Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Cathy Macdonald -
Number of replies: 20

Hi there

Our College has recently started to use ClickView® to embed and stream video and TV media through our Moodle. We use Moodle1.9.7 for the College and Moodle2.0.3 for external projects for the College.

Moodle1 is fine, but Moodle2 has problems with embedding ClickView® video.

Moodle1 can use the embed code such as:
<script src="http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/e.aspx?p=O8Hv"></script>
to embed and play the video in popup in Webpage or Book resource. Although it does add its own messy <iframe> script, such as:
<iframe height="472" marginheight="0" src="http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/e.aspx?QTcD1POEh2JnU9MDAwMDAwMDAtMDAwMC0wMDAwLTAwMDAtMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwJmE9VHJ1ZSZjPVRydWUmcz1UcnVlJnc9ODQwJmg9NDcyJnJ0PVRydWUmYmN2PVRydWUmYmk9VHJ1ZSZiYz1UcnVlJmJmPVRydWUmbGJnPUZGMDAwMDAwJmVjPTAmdj0mZT1GYWxzZQ" frameborder="0" width="840" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

However, Moodle2 does not handle the embed script for ClickView® properly at all. Yet it is fine with YouTube® (because it incorporates <iframe>?).

Moodle2 will only play the video as a popup in the External URL resource, such as:
http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/?p=O8Hv OR even, http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/e.aspx?p=O8Hv
It will only play the video in a new window in the Book resource, as a link, such as:
<p><a target="_new" href="Clickview" _mce_href="http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/?p=O8Hv">Clickview">http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/?p=O8Hv">Clickview® Video</a></p>

If Moodle2 tries to use the full embed code in any way, the link takes over the window, i.e. not a pop-up or new window. This forces to user to navigate back to the Moodle page, or cause the user to unwittingly leave Moodle.

I have tried manually adding a basic <iframe> tag, such as:
<p><iframe width="720" height="576" frameborder="0" src="http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/e.aspx?p=CqkM"></iframe></p>
But it prints "document.write(" and takes over the window again - even in Edit Mode! This happens even if the target="_new" parameter is included within the <iframe> tag.

Moodle1 works perfectly well for embedding pop-up ClickView® video as Webpage or within a Book.

If any developer would be interested in persuading Moodle2 to catch up, that would be great smile!

Thanks for any input.
Cathy

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by sam marshall -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

You® could also try asking the ClickView people to provide® a better way to embed® into Moodle 2? smile

There is a custom filter for YouTube, same could be done for ClickView if they wanted to code it.

--sam

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In reply to sam marshall

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Cathy Macdonald -

Hi Sam

Thanks for reply smile.

We have actually asked ClickView people, but they say it's down to the Moodle developers to make a plug-in similar to the YouTube plug-in.

ClickView say that because Moodle changed the embedding code, it's up to Moodle make another plug-in for ClickView related to the custom filter for YouTube.

I have also asked ClickView to look at this posting.
So hopefully we can get a resolution on this!

Cathy

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Mark Johnson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

You could submit an issue to the tracker giving as much detail as you can about the problem, and how it might be resolved.  If you know anyone else who uses ClickView you might want to ask them to contribute too.

Personally, if I was a paying ClickView customer (which I'm not currently but I've looked at it) I'd expect them to take the initiative to ensure they're supported by the latest technology, perhaps by having a repository plugin created, or contributing the technical deatils needed to produce one. But that's just me smile

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

ClickView appear to make money from selling subscriptions to their service. Moodle has a huge percentage of the market for systems that can link to their service. Moodle does not charge for people to use their code and it is freely available, ClickView is not a central driver for Moodle developers .  If they want to keep/grow their market share it would be a good idea for them to investigate ensuring Moodle works with their system one way or another.

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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

With all due respect, Moodle is one of many LMS and CMS projects on the web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems I think it would be unreasonable to expect ClickView to maintain plugins for every new version of every LMS and CMS. I think it would also be unreasonable to expect every LMS and CMS project team to maintain plugins for every web service available. Wherever LMS' or CMS' and web services come together is a bonus and usually based on popular demand.

For what it's worth, the JW Player 5 supports most kinds of video service including streaming video in a variety of formats and protocols: http://longtailvideo.com. I use the JW Player in the Media Player module: http://code.google.com/p/moodle-mplayer/

I hope this helps! smile

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Cathy Macdonald -

Hi there
The ClickView guy has looked at my post and has been in contact with me.   They reiterate that it is really up to Moodle developers to put back into Moodle2 the functionality that existed in Moodle1.9+  - which was not coded by ClickView. I've asked him to join in the forum discussion to let folk know ClickView's POV. He also says if someone can provide an email contact, he'd discuss it with them. (But I personally think that an open debate on the forum is better).

