Brightcove Player Sample: Playback API Paging

In this topic, you will learn how to implement playlist paging when retrieving data from the Playback API.

Limitations

Player example

This example uses a Brightcove Player to display a video in the player along with the first 3 videos in the playlist. Select the Next Videos button to display the next 3 videos in the playlist. When you reach the last set of videos in the playlist, then the videos displayed wrap around to the beginning of the playlist.

See the Pen 18171-playback-api-paging by Brightcove Learning Services (@bcls1969) on CodePen.

Source code

View the complete solution on GitHub.

Playback API

This example uses the Playback API to return videos from a specified playlist. To page through the videos in the playlist, this examples uses the following request URL parameters:

  • limit - defines the number of videos to return from the Playback API
  • offset - sets the number of videos to skip in a playlist from the Playback API

Using the CodePen

Here are some tips to effectively use the above CodePen:

  • Toggle the actual display of the player by clicking the Result button.
  • Click the HTML/CSS/JS buttons to display ONE of the code types.
  • Later in this document the logic, flow and styling used in the application will be discussed in the Player/HTML configuration, Application flow and Application styling sections. The best way to follow along with the information in those sections is to:
    1. Click the EDIT ON CODEPEN button in the CodePen and have the code available in one browser/browser tab.
    2. In CodePen, adjust what code you want displayed. You can change the width of different code sections within CodePen.
    3. View the Player/HTML configuration, Application flow and/or Application styling sections in another browser/browser tab. You will now be able to follow the code explanations and at the same time view the code.

Development sequence

Here is the recommended development sequence:

  1. Use the In-Page embed player implementation to test the functionality of your player, plugin and CSS (if CSS is needed)
  2. Put the plugin's JavaScript and CSS into separate files for local testing
  3. Deploy the plugin code and CSS to your server once you have worked out any errors
  4. Use Studio to add the plugin and CSS to your player
  5. Replace the In-Page embed player implementation if you determine that the iframe implementation is a better fit (detailed in next section)

For details about these steps, review the Step-by-Step: Plugin Development guide.

iframe or In-Page embed

When developing enhancements for the Brightcove Player you will need to decide if the code is a best fit for the iframe or In-Page embed implementation. The best practice recommendation is to build a plugin for use with an iframe implementation. The advantages of using the iframe player are:

  • No collisions with existing JavaScript and/or CSS
  • Automatically responsive
  • The iframe eases use in social media apps (or whenever the video will need to "travel" into other apps)

Although integrating the In-Page embed player can be more complex, there are times when you will plan your code around that implementation. To generalize, this approach is best when the containing page needs to communicate to the player. Specifically, here are some examples:

  • Code in the containing page needs to listen for and act on player events
  • The player uses styles from the containing page
  • The iframe will cause app logic to fail, like a redirect from the containing page

Even if your final implementation does not use the iframe code, you can still use the In-Page embed code with a plugin for your JavaScript and a separate file for your CSS. This encapsulates your logic so that you can easily use it in multiple players.

API/Plugin resources used

API Methods Description
catalog.getVideo() Method to make a catalog request for the video with the specified id and invokes a callback when the request completes.
catalog.load() Method to load a video into the player.
playlist() Method to assign an array of video objects to a player's playlist. Note that this method can also be used to retrieve the playlist currently playing in the player, but will not be used in this way in this document.

Player/HTML configuration

This section details any special configuration needed during player creation. In addition, other HTML elements that must be added to the page, beyond the in-page embed player implementation code, are described.

Player configuration

  • In Video Cloud Studio, navigate to the Players module and then Settings section. Select the Edit button and do the following:
    • Set the Display Playlist option to Enabled.
    • Set the Sizing option to Responsive.
    • Set the Player Dimensions to fit your web page.

Other HTML

Add a Next Videos button to get the next set of 3 videos in the playlist.

Optional: Add a container to display the current Playback API request URL.

Application flow

The basic logic behind this application is:

  • Load the first set of videos.
  • Listen for Next Videos button
  • Create request URL.
  • Get the next set of video data.
  • Load the current playlist into the player.

Load first set of videos

Find the code which is labeled:

    // +++ Load first set of videos +++

Use the catalog library to get the playlist object for the specified playlist Id. Load this first set of videos in the player.

Listen for Next Videos button

Find the code which is labeled:

    // +++ Listen for Next Videos button +++

Add an event listener to load the next set of videos in the playlist.

Create request URL

Find the code which is labeled:

    // +++ Create request URL +++

Create the Playback API request URL using the limit and offset parameters.

Get video data

Find the code which is labeled:

    // +++ Get video data +++

Call the Playback API to get the next set of videos in the playlist.

Load video data

Find the code which is labeled:

    // +++ Load video data +++

Call the Playback API to get the next set of videos in the playlist. Load the first video into the player. Load the videos in the array into the player's playlist.

Application styling

The CSS styles the player and horizontal playlist below the player.

Plugin code

Normally when converting the JavaScript into a Brightcove Player plugin nominal changes are needed. One required change is to replace the standard use of the ready() method with the code that defines a plugin.

Here is the very commonly used start to JavaScript code that will work with the player:

    videojs.getPlayer('myPlayerID').ready(function() {
      var myPlayer = this;
      ...
      });

You will change the first line to use the standard syntax to start a Brightcove Player plugin:

    videojs.registerPlugin('pluginName', function(options) {
      var myPlayer = this;
      ...
      });

As mentioned earlier, you can see the plugin's JavaScript code in this document's corresponding GitHub repo: playback-paging.js.

Using the plugin with a player

Once you have the plugin's CSS and JavaScript files stored in an Internet accessible location, you can use the plugin with a player. In Studio's PLAYERS module you can choose a player, then in the PLUGINS section add the URLs to the CSS and JavaScript files, and also add the Name and Options, if options are needed.