Page 1 of 1

Use of [flash] BBCode

PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:35 pm
by JosephJ
Right, then, let's get on to this. The new forum has a [flash] BBCode, as you can observe in your reply post boxes.

The question is, how does it work? Well, at heart, it works like this:
Code: Select all
[flash=x,y]http://www.url.com/video.swf[/flash]

Where x is the width of the object in pixels, y is the height, and the url is the link to a .swf file. I think .flv files will also work, although I haven't tested this out.

Now, most of you aren't going to be using this for embedding .swfs and the like, so we'll cover what YOU really care about - the YouTube functionality. YouTube videos are of the .flv format and are distributed using Flash. Hence, we can use this feature to embed YouTube videos.

Now, you'll notice that if you bung in a standard link, it isn't going to work. Well, there are two ways to get that link to work. The first is to extract the appropriate link from the embed code; however, it's best to assume that you're technologically not too smart, so we won't cover that. The second way is to use the following code.
Code: Select all
[flash=425,344]http://www.youtube.com/v/d4tsh17y4h[/flash]

Now, I've put in the default YouTube size video there - that being, 425 by 344. Other sizes YouTube offer as default are 320x265, 480x385 and 640x505, although technically you can size it to any size. We'd rather you put 640x505 at maximum, though. Other sizes you might find useful are 191x150 (to make it big enough for a signature), or 425x25 (this essentially cuts out the video from view and leaves just the audio)

In the YouTube URL, there should be a "v=" bit in there something, and then a jumble of numbers and letters. You need to copy and paste that jumble of letters (ensuring that you remove anything after a & sign, as there may be one there depending on where you've linked it from; it's not vital to my knowledge, but it helps) and replace the bit after the /v/ with that. Once you've done that, voila, you have a working link.

For example, here is a video I've taken from YouTube, with the video hidden from view.

Code: Select all
[flash=425,25]http://www.youtube.com/v/HSaqvhvnAgI[/flash]


Voila.

Re: Use of [flash] BBCode

PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:38 pm
by GreekIdiot
JosephJ wrote:We'd rather you put 640x505 at maximum, though. Other sizes you might find useful are 191x150 (to make it big enough for a signature), or 300x25 (this essentially cuts out the video from view and leaves just the audio).


This is a nice trick to add audio. Thanks for the info.

But I do have to ask, the video will automatically play when, for example, you open a thread where a user has a video in their signature?

Re: Use of [flash] BBCode

PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:39 pm
by JosephJ
George S.K wrote:
JosephJ wrote:We'd rather you put 640x505 at maximum, though. Other sizes you might find useful are 191x150 (to make it big enough for a signature), or 300x25 (this essentially cuts out the video from view and leaves just the audio).


This is a nice trick to add audio. Thanks for the info.

But I do have to ask, the video will automatically play when, for example, you open a thread where a user has a video in their signature?

It shouldn't automatically play, no; you'd have to click the play button.

Re: Use of [flash] BBCode

PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:47 pm
by JosephJ
I've made a slight amendment; the fmt=18 trick doesn't seem to work (I swear it was working earlier, but whatever), so I'd removed that, and recommended upping audio to 425x25 (I think that the High Quality button if there doesn't appear below 425 pixel widths).

Re: Use of [flash] BBCode

PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:17 pm
by GreekIdiot
By the way, won't implementing and posting too many videos overload the server? I just worry things will turn just like the other forums.

Re: Use of [flash] BBCode

PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:19 pm
by JosephJ
George S.K wrote:By the way, won't implementing and posting too many videos overload the server? I just worry things will turn just like the other forums.

It should do absolutely nothing considering that by using the code you're essentially just linking to YouTube.

Re: Use of [flash] BBCode

PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:46 pm
by Sam
It's just leeching YouTube's bandwidth. It doesn't use up any of the forum's bandwidth or disk space.