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If Video Archive doesn't work after a WordPress upgrade
Go to your Settings > Permalinks page. Don't make any changes, but scroll to the bottom and hit the "Save Changes" button to update your permalink structure.
(Maybe Charles can explain better why this works. But I suppose it's because Video Archive relies on the same mod_rewrite rules that WP uses to make your pretty permalinks, so if you have Video Archive set to use those, it might need a little refresh after a site upgrade. - Cheryl)
How to make an iPhone/iPodTouch web clip icon for your site
My friend Brent documented how to make a web clip icon, used by the iPhone iPod touch, for your site. If you don't have an iPhone or iPod touch, here's what I'm talking about:
When you browse the web with an iPhone you can bookmark sites, and you have the option to save the bookmark as a "web clip," which puts an icon on your home screen, so you can return to the site with one touch of your finger. The iPhone looks for a special icon, and if it doesn't find it, it makes a little snapshot of the web page, like this:
But that's kind of hard to recognize when it's so small.
You can control what your site's icon looks like by making your own and storing it on your server. Here's the one I just made for showinabox.tv:
If you supply your own icon like this, then when an iPhone or iPod touch user adds a web clip of your site, the iPhone/iPod touch automagically finds and uses your custom image, like this:
I could write down all the steps to do this, but it's been beautifully documented elsewhere, so here is a link to the how-to tutorial:
http://iboughtamac.com/2008/01/23/making-an-iphoneipod-touch-webclips-favicon/
To Tell Users about VideoPress thumbnail images:
ShowinaBoxThemes smallest sidebar is 125 pixels wide. A good size to widescreen thumbnails is 120X68 pixels so they will fit in the sidebars when using Recent Videos & Related Videos widgets. The important part is the 120 px width - let the height be whatever matches your video aspect ratio.
CSS styling for VideoPress thumbnail images
You can override the default appearance of the video thumbnail images generated by the VideoPress suite. In the examples below, a black border is being added, but you can replace that with your own CSS declaration. Be sure to include "!important" at the end of your declaration. OK, here are the examples:
Related Videos
.videopress-related-videos\:thumbnail {
border: 1px solid #000000 !important;
}
Recent Videos
.videopress-recent-videos\:thumbnail {
border: 1px solid #000000 !important;
}
Video Archive
.videopress-video-archive\:thumbnail {
border: 1px solid #000000 !important;
}
Customizing K2
Paul Stamatiou has a good 3-part series of articles on how to customize K2. It's not needed for Show-In-A-Box but when people start asking "how do I" questions that are unrelated to SIAB, this could be a good resource for them.
Part 1: http://paulstamatiou.com/2005/12/28/customizing-k2-part-1/
Part 2: http://paulstamatiou.com/2005/12/28/customizing-k2-part-2/
Part 3: http://paulstamatiou.com/2005/12/28/customizing-k2-part-3/
Matt from Wordpress suggests Sandbox theme instead of K2
Enric to showinabox group July 21, 2007
I haven't been involved in the K2 customization. But at WordCamp today I mentioned that to Matt that we're using K2 in Show-In-A-Box and he said we should look at Sandbox, http://www.plaintxt.org/themes/sandbox/. Matt said it's much simpler, easier to use and requires less plugins. I don't know if that makes sense for what we're doing and where we're at with Show-In-A-Box at this point, but thought I'd put it out.
Cheryl to showinabox group July 21, 2007
My verdict is "no" on Sandbox and stick with K2.
Sandbox needs complete styling from the ground up, where with K2 we need only restyle the bits of CSS we want to customize.
But the big part, the reason K2 is better for what we're doing, is that the K2 theme itself has a stylesheet switching option. You go to K2 Theme Options in the admin panel, you pick Vlogsplosion from a dropdown list, and you're set. With Sandbox you can't switch the stylesheet, you have to manually re-code it.
We picked K2 because we could provide ready-to-go CSS files for vlogger style presentation. You can't write CSS? We got your back. We give you something you can choose from a list of options and it works well as a vlog, and you can set your own header graphic in the options panel, too.
