JW Player Plugin for WordPress Media Management
The JW Player Plugin for WordPress extends the existing media management capabilities of WordPress. This allows you to embed the player into your post through the Add Media interface. In addition, it provides a fully functional playlist manager and allows you to import external media files into your Media Library.
Media Library
To insert a JW Player, simply click on the Add Media button while editing your post. This will cause the WordPress media library popup to appear.
To see your available media click on the "Media Library" tab. You should be presented with a list of all the media that has been uploaded to your WordPress installation. WordPress displays ten pieces of content per page. Your content can be filtered to show only images, audio, or video.
Click the show link next to the media you would like to embed. This expands the piece of content revealing the meta data that is available to edit. In addition to the default WordPress meta data, the JW Player Plugin for WordPress provides several additional fields related to configuration of the JW Player. These include the following:
- Thumbnail URL: This allows you to specify the poster image to be used by the JW Player for this piece of content.
- Thumbnail: This serves the same function as Thumbnail URL, but allows you to select from recent content in your library.
- HTML 5 File: This lets you specify the content the player should use when it falls back to HTML 5 mode. You can either use the text field or the selector which displays content in your library. Note that the text field take precedence.
- Download File: This lets you specify the content the player should use when it falls back to Download mode. You can either use the text field or the selector which displays content in your library. Note that the text field take precedence.
- Streamer (RTMP only): This allows you to specify the streamer to use for this piece of content.
- File (RTMP only): This allows you to specify the file for your streamed content.
From here you can enter a manual Thumbnail URL, or select a thumbnail (with a preview) from the images you have uploaded to your WordPress installation. Note that if you have a thumbnail selected and have entered a thumbnail URL the thumbnail URL has a precedence.
In addition, you can select any of your custom players from a dropdown or leave it as the default. When you are satisfied with your selections, click the “Insert JW Player” button and the JW Player shortcode will automatically be inserted into your post body. You can customize the shortcode further if you wish.
External Media
The External Media tab allows you to create references to external media files by providing a complete URL. Once you enter the URL and click the “Add Media” button, you will be presented with the familiar media editing form which allows you to customize the metadata for the file. When using YouTube URLs the metadata will be pre-populated for you through the YouTube API. There is also limited mime-type detection for URLs that end in a file extension. If the URL does not contain a file extension it will be assumed that you are linking to a video file.
RTMP URL support is also included as well. RTMP media library items will have two additional fields to be editted. These include the streamer and file attributes. The plugin will make a guess as to what part of the URL is the streamer and which part is the file. It is recommended you double check these settings to ensure your stream works correctly.
Playlist Manager
To insert a playlist, click on the newly added Playlist Manager tab. Here you will see an interface similar to that used by the Gallery tab. However, in this case it is a two column format listing all available media on the right side and media that is currently in the selected playlist on the left. You can then enter a name for your playlist and click the “Create Playlist” button. Every playlist that has been created is presented in the dropdown at the top of the form. Using this dropdown you can select an existing playlist and make changes to it. In order to save your changes click the “Save all changes” button.
To include a piece of media in the Playlist click the associated checkbox in the available media column. It will then appear in the left hand column as an item in the currently selected playlist. If you would like to remove an item from the playlist simply uncheck the item in either the playlist column or the available media column. The item will then disappear from the playlist column.
To change the relative ordering of items in your playlist, simply drag the item (in the playlist column) to the desired position. Once you have selected and configured your playlist, inserting it is similar to inserting a single piece of media. Select the desired player configuration and click the “Insert Playlist” button. This will then insert the configured JW Player shortcode into your post body.
If you no longer need a playlist, you can delete it using the “Delete Playlist” button. Playlist deletion is permanent.
Facebook Integration
The WordPress plugin also lets you customize the behavior of each of your posts when they are posted to Facebook by your users. This is done by the addition of two custom fields. Note that if you insert a video by using the Media Overlay, the plugin will automatically populate these fields for you. However, feel free to update them manually as well to further customize the behavior. A description of the fields is as follows:
- jwplayermodule_fb_headers_id: This field lets you specify the video that will show up in the Facebook post. It can either be a media id or the URL to a file.
- jwplayermodule_fb_headers_config: This lets you specify the config for the JW Player to be used in the Facebook post.