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 socalsoccer

Anyone know how to use this Mod in conjunction with VBadvanced? This would be awesome if I could have some videos located on my homepage!! $40 Paypal

This already works with vBadvanced in the sense that if your pulling content from a thread onto the home page, it's going to show the HTML of the post. If your just wanting to post videos in a module, then why not just post the embed code, as modules already handle HTML.

But I'll still take the 40$.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by punchbowl

Woot! Everything works perfectly*! On 2.5rc1 now. Redid the permissions then posted a youtube worked first time. Also an edit and save on the blogs worked perfectly.

Also my custom cms is showing the vids perfectly!!!!! I never expected that to work! (Love the way you didn't answer the prev. tech question! lol)

*The tools didn't seem to work. I tried to convert a couple of blogs in verbose test mode and just got a blank page.

Ah, the blank page looks like it will happen whenever you try to rebuild visitor messages, blogs or social groups because I forgot to globalise $db in the validation functions.

For a quick fix, edit admincp/automediaembed_admin.php and check out the validation functions (the next 3 functions onward) which start around line 68. They need to have:
global $db;
inserted as the first line in the funtion. I have done it here, but dont have time to update the package yet. Maybe tomorrow

As to the technical question...

As long as the content has [ame] tags in it already (i.e. ame parsed a blog post and you are re-parsing on a different page), it will show as expected. The only challenge with using ame outside of the context it was made is when it comes time to save text outside of the system.

HTHs

[socalsoccer]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

If your just wanting to post videos in a module, then why not just post the embed code, as modules already handle HTML.

I tryed this in a BB code module and only get what you see here:


<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3qSRMweaoyQ&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b 8ab6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3qSRMweaoyQ&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b 8ab6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Thanks

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by socalsoccer

I tryed this in a BB code module and only get what you see here:


<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3qSRMweaoyQ&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b 8ab6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3qSRMweaoyQ&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b 8ab6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Thanks

Did you make sure to tick the Allow HTML option in the module's options?

[socalsoccer]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Did you make sure to tick the Allow HTML option in the module's options?

Yes I made sure it was checked

[testebr]

The geek,

In next version can you change the plugin AME : Permission Hide to load the ame.js only in pages that really need? Example:

PHP Code:

if (in_array(THIS_SCRIPT, array('showthread','showpost','private','newthread','newreply','editpost','member')))
{
     ....load ame.js....
} 


Thanks

[gator777]

I was having a hard time running Youtube videos. I kept getting "we're sorry, this video is no longer available"

Well, I uninstalled and reinstalled the definitions, and searched the www for an answer. I also read where Youtube may be conducting maintenance and periodically shuts down the embeds. Well, I installed and reinstalled the definition, and went so far as to install v2.5.

Anyway, I finally got the videos to work, but v2.5 is not displaying the default container, so I thought I would let you know. It displays the video without a container, even though "container" is filled in. Also, I will keep track of the "we're sorry, this video is no longer available" issue as well.

[Null Parameter]

First, I just want to say that this is a great mod. We use it on my board all of the time.

Second, there's an error in the IGN code. Here's the changes I made to fix it:

Regular Expression:

http://([\w]+)\.ign\.com/dor/([\w]+)/([\d]+)/([\w-]+)/videos/([\w-]+)\.html

Replacement:

<embed src='http://videomedia.ign.com/ev/ev.swf' flashvars='object_ID=$p3&downloadURL=http://$p1.ign.com/$p2/video/article/$p4/$p5.flv&allownetworking='all' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='433' height='360'></embed>

It was just missing the parentheses and had some of the $p variables mixed up.

Sorry, if this has been pointed out already, I couldn't search for "IGN" because it is only 3 characters.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by testebr

The geek,

In next version can you change the plugin AME : Permission Hide to load the ame.js only in pages that really need? Example:

PHP Code:

if (in_array(THIS_SCRIPT, array('showthread','showpost','private','newthread','newreply','editpost','member')))
{
     ....load ame.js....
} 


Thanks

I can look at it as an option, however AME is being used in loads of other pages and is being geared up to be used on others. The js is pretty small and will be cached if that helps.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by gator777

I was having a hard time running Youtube videos. I kept getting "we're sorry, this video is no longer available"

Well, I uninstalled and reinstalled the definitions, and searched the www for an answer. I also read where Youtube may be conducting maintenance and periodically shuts down the embeds. Well, I installed and reinstalled the definition, and went so far as to install v2.5.

Anyway, I finally got the videos to work, but v2.5 is not displaying the default container, so I thought I would let you know. It displays the video without a container, even though "container" is filled in. Also, I will keep track of the "we're sorry, this video is no longer available" issue as well.

Hey Gator, if you read through the features of 2.5, you will see that a validation feature has been added. What this feature does is check the destination page you are embedding to determine if the video can be embedded. If it cannot be embedded, a link (with an icon) is shown instead. This feature was added to help users who were getting confused by the 'video no loner availible' message. Truth is, the video is still available, however it isnt availableisn'tavailable for embedding any longer (check the youtube page out and you will see that embedding has been disabled).