Geek Project: Using the JW Player for the Dr. Bill Show!
I have highlighted the awesome JW Player for flash as a “Geek Software of the Week” before, and it rocks! But, with the re-launch of the “Dr. Bill – The Computer Curmudgeon” show, I decided to “go all out” and purchase a full copy of the player from Longtail Video (Jeroen “JW” Wijering’s brainchild) and go for it! I had used the “freebie” player before, and was very impressed, but, since one day, if the stars align, I hope to make a little spending money from the show (we can only hope!) … legally (and you guys know, the Doctor is all about the legal!) I had to purchase the full version.
I must say, it rocks! Since I am using WordPress to power the web site (on my server) and since I am using Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin for WordPress, it was a simple matter to download the full player after my purchase, and replace the files (after renaming the old ones) in the correct sub-directory. In this case:
../wp-content/plugins/vipers-video-quicktags/resources/jw-flv-player/
Replace the two files:
player.swf and yt.swf
with the ones from the paid-for full version of the JW Player. Then, go into the WordPress Plugin control panel for Viper’s Video Quicktags and add your cool options, to the line:
“Advanced Parameters” (at the bottom of the control panel screen)
Add this string (with your appropriate information, of course) in this format:
image=https://www.drbill.tv/images/DrBillTV-Screen-Image.png&logo=https://www.drbill.tv/images/drbilltv-logo.png
And, bazinga! You have the cool feature of briefly flashing your own logo, rather than the JW Player logo! Of course, the new latest version of the JW Player does much more than this… in fact, it now supports Flash, HTML5, and many, many other formats! By the way, you can create your own transparent logo, by using The GIMP, setting your background to “transparency” then saving in as a PNG file (Portable Network Graphic). PNG is an open source image format that supports transparency, so I use it for everything! And, it is quite compact! Here are some neat links used in this project:
The JW Player from Longtail Video
The GIMP for Windows
WordPress
Viper’s Video Quicktags
Information on the PNG Image Format