SWFPut

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SWFPut is a plugin for the popular WordPress weblog
software. It provides a video player program for the flash
plugin and the means to configure an instance with a video
source and playback attributes. There are two separate com-
ponents: the flash video player, and the WordPress plugin
proper. The video player is delivered to site visitors by
the plugin in the traditional block with the
necessary arguments. Flash video objects may be placed in
posts and pages, or in the widget areas supported by your
theme (i.e., the plugin includes a widget). Video is placed
in posts and pages with a shortcode; if you do not know what
a shortcode is, or do not want to deal with them, that's no
problem. (In fact, it is preferable that the shortcodes not
be hand-edited, and they will not be discussed in detail
here.) The plugin adds to the administrative interface a
full featured form to setup and add, or edit, or delete
video objects, so the user does not need to be troubled with
shortcodes (they will be visible in the editor; you will get
used to them). The flash video widget has a similar full
featured form.

The plugin does not add any JavaScript to the pages
generated for your visitors, which might be helpful if you
try to keep your pages useful to those who disable
JavaScript in their browsers. (Such visitors might need to
explicitly enable the flash web browser plugin, but that is
another, unavoidable, issue.) JavaScript is used in the
administrative interface for the forms and manipulation of
shortcodes in the editor; but of course you must have
JavaScript enabled when you log in to your WordPress site —
this does not affect your visitors.

(Note that the SWFPut video player has been coded to
work well with the free Gnash web browser plugin, as well as
the closed binary-only proprietary version in common use.
As of this writing, Gnash does not handle MP4 files well,
even though it handles H.264 video and AAC audio if they are
in an FLV container file.)

Author:Ed Hynan (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:4.3
WordPress version tested:5.5.3
Plugin version:3.1.0.1
Added to WordPress repository:28-07-2013
Last updated:12-08-2020
Warning! This plugin has not been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.
Rating, %:0
Rated by:0
Plugin URI://agalena.nfshost.com/b1/software/swfput-html...
Total downloads:7 258
Active installs:40+
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SWFPut provides ‘responsive’ video for posts and pages.
SWFPut makes the presentation of video reliable for your
visitors: several conditions are handled well, such as
the uneven support for HTML5 video formats in the major
browsers, the possible lack of support for either HTML5
video or flash video in the visitor’s browser, and even
the possiblilty that JavaScript might be disabled in your
visitor’s browser.

In addition to video for posts and pages, SWFPut provides
a video widget for use in widget areas, such as a sidebar.

SWFPut video is ‘responsive’: it should display at a
suitable size on your visitor’s device, whether large
or small (a responsive WordPress theme is necessary).

SWFPut makes video setup easy and flexible by providing
an easy dialog based setup similar to (and based on)
that used by WordPress core media, and also an
advanced form with additional settings, which
appears in a new “metabox”
on the editor page. For widgets, the form appears with
the usual drag and drop widget interface. After adding
video objects, the form will continue to be useful for
making changes (or, if you wish, to delete the video).

In WordPress versions 3.3 and greater, video added by
SWFPut will be visible in the post/page visual editor.

As many video objects as you wish can be placed in posts
pages, and of course the widget supports as many instances
as you wish.
You may specify HTML5 or flash video, or both with one
being primary content and the other as fallback.

Here are some features of SWFPut to consider:

  • SWFPut works directly with media file
    URL’s; that is, SWFPut does not embed
    the video players of providers such as YouTube or Vimeo.
    SWFPut is for video files which are accessible by URL,
    whether hosted at your site or off-site.
    The setup form provides two media selection lists.
    The first is a selection of files found (recursively)
    under your wp-content/uploads directory. This list
    has the advantage that it does not use the
    WordPress media library — it will find files that
    you upload ‘by hand’ (with ftp, ssh, etc.). This feature
    will work around upload size limits that might prevent
    you from uploading large video files to the media library.
    The second is a selection of files found in the
    WordPress media library and is presented with the
    file name and the ‘attachment id’. This refers to files
    by ID, so it might be helpful if you manipulate media
    and expect ID associations to be valid. Files selections
    are filtered by name extension: FLV and MP4 for flash,
    and MP4, OGG and OGV, and WEBM for HTML5 video.

  • Video resources do not need to be on your site:
    any URL can be specified, so you may present players
    for off-site of 3rd party resources.

  • SWFPut does not interfere with the appearance of
    a site: a video is presented jsut as an image
    (such as .png or .jpg) is, with the same sort of
    style, and optional caption. The appearance of the
    video control interface, or control bar, is simple
    and quiet so it should not clash with site design.

  • SWFPut allows you to set the display aspect ratio
    for the video. Some video is ‘anamorphic’ in that
    the pixel width and height do not match the intended
    proportion of display width and height. You might
    film your child’s school play as 16:9 ‘widescreen’
    but use a space saving feature of your recorder that
    saves the video at 480×360 (which is not 16:9). You can
    set SWFPut to display the video at the intended 16:9
    aspect ratio. You may set any aspect ratio (make it
    distorted if you wish).

  • The core features of the flash video player program
    included with SWFPut have been verified to work with
    the Gnash free-software browser plugin, which is good
    if you care about free/libre software users. (At the
    time of this writing, Gnash does not handle the MP4
    video container format, so it is preferable that you
    prepare flash video in the FLV container, even using the
    h.264 and AAC codecs. Of course, you may use MP4 if
    you must.)

  • The flash video player program included with SWFPut
    is written and compiled with the Ming PHP extension,
    and the code is included, so you may modify the player.
    The HTML5 player is written JavaScript, and the original,
    un-minified version is included, so you may modify it.
    In fact, the zip archive available at the WordPress
    repository includes all sources, although a POSIX/Unix
    environment with certain tools is required to build.

  • Localization sources are included; hopefully, polyglot
    users will help with translations.


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