Red Hot Chilli Project

arc_recent_youtube :: Dec 9, 12:41 PM

This plugin retrieves recent videos from the popular Youtube website and embeds them into your website. Recent videos from a user’s uploads or favourites, or with a given tag/keyword can be simply retrieved; alternatively you can specify a Youtube feed url. The Youtube player’s appearance can also be customised as with the arc_youtube plugin.

arc_recent_youtube uses SimplePie 1.0 b3.2 for feed retrieval and must be uploaded to your Textpattern install. The relevant SimplePie files are included in the download file.

Installation

1. Upload ‘simplepie.inc’ and ‘npdata.ser’ to any readable directory on your web server. By default arc_recent_youtube will look for these in /[path_to_txp]/lib/, if you upload them elsewhere you must specify this using the ‘simplepie’ attribute in the plugin tag.
2. To install arc_recent_youtube go to the ‘plugins’ tab under ‘admin’ and paste the plugin code into the ‘Install plugin’ box, ‘upload’ and then ‘install’. Finally activate the plugin.

Syntax

<txp:arc_recent_youtube feed=“http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/standardfeeds/GB/most_recent” />

<txp:arc_recent_youtube user=“bbc” />

<txp:arc_recent_youtube tag=“cartoon” />

Usage

The feed

Define the Youtube feed you want to retrieve recent videos from using one of the following attributes (in order of priority):-

1. feed – url of the Youtube feed (Youtube RSS feeds)
2. user – Youtube username to retrieve recent uploaded videos from
3. fav – Youtube username to retrieve recent favourite videos from
4. tag – retrieve recent Youtube videos posted with a given tag

Only one feed is retrieved, however, if you assign more than one of the above attributes then the one with highest priority overrides the others.

Basics

Attribute	Description	Default	Example
limit	Maximum number of videos to return	5	limit=“1”
vplayer1	‘1’ to show video, ‘0’ to hide	1	vplayer=“0”
vlabel	‘1’ to show video titles, ‘0’ to turn off	1	vlabel=“0”
vlabeltag	Wraptag for video titles	h4	vlabeltag=“p”
link	Set to ‘1’ to link video titles to the Youtube video page	1	link=“1”
label	Label for the top of the list	no label	label=“My Youtube favourites”
labeltag	Independent wraptag for label	unset	labeltag=“h3”
break	HTML tag (without brackets), or string, used to separate the videos	br	break=“li”
wraptag	HTML tag to be used as the wraptag, without brackets	unset	wraptag=“div”
class	CSS class attribute for wraptag	arc_recent_youtube	class=“youtube”

¹ Turning off the video using vplayer enables you to return just a linked list of video titles.

Customising the Youtube player

You can customise the appearance of the Youtube flash player using this plugin to define colours, size, and language settings like with the arc_youtube plugin.

Attribute	Description	Default	Example
width	Width of video	425	width=“200”
height	Height of video	344	height=“150”
color1	Six-digit hexadecimal colour code (if color1 and color2 are unset then the default Youtube colour scheme is used)	unset	color1=“2b405b”
color2	Six-digit hexadecimal colour code	unset	color2=“6b8ab6”
border	‘1’ to show border, ‘0’ to hide border	0	border=“1”
fs	‘1’ to allow full screen, ‘0’ to disable full screen mode	1
lang	Language code for player, by default this is set to English “en”	en	lang=“fr”

SimplePie setup

Attribute	Description	Default	Example
caching	‘1’ to cache feed, ‘0’ to turn caching off	1	caching=“0”
cache_dir	Absolute path to the SimplePie cache directory (must be writable)
cache_time	Time in minutes that the cache files are stored before being refreshed	60	cache_time=1440
simplepie	Absolute path to the SimplePie class file	/[path_to_txp]/lib/	simplepie=”/classes/”

If you have installed the SimplePie class file somewhere other than the textpattern/lib/ directory then you need to specify the absolute path using the simplepie attribute.

Examples

Example 1: Recent uploads from Youtube user ‘bbc’

<txp:arc_recent_youtube user=“bbc” />

Example 2: Latest upload from user ‘bbc’ with blue coloured player

<txp:arc_recent_youtube user=“bbc” color1=“006699” color2=“54abd6” limit=“1” />

This just outputs the most recent upload from the user and modifies the appearance of the Flash player.

Example 3: No caching

<txp:arc_recent_youtube tag=“cartoon” caching=“0” />

This retrieves videos tagged as ‘cartoon’ without caching, every page load will retrieve the feed. This is not recommended.

Plugin details

Initial release: 9 December 2008
Current version: 0.1 [ download ]

Please feel free to leave your comments and questions about this plugin below. Alternatively you can post them on the forum thread.

Use of my plugins is free; however, if you would like to show your appreciation you can do so by clicking the 'Donate' button below and make a contribution to the Andy Carter's coding fund via PayPal...