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Don't Panic, It's Drupal!

Submitted by aaron on Wed, 2008-12-17 08:59

Here's a graphic I made for the Do It With Drupal conference, where I built YouDrup, a YouTube clone with Drupal.

Don't Panic, It's Drupal!

Enjoy!

How to do the YouTube Video Cycle!

Submitted by aaron on Fri, 2008-11-14 13:05

As you might know by now, I'll be presenting a session at Do It With Drupal on December 10. If you didn't know, get a ticket, and then come back here! I'm currently building a YouTube clone with Drupal in my spare time. When I'm done with it all, I get to come talk with you folks about how I did it.

Obviously, I'm not going to replicate the entire YouTube site. There comes a point of diminishing returns, especially for something I'm doing for fun. So I have to pick and choose what pieces to build. (For the record, there will also be parts that I believe will be improvements on YouTube; not difficult, since I'm building it with Drupal.)

YouDrup Video Cycle

The video slide show on YouTube's front page would have been a case-in-point. It's built in Flash, and I figured I would skip it, since it's just eye candy. Normally for that, I would use jCarousel or Views Slideshow, but neither replicates YouTube's functionality, and they seemed out of place for this slider that slides 5 videos at a time. But then I remembered someone telling me about the jQuery Cycle plug-in, by the same author of the jQuery Media plug-in.

Read More to See How I Did It (in 20 minutes, nonetheless)...

Media Transcriptions Roadmap

Submitted by aaron on Tue, 2008-10-28 14:02

I've started work on the Media Transcriptions module today. This module will allow the attachment of Transcriptions (or Closed Captioning) to video and audio files. The initial version in CVS is from some work by Jonathan DeLaigle (grndlvl), who is a co-maintainer & developer of the module.

For full functionality, you'll need to wait for Drupal 7, because of the long-awaited hook_file and Fields in core issues.

However, there will be releases with limited functionality for Drupal 6, and even a teaser for Drupal 5, with a promise of smooth upgrading as things progress.

Read more to Find out What this Means for your Multimedia!

Do YouTube With Drupal

Submitted by aaron on Fri, 2008-10-10 11:44

A YouTube clone? In Drupal? Of course!

I was asked by the organizers of the Do It With Drupal seminar if I would like the opportunity to create a YouTube clone in Drupal and talk about that process with the community. Of course!

Do It With Drupal will take place in New Orleans, from December 10-12, 2008. Besides my YouTube clone, other showcase fantasy sites will also be presented, including Flickr, Twitter, and FreshBooks.com clones. All built with Drupal! And that's just the first day. There are some really big name folks presenting at the seminar, like Earl Miles, Robert Douglass, Gábor Hojtsy, John Resig (who wrote jQuery), Matt Westgate, Moshe Weitzman, Angela Byron, James Walker, and more! Seriously, check out the speaker list if you haven't yet.

Now that I've agreed to that, it means up all this personal time I just freed up from finishing up Drupal Multimedia (which goes to the printers on Monday!) will now go to building this fun site...

Read more about How I Plan to Do YouTube With Drupal...

Views Slideshow for Views 2

Submitted by aaron on Thu, 2008-10-02 08:55

I upgraded Views Slideshow to Drupal 6 this week. That means you can now continue to create a slideshow from any view, now easier than ever, thanks to Views 2!

In the Drupal 5 version, you had to set global settings for all slideshows, and it was a bit of a pain to configure them for individual shows. Now, as shown in this screen shot, you are able to configure each view individually.

Configure Views Slideshow

Read about How to Use Views Slideshow...

Anonymous Characters for 5 Second Game

Submitted by aaron on Thu, 2008-09-25 23:03

Assuming the administrator gives access, anonymous users may now create and compete with characters at 5 Second Game (which is powered by the module of the same name). Additionally, if an anonymous user registers or logs in, they'll be able to claim that character as their own, allowing for saving any statistics, etc.

How to Use jQuery Media for Audio & Video

Submitted by aaron on Thu, 2008-09-11 17:16

I sometimes hear a complaint that jQuery Media can't be used for both audio and video on the same site, because it makes the player too large.

This is not true at all. Although it does currently require some finagling.

I plan to reconfigure the module soon to make it easier to pull in the proper configurations for audio and video. Meanwhile, here's a quick hack.

jQuery Media for both Audio and Video

1. Enable the FileField module and create types for your audio and video clips.

2. Enable the jQuery Media module, and configure it for your custom video node type. We won't turn it on for the custom audio type, because we'll be calling it manually, coming right up.