Can't do that with Sandbox - it would take part of the show out of the box. ;)
In general, why use K2?
- user can select appearance within WP Presentation interface by choosing a style from dropdown list (these are CSS files + any associated images)
- we can add an unlimited number of these styles (limited only by designer talent / imagination / free time to design)
- users can add styles to their current install by FTPing them into the styles folder
- users can change between 1-column, 2-column & 3-column layouts in the WP Presentation interface without needing to know CSS
- users can upload a header image via WP Presentation interface for easy customization of theme
- K2's theme options page detects layout width (based on how many columns users choose) and prints out header image size in pixels so users will know how to create custom header
- we can customize the theme options interface to prioritize presentation elements vloggers are likely to want to change - make it easier for newbies to customize their site
Upgrading K2
http://stevelam.org/2007/01/upgrading-from-k2-091/
This page provides a procedure to upgrade your installation of K2. Essentially:
Go into your WP Admin panel and uninstall K2.
Rename the K2 folder on your web server.
Upload the new K2.
Copy over any custom styles from the old styles folder and any custom header images.
Go back into the WP Admin panel and apply the K2 theme again.
This method means you would lose your K2 options and need to reapply them,
but it leaves you with a path to restore your old, functional K2 if something goes wrong.
Note: Verdi reports he just overwrote K2 v0.9.6 over the previous K2 files and all was well.
That approach is probably fine unless there is a major change in WordPress that could mess with K2.
Rolling Feed Links through Feedburner
Verdi to showinabox group June 21, 2007
I'm taking the feeds found in the table on the vPIP options page and
running them through feedburner. This way, if anything ever changes I
can always change my source feed without messing up any subscribers.
Then I'm just plugging icons and links into a text widget on the
sidebar.
This is instead of using the vPIP Widget. This is also the recommended way to add custom feed graphics that match your vlog's look. (Cheryl)
vPIP 1.01 Beta supports Revver
Enric to showinabox group June 14, 2007
OK, the new vPIP supports Revver. You can get it from the showinabox.tv download page:
http://showinabox.tv/wordpress
Just select "vPIP 1.01 Beta", since it's vPIP that changed. Then replace the ../vPIP folder on the server with the one in the zip file.
To put in a Flash movie from Revver:
1) Go to your Revver movie and click on "Grab code" below "Share this video with others".
2) Select "Flash Embed" from "Select a format" combo box and copy the text into a text editor.
3) Go to the post your writing and click on put the "Change to an external Flash Player?" checkbox.
4) From the text editor, enter the value for src= into the "URL to external Flash player" text box. It should be "http://flash.revver.com/player
5) From the text editor, enter the value for flashvars= into the "FlashVar parameters:" text box.
6) Leave the rest of the entries as they are with the "Parameter to open movie:" text box blank.
7) You can set the default for the "URL to external Flash player" text box in the Options->vPIP Config menu. It should appear in any new posts you create.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thumbnail Comparison: WordPress-Generated vs Human-Made
Ryanne to showinabox group June 15, 2007
mine-
http://ryanishungry.com/wp
wp's-
http://ryanishungry.com/wp
PHP5 NOT Required
Ryanne to showinabox group June 21, 2007
enric tells me it's because i'm running php 4
and he's coding in 5???
Cheryl's comment: So, it looks like your web server must be running PHP5 in order for you to use the vPIP plugin.
Update: Enric confirms PHP5 is not required for vPIP June 21, 2007.
Extracting files
The files used with Show in a Box are often compressed to save space and for faster downloads. In order to use these files, you must "unzip" or "unpack" them. Usually, you can just double click on these files to extract their contents to a folder. Sometimes, your computer may not yet have the "archive" application. In this case, you will need to download and install an archive application. This is usually only necessary for some Microsoft Windows users; Mac and GNU/Linux users can use the built in "tar" command. Under Microsoft Windows, many people use http://winzip.com. More information can be found at http://stuff.techwhack.com/archives/2003/12/14/winzip-vs-winrar-vs-open-source/
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