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moodle-filter_jwplayer

This plugin works with Moodle versions up to 3.1. If you are using Moodle 3.2+, please install JW Player Media Plugin instead.

This a filter plugin that allows using JW Player 7 for playing HTML5 and Flash content in Moodle 2.9 and higher1. The filter is designed to achieve consistency of the player appearance in all major browsers and mobile platforms. The player supports Flash fallback, which provides more devices and formats coverage than either HTML5 or Flash can handle alone. The filter also supports RTMP as well as HLS and MPEG-DASH streaming2.

1 See plugin release notes for the list of supported Moodle versions. 2 HLS and MPEG-DASH support require paid license.

Installation

JW Player installation procedure consists of three steps: player libraries installation (optional), filter installation and filter configuration.

The filter does not include JW Player libraries due license limitations. You are supposed to make sure that JW Player libraries are available in your system, either by copying them in specified directory in Moodle (self-hosted mode), or by configuring filter to use the cloud version of JW Player hosted by JW Player CDN (more preferable option). In either case you need to register on JW Player website http://www.jwplayer.com/sign-up/ and accept terms of use.

JW Player libraries installation (only for self-hosted player)

If you decide to use self-hosted player, you need to download player libraries from License Keys & Downloads area of account dashboard, unpack, and place the content of unpacked jwplayer-x.x.x directiry to ./lib/jwplayer/ directory in Moodle. This is where filter will be looking for jwplayer.js file when you select self-hosted mode in the filter settings.

Filter installation

The filter installation is pretty strightforward. Filter files need to be placed in ./filter/jwplayer directory in Moodle, then you will need to go through installation process as normal by loggining in as admin.

Filter configuration

When the filter plugin installation is completed, the plugin configuration page will be displayed (alternatively you may access it via Site Administration -> Plugins -> Filters).

At a minimum, you need to specify player hosting method of your choise and a license key. The license key is required for any hosting method, irrespective whether you are using a free or premium version of JW Player. The license key can be found on License Keys & Downloads area of account dashboard. You need to copy a licence key text field for "JW Player 7 (Self-Hosted)" and insert it in the "Player licence key" field in the filter settings, even if you decided to use cloud-hosted player for your installation3.

There are more settings, allowing you to configure media types for which player will be used, player appearance, analytics.

Once the filter is configured, the final step would be to enable the filter on Manage Filters page in Site Administration area and move it above "Multimedia plugins" to give it a higher priority.

3 Notice, that cloud-hosting method has nothing to do with Cloud Player concept you will find on JW Player website, that allows pre-configuring player and using it anywhere else. In our case, cloud is similar to self-hosted, the difference is that libaries are hosted using JW Player CDN rather than located locally in Moodle.

Upgrading from JW6

Upgrading from JW Player 6 (plugin versions 0.3 and earlier, 6-0.x) to JW Player 7 (version 7-0.x) is only possible for Moodle 2.9 or higher (given it is supported in plugin release notes). The upgrade procedure is pretty standard. There are some major changes were introduced in JW 7, that affected this plugin configuration:

  • JW7 requires a license key, regardless of using a free or paid version. JW6 license key does not work with JW7, you need a new one from License Keys & Downloads area of account dashboard page.

  • Cloud-hosted mode does not require an account token any more, but requires self-hosted player license key instead. The concept has changed in a way that JW Player 7 supplies pre-configured player for the given accout token. Handling pre-configured player in this plugin is complicated and confusing. It has been decided to use CDN hosted version of JW Player in "cloud-hosting" mode. This made installation process more strightforward, but now the same license key required for both cloud and self-hosted modes, as cloud in this case is similar to self-hosted, but supplied using JW Player CDN. For configuration details, see Filter configuration section ablve.

  • Custom skin can't be uploaded as XML file any more. JW Player 7 is using CSS skinning, corresponding configuration settings have been added. Using skins is now possible in free version.

  • Google Analyics support has changed. It requires Google Analytics code to already be added to pages (e.g. using Additional HTML site setting), at the filter level user may adjust some customisation parameters. Google Analyics is now supported in free version.

Usage

Any multimedia content added to Moodle through HTML editor, either using the URL or media embedding dialog, will be rendered and played using JW Player if the format is supported and enabled in the filter configuration. For more details on supported formats see Media Format Reference on JW Player website (ignore YouTube and RSS sections as they are not supported by plugin).

Embedding multimedia content using File resource will not render using JW Player filter due to the current Moodle limitations (MDL-47495).

Advanced use

The filter plugin has extensive customisation features.

Global HTML attributes

Global HTML attributes in the player link will be applied to the rendered player outer span tag. These attributes are:

accesskey, class, contenteditable, contextmenu, dir, draggable, dropzone, hidden, id, lang, spellcheck, style, tabindex, title, translate

In addition, attribures that start with data- (but not data-jwplayer-) will be applied to player's outer span tag.

For example, <a style="text-align: right;" href="https://some.stream.org/functional.webm">functional.webm</a> will make player aligned to the right.

JW Player specific attributes

HTML attributes in the player link that start with data-jwplayer- prefix, will be used as player configuration options. The possible options are:

aspectratio, autostart, controls, height, mute, primary, repeat, width, androidhls, hlslabels, description, mediaid

For full description of each option, please refer to configuration reference on JW Player website. Options file and image are not relevant, thus can't be applied.

For example, <a data-jwplayer-autostart="true" href="https://some.stream.org/functional.webm">functional.webm</a> will make player start playing video automatically on page load.

Default player dimentions

The default player width is 400px (unless responsive mode is enabled in filter configuration). This can be changed site-wide using relevant constants, defined in Moodle config.php. For example, adding define('FILTER_JWPLAYER_VIDEO_WIDTH', 600); will make your player default width 600px (for non-responsive mode). The list of possible constants can be found at the top part of lib.php file.

CDN JW Player version

While in self-hosted mode, choosing a different release is a matter of downloading desired JW7 release and replacing files in ./lib/jwplayer, cloud-hosted version is using a constant to determine the version to use in JW Player CDN. Plugin is using the most recent stable version of JW Player available at release time, however if different version is required, it can be specified using FILTER_JWPLAYER_CLOUD_VERSION constant defined in Moodle config.php, e.g. define('FILTER_JWPLAYER_CLOUD_VERSION', '7.1.4'); will make filter using player version 7.1.4.

When changing version, makes sure it exists in CDN by substituting version number in the URL and testing its availability in the browser, e.g. https://ssl.p.jwpcdn.com/player/v/7.1.4/jwplayer.js