WP Plugins: CoolPlayer 9 Guide
UPDATE: The YouTube Issue seems resolved. I don’t know how, and I don’t why, but the video I posted today from YouTube works!
Starting off my ongoing series on Wordpress plugins is a guide to getting started using one of the most versatile multimedia plugins available, CoolPlayer 9.
I am writing these guides and reviews because it was just over a year ago that I started playing with the Wordpress platform, and I knew absolutely nothing. Well, I knew nothing except that I wanted to figure out how to do some of the more advanced things. I received a lot of help from the Wordpress Codex and from plugin authors and associated plugin support forums.
Now I am building Wordpress based sites and blogs for others, and I realize that as I do so, I’d like to give back what I have learned to the community, and see if it can be helpful or if it can be refined or improved.
While oftentimes plugin authors provide excellent documentation, it can still be helpful to have another take on how to use some of these excellent tools that help enhance the Wordpress experience.
So, these guides etc. are from the perspective of someone who has learned enough to be dangerous, but is still miles away from being an expert in all things plugins. If you have suggestions for my guides, or better uses or instructions, please comment or contact me, as I am happy to work with others to provide the help that I received from so many experts.
There’s the disclaimer, on to the guide!
CoolPlayer 9 Guide:
This plugin was released by Cool Code earlier this year, and includes a feature set that makes multimedia integration into your posts and pages very easy and very robust.. Installing the plugin is simple and typical, although there are a few advanced options that I’ll get into later. Up the folder to your plugins directory and activate through the WP Admin screen, and you’re on your way.
One of the best features of this plugin is its integration with both the Plain Text Editor and the Rich Text Editor for very easy embedding of multimedia files. This builds upon the lengthy list of file formats it supports and the fact that it can play file both locally, i.e. stored in your Wordpress Directory, or external from YouTube or Google Video etc.
iZachy has a nice concise list of the supported formats:
The embedded player supports these types of files: rm, rmvb, ra, rv, ram, smil, smi, rtsp, rpm, asf, wm, wma, wmv, wax, wvx, ogg, ape, avi, mid, midi, wav, mms, m3u, asx, mov, qt, mqv, m4v, m4a, m4b, mpeg, mpg, m1s, m1v, m1a, m75, m15, mp2, mpm, mpv, mpa, flc, fli, cel, aiff, aif, aifc, cdda, bwf, rts, 3gp, 3gpp, 3g2, 3gp2, au, snd, ulw, smf, kar, qcp, sdv, gsm, amr, caf, amc, mp4, sdp, pdf, fdf, xfdf, xdp, xfd, gif, jpg, jpeg, bmp, png, xpm, dir, dxr, dcr, cst, cct, cxt, w3d, fgd, swa, swf, spl, mp3, flv, rtmp, rbs, xml, rss, xspf, atom.
It also supports YouTube, Ifilm, VSocial, TuDou Video, Evil Chili, Wildko, Yikers Videos & Games, Red Balcony Videos & Games, Live Video, Odeo Audio, Revver, MetaCafe, MySpace, GoEar, Break, Stupid Videos, DailyMotion and Google Video.
Here’s an example using a time lapse clip from Google Video:
[coolplayer width="480" height="380" autoplay="0" loop="0" charset="utf-8" download="0" mediatype=""]
Northern Lights
[/coolplayer]
Installation and Configuration
To install this plugin, upload the “coolplayer” directory into your plugins folder via FTP. Then proceed to the WP-Admin Plugins page and activate it.
Configuring the plugin is more thought provoking, however, as there are some alternative considerations to ponder. The way this plugin works is that it runs file through an RPC (Remote Process Call) Server, and the default for this is an RPC Server in China. You can, if your host allows, set up the plugin to run the RPC Server locally, and I’ll explain that later on. I have done that in the image below.
coolplayeroptions.jpgThe options for this player are essentially size (Width and Height) Charset (which I didn’t touch) AutoPlay which is nice so your media is not constantly playing everytime you edit or view a page, Loop, and show download bar or not. Then is the option for the RPC Server URL. (This image pops out for a better view.)
Once you have configured this, you are ready to embed media!
Embedding External Media
To use CoolPlayer to embed files that are stored on YouTube or other media sites, it is very easy:
* In the Write Post/Page Admin pages the Rich Text editor will have a button images.png that will insert the necessary code for your default media settings. Click on that.
