PT Multimedia Overview
Upload audio and video directly to your server or use embed code from sites such as Yahoo, youtube or Vimeo to render multimedia on your site.
Administration
Multimedia is managed through the integrated multimedia manager. The multimedia manager is broken down into three components - the media manager, the category manager and the series manager.
Starting with the category manager, categories are the "buckets" into which all media is placed. Media is rendered on your site based upon the category assigned to the media. The category manager allows you to create an unlimited number of categories for your media or to edit or delete previously defined categories.
Similar to categories, the series manager allows you to create or edit a series to which your media will be assigned. A series is used primarily to create audio or video podcasts. For example, you might create a series of five videos as a tutorial to teach new employees how to publish within Commonspot. You would use the series manager to create a series item called, "Commonspot publishing tutorial" and then you would use the media manager to assign those five videos to the "Commonspot publishing tutorial" series.
Finally, the media manager is where everything comes together. The "Add Media" option is selected when adding new video or audio to your site. The dialogue allows you to select whether your video will be locally hosted (uploaded to your server) or externally hosted (serving from sites such as youtube). Your choice will dictate the remaining fields to complete. Both external and local require you to enter a title, caption, audio or video designator, date and a description. In the case of externally hosted, you are presented with an "embed code" field into which you will paste the embed code copied from the external site. In the case of locally hosted, you are presented with an upload button to upload your audio or video file and also an optional preview image button for selecting the preview image. The category tab on this dialog is where your media is assigned to one or more categories and the series tab is where it’s assigned to a series. The datasheet on the media manager displays the media you have added via the media manager and provides a means of editing or deleting media.
Presentation
One of the powerful features of the PT Multimedia application is that regardless of where media originates (local or external), both are presented in a logical, organized fashion by category. For example, you might have a category called "entertainment", where videos you've uploaded are presented next to videos from youtube with some Vimeo videos intermingled. This creates a seamless, cohesive way to present your media with it being truly source agnostic.
Audio and video presentation is controlled by clicking on the category gallery element icon (the element which is placed on any page where you want to display media) and selecting the "edit metadata" option. The metadata dialog contains radio buttons with the following display options:
- Featured Video - renders large preview image on left, title and description on right.
- Related Videos - renders links of related videos belonging to the same category.
- Single Thumb - renders a single thumbnail image
- Row of 3 Thumbs - renders a row of three thumbnails with a caption underneath each thumb.
- 1 Column Vertical - renders vertical row of thumbnails on left, linked title and caption right.
- Audio Link - renders a link to an audio file.
- Audio Player - Renders the audio player in the page.
Thumbnails, preview image (featured video) and links are all clickable and launch the media player in a light box.
By clicking on the "data" option for the category gallery element, you are presented with a drag-and-drop interface which enables you to choose one or more categories for which you want to display media.
The series gallery element mimics the category element with the same presentation options, except of course it renders media by series rather than category.
In addition to the category gallery element and series gallery element described above, which act as a filter and determine what media is eligible for display, the multimedia application has two additional elements -- the category element and series element. Unlike the two gallery elements, these two elements do not display any media whatsoever, Instead, they provide a means of rendering a category or series name (typically used as a header) on the page followed by a "view all" link. When the "view all" link is clicked, the user is redirected to a page which will show all videos for a given category or for a given series.
Extensibility
Out-of-the-box, the PT Multimedia application supports seven display formats (described above). It supports the serving of audio and video directly from your server. It also supports serving video from youtube, Yahoo and Vimeo -- all integrated seamlessly into your site without the user navigating away from your site to view or listen to media.
However, you are not limited to what the application provides out-of-the-box. This application, based upon Paperthin's powerful Application Development Framework (ADF), is completely extensible and may be customized to meet your specific needs. You are free to modify how things display as well and add additional support for other external sites.
