Embedding videos (Youtube, Daily Motion, etc.)

Since version 3, LightFlow can embed externally hosted content, such as: Have a look at the example.

Benefits

One big advantage to embed externally hosted images and videos is, that you don't have to upload them to your web page hosting provider. Thus, you save your web space, you save your time not to upload heavy files and you save your nerves not to need to convert the content to other formats.
Besides this, you can also embed whole web pages into your album without copying them. This is a kind of "web syndication", also known as "content syndication": you provide other people with some content of other web sites.
For example, you could embed an interesting blog or discussion into your album, just by linking to it. Doing so, your album is always displaying the most actual content and your album visitors stay on your web site within your album!

How it works

The principle is simple: in jAlbum's user interface, you can add to each photo a link (URL) pointing to an external source. Once generated the album, the photo will be shown as a thumbnail image as a representation for the external source, in your web album. When an album visitor clicks the thumbnail image, the external source will be displayed embedded in your album in place of the conventional slide image.

Embedding a Youtube video

Let me show you step by step how to embed a Youtube video into your album. As the procedure is identical to most other video portals, you should be able to embed any video of any web site you want, after having read this short tutorial.
  1. In jAlbum, chose LightFlow as skin
  2. When not yet done, add photos to your album (you can drag & drop photos from your hard disk onto jAlbum)
  3. In jAlbum, click the "Edit" button of a photo (the "Edit" button appears only, when you hover with the mouse over the photo)
  4. In the bottom right corner of jAlbum, click on the "LightFlow" tab
  5. On the Youtube web site, copy the code to *embed* the video and paste it into a text editor i.e. Notepad. Don't confound the embed code with the URL of the video! The URL points to the whole web page whereas the embed code contains the link pointing to the raw video. The embed code looks like this:
    <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/G8IozVfph7I&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/G8IozVfph7I&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
  6. From the embed code, copy the content of the "src" attribute of the "embed" tag and paste it into the text field "External source" of the formerly opened "LightFlow" tab. In the text field, you should now have something like this :
    http://www.youtube.com/v/G8IozVfph7I&hl=en_US&fs=1&
  7. In the text field "Handled as", enter "swf" (without double quotes nor with leading dot)
  8. Optionally, you may enter "Width" and "Height" of the video in the appropriate text fields. You find these values in the embed code as "width" and "height" attributes of the "object" tag. So in my example it would be 560 and 340. If you don't enter these values, the video will be displayed with the default height and width which you can set in the "Miscellaneous" tab of the user interface of LightFlow .
  9. Rebuild the album ("Make Changes" is sufficient and faster than "Make All").
  10. Preview the album, click on your thumbnail image and watch the video in your album :-)
As an user of LightFlow stated out recently, "This makes the best Youtube display on the planet!", I hope that you and your album visitors enjoy your album built with LightFlow!

Embedding a whole web site

Embedding a whole web site in your album is even easier than embedding a video. All steps, except step 5 to 7, are identical. Replace step 5 to 7 with these ones:
  1. Copy and paste the URL of the web page into the text field "External source" of the "LightFlow" tab .
  2. The text field "Handled as" must be empty.
Continue with step 8 above please (replace in your mind "video" by "web page").

You are done! Enjoy your album built with LightFlow!