Embedded Media Field Now Supports Custom External or Local Video URL's

The Embedded Media Field module now supports custom URL's, in addition to the third party providers currently supported, such as YouTube, Blip.TV, Revver, etc. This allows external videos hosted on another site, or in the local server's file directory, to be embedded in the field. It works in the same way, so that an editor simply pastes the link they wish embedded into the field's textfield, and the module will parse the URL and display it appropriately.

Currently supported video file types are wmv, wma, swf, flv, mov, and rm. I would love if someone could send me links/directions to embed other video types, such as mpeg, avi, etc. I haven't researched that entirely, but would like to support more types if possible. Administrators are able to determine what types (if any) to support for the field.

This opens up new possibilities, such as local uploads, which seems to be the logical next step. I'll probably take the theme files out of the new include file and make them available to other files, so we could have 'Custom URL's' and 'Local Files' as two separate files in the future. I also want to open the API of emfield a bit more, to make it more easily extensible by other modules, and not just include files.

I also had a brainstorm of creating a regex builder interface, so admins who want to create their own supported provider can do so without writing a new include file or waiting for someone to get around to supporting it. But that's a little more long term. Also on my todo list is to support provider 'weights', so we don't have to worry about regex conflicts. (I named the new include file zzz_custom_url.inc, which is, of course, hacky. Don't worry, when I add that, I'll make sure it doesn't affect anyone after renaming the file to something more sensible.)

Finally, I plan to add similar functionality to the image and audio portions of the module soon, as soon as I can get around to it.

Aaron Winborn
Advomatic
Drupal Hub