External VfE 0.9

I have just released a new version (0.9) of the "External Video for Everybody" WordPress plugin. The new version updates to Video for Everybody 0.4.2 and also includes an option to use Steve Heffernan's VideoJS JavaScript library to provide an attractive set of video controls. The global option to use VideoJS is, by default, set to "false" but you can easily change that at the Media > External VfE options page.

VideoJS provides a nicely styled set of playback controls, including a "full screen" button, a feature that I heartily welcome. VideoJS includes a range of skins, but only the default is available for this release of my plugin. You may want to know that Heffernan, the author of VideoJS, offers his own WordPress plugin:

VideoJS - HTML5 Video Player for WordPress

The version of VideoJS in my plugin includes some customizations that should facilitate integration with a wide range of themes. At least as of version 1.1.2, VideoJS builds the video controls using ul and li tags. Not a few WordPress themes include unqualified styling for these elements which can then interfere — sometimes severely — with the layout for the controls. I have converted the ul and li tags to div tags and made the accompanying adjustments to the library's style sheet. The change seems to help considerably.

I am also exercising an option the VideoJS code provides to disable the hiding of the "downloads" section when the client's browser has playback capability. There's a double negative there. What it works out to is that I am opting to have the download links display even when playback is working.

Finally, I tweaked the function that hides the controls after four seconds so that the controls instead remain visible as long as the mouse is within the video area.