3. Make sure you have a media player installed in the file directory and configured properly at /admin/settings/jquery_media (or /admin/settings/jq if you're using the jQ module). I suggest JW FLV Media Player for now, as Drupal's Media Player doesn't yet support audio. Just stick it in the site's root directory to work automatically, or put it wherever you want and configure jQuery Media with the proper folder.

4. In your theme's template.php, create the following function, replacing 'custom_audio_type' with your site's custom audio content type.

<?php
function phptemplate_preprocess_filefield_file(&$variables) {
  $node = node_load($variables['file']['nid']);
  if ($node->type == 'custom_audio_type') {
    $variables['classes'] = 'filefield-file-audio';
    if (module_exists('jquery_media')) {
      jquery_media_add(array('media class' => '.filefield-file-audio a', 'media height' => 20, 'media width' => 200));
    }
  }
  else {
    $variables['classes'] = 'filefield-file';
  }
  $variables['original_file'] = $variables['file'];
}
?>

(Note: we need to copy the $variables['file'] to a new variable because of a known bug in Drupal 6 at http://drupal.org/node/297952.)

5. Create a filefield_file.tpl.php file in your theme directory, with the following code:

<?php
  $path = $original_file['filepath'];
  $url = file_create_url($path);
  $icon = theme('filefield_icon', $original_file);
  print '<div class="'. $classes .' clear-block">'. $icon . l($original_file['filename'], $url) .'</div>';
?>

That's it. It should work automatically after that. Note that this tutorial assumes you're using Drupal 6.4, CCK 6.x-2.0-rc6, FileField 6.x-3.0-alpha4, and jQuery Media 6.x-1.4-beta1.

Note that I write about this in more detail in Drupal Multimedia (pre-order now)!

Inline Video with jQuery Media!

Submitted by aaron on Fri, 2008-08-29 21:21

Here's a two-step formula for simple inline video, assuming you have jQuery Media installed on your site, doing both of these configuration steps from Administration > Site configuration > jQuery Media (at /admin/settings/jquery_media):

  1. Open the Node types field set and check the node type for which you wish inline video.Check off Node Type
  2. Open the Classes field set, and enter .node .content a in the Media class text field. (You can separate classes by comma if you want to keep existing class invocations.)Set Media Class

Then just add a link to a video inline to your content. Doesn't matter if it was uploaded with the node or through FTP. (The second step assumes you're using the Garland theme, or another theme that uses that CSS class designation. You might need to check the node in FireBug if you're not sure.)

Notes: This method is easy, though admittedly a bit heavy-handed. The down-side is it will be invoked regardless of whether the node actually contains a video link (fortunately it's a lightweight jQuery plugin). If you want more fine-tuned control, you can skip the first step, use a PHP filter, and just invoke it manually from in your node, using jq_add('jquery_media') (assuming you have the jQ module enabled; jquery_media_add(); otherwise). (I don't actually recommend that, because of all the security issues involved. Just stick with the first method.)

The cool thing is this will work with pretty much any media player, including the upcoming Media Player for Drupal!

Minimalist Drupal Themes

Submitted by aaron on Tue, 2008-08-26 10:32

Don't get me wrong; I like Garland. It's sleek, it has an easy-to-configure color scheme, it works well out of the box. And it's identifiably Drupal, which, though sometimes thought to be a criticism, is not a bad label for the blog of a Drupal developer, such as the blog you're reading.

At the same time, I'm interested in spending some time creating a unique theme for my blog. I develop eight-plus hours a day, and it's time I eat my own dog-food. Granted, I haven't actually done any design work in over three years, but I do have some background with that.

So I've been looking at some of my favorite blogs to get some ideas. And discovering an interesting trend.

drupal4u screenshot

Chx's Drupal4hu is simple, with little clutter on the screen, but very identifiably Drupal oriented.

walkah.net screenshot

Jame's Walker's walkah.net features his most recent blog post, with a listing of the next few post titles beneath, and again, little clutter.

Delocalized Ham screenshot

Then there's Neil Drumm's Delocalized Ham, which evokes a manuscript on paper. His design is a testament to his recent study of Typography, which will also figure into my future directions.

So I'm not entirely sure what I'll do for a design quite yet. But I believe that these simple blog designs highlight the most important element of a blog, the written word.

Splash Screen for Media Player!

Submitted by aaron on Sun, 2008-08-17 22:02

Drupal Media Player. Splash screen.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

(Image credit reway2007)

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The Society for Venturism has chosen me as the recipient of its charity for this year, to hopefully offer me cryonic preservation when the time comes. And this month, Longecity, an excellent forum for the discussion of issues related to extending the lifespan of humans, has offered up a matching grant of up to a thousand dollars to help out! So help out! Please.