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

[smirkley]

Still love this mod,...

Just installed AME 2.5 on my new setup with vB3.8.

Noticed an error while doing the following,...

Database errors, when using (Tools - Rebuild) for vbBlogs, group messages, visitor messages or signatures.

Using this feature for posts seems to work good.

I have,..

vB Forum 3.8.0 G
Blogs 2.0 G

Basically I think the vB3.0 and BVlog2.0 seem to be the issue, as blogs, social groups are the big sql db error providers.

Thanks again.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by smirkley

Still love this mod,...

Just installed AME 2.5 on my new setup with vB3.8.

Noticed an error while doing the following,...

Database errors, when using (Tools - Rebuild) for vbBlogs, group messages, visitor messages or signatures.

Using this feature for posts seems to work good.

I have,..

vB Forum 3.8.0 G
Blogs 2.0 G

Basically I think the vB3.0 and BVlog2.0 seem to be the issue, as blogs, social groups are the big sql db error providers.



Thanks again.

Were Blogs, Visitor Messages and Social Groups a part of your forum prior to upgrading to 3.8? Because the only time you would run the rebuild tool for one of these functions is if you had AME installed first, and then you upgraded vB to those features. If AME is added after you already have these features, then the tables would have already been added during the initial installation.

[smirkley]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Were Blogs, Visitor Messages and Social Groups a part of your forum prior to upgrading to 3.8? Because the only time you would run the rebuild tool for one of these functions is if you had AME installed first, and then you upgraded vB to those features. If AME is added after you already have these features, then the tables would have already been added during the initial installation.

I have had blogs installed while I succesfully used the 2.0 version of AME and using 3.7.5, and prior 3.7.4 vb.

I upgraded to blog2.0 when it became available, and it was still ok.

And social groups has been a built in feature of vb since before 3.4, but recently upgraded in 3.8.



It was with the install of AME 2.5 today, that I had to use the un-build rebuild feature of AME to re-embed the google urls properly for the ame2.5 upgrade, when I noticed this problem with the database, when using this tool on blogs and social groups.

Any help appreciated. Thanks again.

[7lanet]

Why is not the name of all video

Only some video

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by smirkley

I have had blogs installed while I succesfully used the 2.0 version of AME and using 3.7.5, and prior 3.7.4 vb.

I upgraded to blog2.0 when it became available, and it was still ok.

And social groups has been a built in feature of vb since before 3.4, but recently upgraded in 3.8.



It was with the install of AME 2.5 today, that I had to use the un-build rebuild feature of AME to re-embed the google urls properly for the ame2.5 upgrade, when I noticed this problem with the database, when using this tool on blogs and social groups.

Any help appreciated. Thanks again.

If you already had Blogs and Social Groups prior to installing AME, then you shouldn't have needed to run either of those process. What was the problem with Google that you needed to run the rebuild tool?

Originally Posted by 7lanet

Why is not the name of all video

Only some video

I'd have to see the actual YouTube links to tell you why.

[theothersully]

Ok, I've installed this mod because I couldn't get custom BB code to work for YouTube videos.

I kept getting nothing - a blank when using the custom BB code.

Now, using this mod, I get the title of the video in a nice little title bar over... you guessed it!

NOTHING.

YouTube videos will not display on my 3.7 vBulletin installation.

What is up here?? Does anyone know why I can't show any videos on my site? Embedded images work just fine. Embedded videos don't.

Please help... my users are going to kill me! ha ha

[Digital Jedi]

Have you checked all your settings closely? Most common mistake folks make is to Disable New Items set to Yes in their AME CP Settings.

[smirkley]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

If you already had Blogs and Social Groups prior to installing AME, then you shouldn't have needed to run either of those process. What was the problem with Google that you needed to run the rebuild tool?

My mistake, I meant YouTube links.

1 - I installed the AME2.5 after everything else was up and running, but I noticed after the 2.5 install, that all the old AME links were now left in posts as just ame bbcode with urls.
They would work if I edited individual posts, but not on their own.

2 - Then I used the unbuild tool to remove the old ame links and revert them to url bbcode, and then rebuilt using same tool, which on its own process correctly made all youtube links properly render in the ame style. This was all good. Everything worked as expected.

3 - then because I had similar broken ame links in my blogs, I tried to do the same with blogs, but when I click on the rebuild tool in the ame cp, I get a database error instead, tried also with social groups, even though my social groups had no ame or youtube links to embed, but it didnt matter, same database error.

It worked as expected with just the regular forum posts, but only thing I could think of was the blogs and social groups were recently upgraded, but the ame code isnt setup to address the database of the new versions properly.

And yes, sorry, I meant youtube and not google in my prior post.

And yes, maybe I needent run the process with my social groups, but should the ame cp provde database errors anyway? I did need to run them for blogs though.

Thanks

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by smirkley

My mistake, I meant YouTube links.

1 - I installed the AME2.5 after everything else was up and running, but I noticed after the 2.5 install, that all the old AME links were now left in posts as just ame bbcode with urls.
They would work if I edited individual posts, but not on their own.

2 - Then I used the unbuild tool to remove the old ame links and revert them to url bbcode, and then rebuilt using same tool, which on its own process correctly made all youtube links properly render in the ame style. This was all good. Everything worked as expected.

3 - then because I had similar broken ame links in my blogs, I tried to do the same with blogs, but when I click on the rebuild tool in the ame cp, I get a database error instead, tried also with social groups, even though my social groups had no ame or youtube links to embed, but it didnt matter, same database error.

It worked as expected with just the regular forum posts, but only thing I could think of was the blogs and social groups were recently upgraded, but the ame code isnt setup to address the database of the new versions properly.

And yes, sorry, I meant youtube and not google in my prior post.

And yes, maybe I needent run the process with my social groups, but should the ame cp provde database errors anyway? I did need to run them for blogs though.

Thanks

That's what I'm saying, there is no individual setting for rebuilding links in blogs. Convert codes should do that for everything. Add Blog Support simply adds the missing colums to your database if you added your Blog AFTER you installed AME, which may be why your getting the database error (though I cant seem duplicate this).

It's possible maybe The Geek overlooked including the secondary areas when you run Convert, but I would think so. What you should try is reuploading all your files and making sure that when you upgraded you ticked the Allow overwrite to Yes. First, though, can you paste the exact database error your getting? It's in the source code.

[smirkley]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

That's what I'm saying, there is no individual setting for rebuilding links in blogs. Convert codes should do that for everything.

But in the v2.5 that I recently downloaded a couple of days ago there is,..

In the AME admin cp > tools page,..this is what I have at the very top...

Rebuild
Convert (or remove) AME code in your old posts, vbBlogs, group messages, visitor messages or signatures.

...with the underlined phrases being linked to the particular rebuild tool.

I am not sure I follow you, or that we are talking about the same feature version of AME at this point.

Thanks again