Automatic load of FLV and MP4 video files ?

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Author Post
Leeloo
Guest
Hi,
First, great thanks for your plugin Floatbox, certainly one of the best lightboxes clones :D

Now, my question : is it possible to add automatic support for personal FLV/MP4 files in the same way Shadowbox has.
In Shadowbox, all we have to do is :
- put the flash video player in the root directory of the site,
- add href link to video file + width/height params

Shadowbox does the rest : it auto-detects the extension file, opens the window and loads the video with the flash player.

I have several FLV / MP4 files to put on my site, with my own web space (i will NOT use Google Video, Vimeo, Youtube or any other dedicated web space).

I always tried Floatbox in its version 2 a few months ago, but i had to create a unique web page per video, which takes a lot of time to create and update when necessary.

And please, don't talk me about using Quicktime for MP4 files, the flash plugin is far more represented in the world than QT, and version 9 is powerful enough to do the job.


P.S.: to achieve Floatbox perfection to my eyes, come back of 2-times animation (Height => Width or Width => Height) would be really great, with the same glide effect as Shadowbox. :mrgreen:
(I know someone has always asked this, and that would add some work for you, but maybe...)

P.P.S : you can update compatibility list with this (WinXP SP2) :
- Firefox 2.0.0.16
- Opera 9.60 beta (far better speed animation than 9.2x !!!)

I will ask to friends to test Floatbox on MacOS Safari too
Administrator
Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 3382
ok, ok. I surrender.
Split width and height animation in the next release.
People seem to want it.

I've done a lot of testing (and bug fixing) on Macs this month with a lot of versions of a lot of browsers. The testing/compatibility list on the floatbox site will be greatly expanded with the next release.

I'm not onboard with adding flv/mp4 support. As you know, these are not played directly but rather are loaded and played by some sort of swf-based player. First, I'm not comfortable bundling someone else's flv player in the floatbox distribution package. Second, different people prefer different players. I don't want to dictate which one gets used with floatbox.

It's not true that without direct flv support you need to wrap your flv files in html and load them as iframes. Just find a player that runs with query-string vars or flashvars and set up your direct-load flash href accordingly. Note that the flash plugin treats query-string vars and flashvars as interchangeable. If your preferred player wants flashvars, just set those vars in the query string and they will be picked up.

My favourite flv player is flowplayer. The "Flash in a Frame" sample on my demo page uses it. (It doesn't have to be in a frame.) Flowplayer's license terms are prohibitive of re-distributing it freely. Should I then be restricted to a second-rate player if I want to use floatbox? (Rhetorical question)

Shadowbox bundles the JW flvplayer.swf player. This is the 2nd best player I've come across. Its license terms are also prohibitive of re-distribution in floatbox. Commercial use of flvplayer.swf requires a license purchase. Floatbox is free for all uses (fair donations encouraged for commercial use!). Shadowbox also requires a paid license for commercial use. I don't know if shadowbox's author has reached a revenue sharing agreement with JW, but I could hazard a guess.

Sorry for being long-winded. But hey, you got split resizing!
Leeloo
Guest
Thanks for your reply !

I must admit JW MediaPlayer has seen its licence greatly modified with version 4 coming...
I have older copies of version 3, may there is a moderate licence applied to ?
I will study how to integrate the flashvars into the links.

Another solution comes to my mind : neolao FLV player.
This player is open source and free of charge.
Here is : the homepage


Lastly, great great thanks for Floatbox which fully support flash content when used with javascript tabs ! 8)

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