Major Additions - AME 2.5 - Media Embedding for posts, sigs, vm's, groups and blogs

From the makers of the letters O and Yea comes the hottest 'must have mod' of the season: AME 2.5 - The Return of The Hot Mama.

Thanks everyone for making AME 2.5 Mod of the Month

AME is the multi award winning modification that smartly scans new and edited posts for URLs from a customisable variety of web sites (i.e. YouTube or Amazon or about 200 others). If it finds a match, AME will 'transform' the URL into inline embedded media without your users ever having to even think about it.

It was important for me to create a system that did not need updating (and subsequent reinstalling) every time one of the sites it supported decided to change the way it displayed its media (which is all the fricken time). Therefore I built a system in which the 'definitions' for each site could be imported, exported, tweaked and shared on a whim. This way, you only have to import the definitions that you want. It also allows the vB community to get creative and share definitions that I wouldn't of thought of!

Which sites are supported?

Included in the default installation is YouTube and Amazon. At time of posting this, I believe that there are over 180 sites supported that have been created by the vBulletin community. These range from sites that stream videos to Amazon referral links to locally hosted music and video files.

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

For a total list of features and an FAQ, see click here.
For a post on troubleshooting, click here.

Though not tested on any version of vBulletin lower than 3.7.4, in theory it should work on versions 3.5 and higher (just dont quote this bit!).

Big thanks goes out to all those in the community that have supported this mod. Especially Digital Jedi who gives great support on this mod and has created over 160 definitions for this system alone!


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.

Change Log

• 20/1/09 - Uploaded to vb.org
• 22/1/09 - v. 2.5.2. Adresses a couple minor issues and character sets
• 23/1/09 - v. 2.5.3 minor update: Fixed ksort error on import and nomedia display
• 3/2/09 - v. 2.5.4 minor update to address rare bug with some page titles
• 3/7/09 - v.2.5.5 minor updates to address rare bug editing media with brackets in name
• 9/12/09 - v.2.5.6 minor updates youtubes validation process, a ccurl bug and rebuild not using the date like a good girl

nJoy

[mike2902]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

When you installed AME, did you run the process to add blog functionality?

I installed the AME awhile back. I just added the blog yesterday. If I download and reinstall AME again will it work. Is there some setting I have to change? Im not sure what you mean did I run the process to add blog functionality? I didnt have a blog when I installed it last so im guessing the answer is i didnt. So how do i do it this time if I reinstall it?

[airborneCAL]

when I download the .zip file it says it is corrupted. Anyone else have this problem?

[Saint_I_Am]

Is this mod causing a conflict with some normal type links? like to a html page?

Other links work fine but this one displays a double http:// like http://http://www...

???

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by andimac

how do I embed an mp3 file into a post? I want the mp3 to play in the post. I can't figure how to get the mp3 to play in the post... is this even possible?

Newbie... Andi

Is it a local file or a file from another website? Either way MP3 does not come supported by default. You have to get the definitions from my add-on thread to support MP3s locally hosted on your webserver. Same for any off-site media. My add-on is linked in the add-on section above.

Originally Posted by daihlo

Hi all, any way to get this to work with this site
www.cagefilm.com

IS a normal FLV streaming site, but doesnt seem to work. Im not up enough on coding to work out how to do it.

Any help really appreciated!

Thanks :-)

Make a request for it in my add-on thread so when I get around to updates I remember to add it to the list of sites to look at.

Originally Posted by mike2902

I installed the AME awhile back. I just added the blog yesterday. If I download and reinstall AME again will it work. Is there some setting I have to change? Im not sure what you mean did I run the process to add blog functionality? I didnt have a blog when I installed it last so im guessing the answer is i didnt. So how do i do it this time if I reinstall it?

That was your problem. When you install the blog after you install AME you have to run the integration tool in your AME CP to add the proper column to your database. Always check your AME Tools before you start installing/uninstalling AME. Yes, if you install AME now it should notice the blog automatically.