* A dialogue box will pop up asking you to enter the URL for the media you’d like to embed. After pasting in the URL, click OK.
* You will be prompted to enter a Description for that media in the next dialogue box.
* After clicking OK, a third dialogue box will pop up asking if you want to add any additional media (mediae 
).
* After completing this process for all of the media you want to enter into that specific post or page, you will see the code entered into the main text box. (I have removed the bracket around the tag coolplayer to show the code)
I found this clip on YouTube.
coolplayer width=”430″ height=”330″ autoplay=”0″ loop=”0″
charset=”utf-8″ download=”1″ mediatype=”" Princeton University Quick Clip
/coolplayer
* At this point, click “save” for the post/page and your external media will have been embedded based on the configuration you identified in the Options page.Go ahead and click save, preview etc and move on to the next thing!
Here’s the Preview of the draft one I just did:
There are ways of embedding media that don’t conform to your configuration options, and I’ll outline them below as well.
Embedding Local Media
Embedding your own media files into your blog is just as easy to do, and actually ends up in the same spot as external media, however it requires some steps prior to embedding it that might be challenging for newbies.
Essentially, what has to take place is that the media files need to be uploaded to your blog site prior to embedding them. Seems logical enough.
The two most common and easy ways of doing this are through the Write Post Editor and through an FTP client.*
Through the Write Post Editor, below the text box for the primary content is an upload button.
(I also have the Flickr Photo Album Plug in installed on Third Owl, but I’ll do a guide for that next time.)
One note here is that you’ll want to go to your WP-Admin Panel>Options>Miscellaneous Options and check the folder where uploads will be stored.
I have chosen to have Wordpress “Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders” as then I’ll know what the address is when I need to refer to the file itself later This means that in your site directory, you’ll shave a structure like this:
WP-Content>Uploads>2007>06 (for June) and then your files.
Once you have uploaded the file, you’ll be able to repeat the steps for embedding an external media file:
A dialogue box will pop up asking you to enter the URL for the media you’d like to embed.
In this case you’ll be entering something like:
http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/year/
month/filename.extension
After pasting in the URL, click OK.
Everything else is the same. The dialogue boxes will appear as they did above, but you’ll simply have to make sure you know the filename of the file you uploaded and then the month and year you uploaded it in order to enter the correct URL.
*Using an FTP client, you can navigate to the folder you want to store you media and bulk upoad files if you wish. Ultimately, though the embed process is the same.
Advanced Usage:
As with most plugins, the calls to the functions allow for some customization. For instance, simply using the Quick Tags or the Rich Text icon, you insert the media according to your default settings. If you want to change the size of the embedded media, you can do so by identifying the parameters. Here are some examples from Cool Code with the brackets around “coolplayer” removed:
<a href=”http://www.vsocial.com/video/?d=5255″>Bugs bunny cartoon on family guy</a>
<a width=”480″ height=”420″ href=”http://www.youtube.com/w/funny-as-hell?
v=rPw-BwnW7Qs”>Funny as hell</a>
/coolplayer
Or
coolplayer width=”640″ height=”480″ charset=”GBK” autoplay=”false” loop=”true” download=”show”
http://www.coolcode.cn/wp-content/upload/?????-???.wmv
<a href=”http://www.coolcode.cn/wp-content/upload/??.mp3″ image=”http://www.coolcode.cn/wp-content/upload/??-??.jpg” captions=”http://lrc.bzmtv.com/lrc_db/2004-5-
19-JMRQNPDOKRQJNFOJOIRMNG-42472.lrc” lrccharset=”gbk” width=”455″ height=”487″>??</a>
<a autoplay=”true” href=”http://www.coolcode.cn/wp-content/upload/???????.swf
“>???????.swf</a>
[/coolplayer
Conclusion:
To sum up, this is one of, if not the best, multimedia embedding plugins I could find. After months of using WP-Video, which is a great plugin itself, CoolPlayer 9 provides more functionality for more media types located in more places.
If you want to simply embed Google Video or YouTube, then WP Video might be right for you, but if you want something more robust, than try your hand at Cool Player 9 which I imagine will only continue to get better.
Plus, it works in Wordpress 2.2 without conflict!
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