notification system (similar to vB's that check for configuration errors, duplicates and other items that could cause unexpected behaviour)
• definition keys for easier updating of definitions. This will also allow you to use conditionals in the templates if maybe you wanted media logos or a different look to the videos.
• File caching system which radically reduces processing. This saves the definition query and array building. Ideal if you have a LOT of definitions.
• And more that I cant think of off the top of my head!

Limitations with usergroup viewing permissions

The new system uses javascript to attempt to 'hide' the embedded media and 'show' a default URL. If the user doesn't have javascript enabled or places an embedded video in their post via the quick reply box, it will appear to them until they refresh the page. Of course, if the person doesn't have permission to view, I doubt they would have permission to embed anyway!

Another limitation with permissions will be that if someone with permission to post URLs edits someones who doesnt... well.. . it will appear!


Note on template conditionals

vBulletin caches the contents of posts after it has been parsed to save processing time. This means that if you put a condition into one of AMEs templates that will somehow alter the contents based on who is viewing it... you will get unexpected results. Say for example, in AMEs template you used the following conditional:

<if condition="$bbuserinfo['userid']==1">Hi Bob!</if>

If someone other than userid #1 created the post (and hence the cache), it won't appear, even when user #1 views it! Obviously the opposite is also true.

The only way to get around this is to turn off vBulletins post cache, but I wouldn't recommend it!


Changes to definitions

Stop using width and height tags in your object and embed tags. Instead, use $ameinfo[height] and $ameinfo[width] respectively. This is so that users can specify the dimensions in their settings and use the same definition in different areas of the site. Although pre 2.5 definitions will work, It will look pants if you can't tweak the size for a signature!

Start putting the ameid tag in your exported items. This is a unique identifier similar to vB's productid that can contain only alphanumeric characters and an underscore (basically any combination of letters, numbers and the _ character. No spaces permitted). This tag will help prevent duplicate imports and also give the template the option of knowing what type of media it is.

nJoy

[calldaffer]

installed with no problems, thanks for that. I am wondering how to display the videos you mentioned in your first post: yahoo, youtube, myspace, google and Amazon

I can get youtube to display no problem but any other video I try and put in it simply displays the URL?

[The Geek]

can you post some examples that arent working?

[kpa4941]

Can you make a video link to your own site(http://www.domain.com/video.mpg). Will it still embed the video into a post?

[Skavenger]

Originally Posted by kpa4941

Can you make a video link to your own site(http://www.domain.com/video.mpg). Will it still embed the video into a post?

Check this: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=175378

[kpa4941]

Thanks for posting the link. It helped.