Originally Posted by airborneCAL

when I download the .zip file it says it is corrupted. Anyone else have this problem?

Try downloading it from another computer or after restarting your computer.

Originally Posted by Saint_I_Am

Is this mod causing a conflict with some normal type links? like to a html page?

Other links work fine but this one displays a double http:// like http://http://www...

???

Depends on if you have another link modification installed.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by cory_booth

I have to re-enforce some the the posts about slow-downs when making a new thread.

I have done exhaustive research and can firmly state that while AME is a great idea, whenever it is active and a user creates a new thread (not a reply) the site takes nearly 30 seconds to refresh...

With AME simply disabled via plugin interface and all other plugins active, the refresh is only 1-2 seconds.

I haven't read through the entire AME forum yet to see if there is a solution? But I am running the latest version and I have been using it for a while. This is why it took me so long to diagnose the problem. I kept looking at plugins I installed recently, not the AME (which I had for a while)....


I do have the FULL list of AME plugins installed, not sure if that a problem oh....
And I am also noticing it more on a government network than a civilian one.

Perhaps the blocking of YouTube and the rest helps create this bottle neck?

Would this happen even on a non-AME post (i.e. text only) - I mean to be honest, I rarely need to benifits of AME as my users don't normally post video and things, but I saw this slow down when simply typing "Testing 12345678"....

When I disabled....

Gone....


Let me add that I am using VBOptimizer and XCache as well....
Oh, and I - ofcourse - enabled any AME optimizations (caching) as well...

This can be an issue and is pretty well documented wherever I could (and also easily worked around).

AME has the ability to go 'fetch' a web page when it discovers a definition match. A good example of this in action is that your youtube.com video link transforms into the video's page title.

So... AME finds a match (and if the setting is on) will go to that page and parse it for information. Generally its just the page title. Sometimes it is to ensure the video can be embedded, etc...

So... If you post 50 youtube.com links in a post and the 'enable extraction' setting is on and the youtube definition has its extraction on, AME will go to youtube 50 times while you are saving your post. That will be a noticeable slowdown. Multiply it by your sites connectivity (i.e. if the site has choked bandwidth, it will be even slower).

The good news is that AME only ever does this when you are saving a post that contains one or more matching definitions. The other good news is that you can also disable the extraction setting both globally as well as per definition (though note that some definitions rely on this feature).

Anyhooo... HTHs

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by Chadi

In regards to my lightbox suggestion on page 40, it would be a cool idea to have an on/off feature.

I am sure this could be done by just editing the templates, but currently have no plans to expand the feature set. I assume next time I crack open the code will be to develop a version for vb4.0.

Nice effect though

[Megatr0n]

The Geek, can you please read and reply to my PM. It's urgent!

[Kavadas]

I wasn't able to get this working. I followed all of the instructions, installed without error, and then went through the settings but it's like it's completely dead. It doesn't do anything.

I've tried tons of YouTube links but nothing. Link: http://47th.info/comms/showthread.ph...ted=1#post3652

Any ideas?

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by Kavadas

I wasn't able to get this working. I followed all of the instructions, installed without error, and then went through the settings but it's like it's completely dead. It doesn't do anything.

I've tried tons of YouTube links but nothing. Link: http://47th.info/comms/showthread.ph...ted=1#post3652

Any ideas?

Very basic but common mistake is having the AME product turned off in the top setting. Make sure Disable New Items is set to No. Also check your Usergroup Permissions and remember that for some testing you have to edit already posted messages.

[Kavadas]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Very basic but common mistake is having the AME product turned off in the top setting. Make sure Disable New Items is set to No. Also check your Usergroup Permissions and remember that for some testing you have to edit already posted messages.

No, it's definitely set to "No" in that disable new stuff option and when it wasn't working my usergroup permissions was one of the first things I checked but that's kosher too.

I thought maybe I had fudged the chmod on that amecache folder or something but it was all sevens so... yeah, I'm lost on this one