Matt, I've asked our technical Moodle guy to check out the FWplayer option in case it's useful. The main reason we use ClickView is to be able to stream video and TV recordings (ERA+) externally to off-campus learners etc.

We'll see how things pan out with this.

Cathy

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Derek Chirnside -

Doesn't sound like Clickview has anything to discuss really, as they seem to have made up their mind.  "We don't do anything to support embeds in Moodle of their products, and we don't want to".  That's their right I guess.  It costs $$ to code.

-Derek

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Cathy Macdonald -

Hi guys

I wonder if a developer may want to find some middle ground with ClickView and maybe collaborate on working something out? The ClickView guy is asking if an email contact can be provided so he can communicate directly with someone. Anyone want to gve it a go?

Cathy

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Mark Johnson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

According to the tracker, Eloy Lafuente is the component lead for Filters.  The Multimedia Filter is the plugin that deals with turning a link to a media file into an embedded player, so this might be a good place to start, unless there's a developer who's particularly keen on implementing this.

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In reply to Mark Johnson

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Cathy Macdonald -

Hi Mark
Thanks. I couldn't contact Eloy directly, so have left an issue on the tracker redirecting them to this post.

So maybe something will be picked up by developers soon - and hopefully someone will give a direct email for ClickView guy to contact and get some dialogue between them and Moodle.

Cathy

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Eloy has a lot on his plate so I'd be surprised if he would have the time to work on a clickview integration - your best bet (if you had funding) would be to contract a Moodle Partner to do the work (or post a job in the Moodle jobs DB)

Disclosure - I work for an MP and we could do the work if proper funding was available.

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In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Cathy Macdonald -

Hi Dan
Sorry, I'm afraid we don't have the funding for such a thing - we're going through cuts, redundancies etc as it is.. sad.

So, we'll just have to wait until a developer is available or even if ClickView and Moodle come to some kind of arrangement.

Meantime we'll just have to make do with compromise and workarounds.

Thanks anyway smile

Cathy

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Cathy Macdonald -

Hi folks
Brief update - the ClickView guy has been in contact with our Moodle administrator to request access to one of our Moodle2's so that he can "check a few things out" and the UK boss has been with the developers who are "keen to see if they can do anything to aid the integration process".

So here's hoping it can all come together in the very near future approve!

Cathy

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In reply to Cathy Macdonald

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Mat Cannings -

Hi Cathy,

This should be pretty simple with a filter.

You would past in a url to a video such as http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/?p=O8Hv

and the filter would return the embed code. This is what happens when you have a youtube video. This should not take more than an hour of work.

It would be slightly more complicated if you wanted to add all the parameters for width and height etc...

I will have a look at this if I get a chance.

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In reply to Mat Cannings

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Mat Cannings -

Hi,

I have attached a filter that should work for the type of URL in the thread to turn them into embedded players.

Just place a link to an address such as http://webplayer.clickview.co.uk/?p=O8Hv into a Moodle HTML Area and the filter will convert it to an embedded player.

If anyone is able to test this out I would be very grateful. If there are other potential URLS that would need to be converted then please let me know. At the moment this should only work with co.uk addresses.

To install place the unzipped files into your Moodle/filter folder, then log in as admin and enable the new filter.

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In reply to Mat Cannings

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Mat Cannings -

Minor update to support both co.uk and com.au urls

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In reply to Mat Cannings

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Oliver Jackson -

I've installed this filter on a production 2.5 server and a 2.6 dev server and it seems to work well in both cases. I'll get our staff to let me know when it doesn't work wink

So thanks very much Mat for putting the code together.

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

It would be in the best interest of ClickView to support the the LMS with a large chunk of the market share. According to moodle.org/stats moodle has around 54,000 registered sites and 44 million users.

I'd be interested to see statistics on any LMS that claims a comparable or larger market share.

Moodle developers are generally motivated to support features that will benefit the majority of their users. They can focus on features that can potentially  benefit 100% of their users or a small percentage (e.g. ClickView users).

Now the nice thing about FLOSS software is that it is possible to hire people to devleop features and there is nothing stopping people modifying the moodle code to work with third party tools.

 

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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Can Moodle2 catch up with Moodle1.9+ for ClickView® video embed?

by Danny Smith -

Hi all,

Apologies if I'm a bit late to the party here, but I was wondering if there was any progress made? I had this page brought to my attention by a recent Twitter post, having had a read through I don't know if a KB article I've written for the support section of the ClickView website would be of any use? Please see here:

http://www.clickview.com.au/support/view_knowledge.php?knowledge_id=292

I've only recently been made aware of the parameters listed in this article, are any of these of any use? What's the current state of play with ClickView and Moodle 2? If I can be of any assistance please let me know, the office number is 01223 327926. Alternatively drop me an email on danny@clickview.co.uk

Danny Smith (Operations Manager at ClickView UK)

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