seancarmody

Protovis Loader is a plugin which faciliates the use of <a href="http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/" rel="nofollow ugc">Protovis</a> scripts. Protovis is a javascript data visualisation library being developed at Stanford, which allows the creation of interactive charts on web pages.
Incorporating Javascript code into WordPress posts can be tricky as it (deliberately) sanitises text typed into posts, which interferes with Javascript. When I first began experimenting with Javascript, this cause me some difficulties, as described in this post. In the end, I decided to roll up my sleeves and write a plugin to make the whole process a lot easier. Protovis Loader was the result.
Protovis Loader makes the whole process a lot easier in two ways:
<ol>
<li>It ships with a copy of the Protovis javascript library and once the plugin is activated, links to the library will automatically be included in page headers.</li>
<li>It creates a shortcode called [pvis] which makes it very easy to include Protovis scripts in blog posts and pages.</li>
</ol>
Usage:
Simply use the [pvis] shortcode in your posts and pages where you want to include a Protovis chart. There are a number of optional parameters:
<ul>
<li>type: ‘chart’ (default) displays a chart in a box with an optional caption, ‘inline’ has no box (e.g. useful for sparklines)</li>
<li>src: path to a Protovis (javascript) code file</li>
<li>height: height of canvas box for the chart</li>
<li>width: width of canvas box for the chart</li>
<li>img: path to a fallback image to use when scripts are blocked or the browser does not support Protovis</li>
<li>alt: alt text for the fallback image</li>
<li>caption: image caption</li>
</ul>
If any content is supplied between the opening [pvis] tag and the closing [/pvis] tag, it is taken to be javascript for inclusion. It may also be interpreted as a caption, but only if a caption field is not supplied and a src field is supplied.
Here is an example of use of the tag:
[pvis src=”http://www.example.com/chart.js” img=”fails.png” height=”125px”]My Caption![/pvis]
You can see the plugin in action on <a href="http://www.stubbornmule.net/resources/protovis-loader/" rel="nofollow ugc">the Stubborn Mule</a>.
<h3>To-Do List</h3>
This list is not really prioritised yet.
<ol>
<li>Improve user-agent (browser) detection</li>
<li>Create an options page</li>
<li>Allow custom CSS files</li>
<li>Allow for alterntive specification of the protovis js library</li>
<li>Replace tags in the imported script to allow shortcode parameters to be used in the script</li>
</ol>
I’m sure there’ll be a lot more!

Protovis Loader

Creates a shortcode to faciliate the use of Protovis data visualization scripts in blog posts.

EdHynan

SWFPut provides ‘responsive’ video for posts and pages. 
SWFPut makes the presentation of video reliable for your 
visitors: several conditions are handled well, such as 
the uneven support for HTML5 video formats in the major 
browsers, the possible lack of support for either HTML5 
video or flash video in the visitor’s browser, and even 
the possiblilty that JavaScript might be disabled in your 
visitor’s browser.
In addition to video for posts and pages, SWFPut provides 
a video widget for use in widget areas, such as a sidebar.
SWFPut video is ‘responsive’: it should display at a 
suitable size on your visitor’s device, whether large 
or small (a responsive WordPress theme is necessary).
SWFPut makes video setup easy and flexible by providing 
an easy dialog based setup similar to (and based on) 
that used by WordPress core media, and also an 
advanced form with additional settings, which 
appears in a new “metabox” 
on the editor page. For widgets, the form appears with 
the usual drag and drop widget interface. After adding 
video objects, the form will continue to be useful for 
making changes (or, if you wish, to delete the video).
In WordPress versions 3.3 and greater, video added by 
SWFPut will be visible in the post/page visual editor.
As many video objects as you wish can be placed in posts 
pages, and of course the widget supports as many instances 
as you wish. 
You may specify HTML5 or flash video, or both with one 
being primary content and the other as fallback.
Here are some features of SWFPut to consider:
<ul>
<li>
SWFPut works directly with media file 
URL’s; that is, SWFPut does not embed 
the video players of providers such as YouTube or Vimeo. 
SWFPut is for video files which are accessible by URL, 
whether hosted at your site or off-site. 
The setup form provides two media selection lists. 
The first is a selection of files found (recursively) 
under your wp-content/uploads directory. This list 
has the advantage that it does not use the 
WordPress media library — it will find files that 
you upload ‘by hand’ (with ftp, ssh, etc.). This feature 
will work around upload size limits that might prevent 
you from uploading large video files to the media library. 
The second is a selection of files found in the 
WordPress media library and is presented with the 
file name and the ‘attachment id’. This refers to files 
by ID, so it might be helpful if you manipulate media 
and expect ID associations to be valid. Files selections 
are filtered by name extension: FLV and MP4 for flash, 
and MP4, OGG and OGV, and WEBM for HTML5 video.
</li>
<li>
Video resources do not need to be on your site: 
any URL can be specified, so you may present players 
for off-site of 3rd party resources.
</li>
<li>
SWFPut does not interfere with the appearance of 
a site: a video is presented jsut as an image 
(such as .png or .jpg) is, with the same sort of 
style, and optional caption. The appearance of the 
video control interface, or control bar, is simple 
and quiet so it should not clash with site design.
</li>
<li>
SWFPut allows you to set the display aspect ratio 
for the video. Some video is ‘anamorphic’ in that 
the pixel width and height do not match the intended 
proportion of display width and height. You might 
film your child’s school play as 16:9 ‘widescreen’ 
but use a space saving feature of your recorder that 
saves the video at 480×360 (which is not 16:9). You can 
set SWFPut to display the video at the intended 16:9 
aspect ratio. You may set any aspect ratio (make it 
distorted if you wish).
</li>
<li>
The core features of the flash video player program 
included with SWFPut have been verified to work with 
the Gnash free-software browser plugin, which is good 
if you care about free/libre software users. (At the 
time of this writing, Gnash does not handle the MP4 
video container format, so it is preferable that you 
prepare flash video in the FLV container, even using the 
h.264 and AAC codecs. Of course, you may use MP4 if 
you must.)
</li>
<li>
The flash video player program included with SWFPut 
is written and compiled with the Ming PHP extension, 
and the code is included, so you may modify the player. 
The HTML5 player is written JavaScript, and the original, 
un-minified version is included, so you may modify it. 
In fact, the zip archive available at the WordPress 
repository includes all sources, although a POSIX/Unix 
environment with certain tools is required to build.
</li>
<li>
Localization sources are included; hopefully, polyglot 
users will help with translations.
</li>
</ul>

SWFPut – SWFlash Put

SWFPut provides video players for posts and pages and widget areas, as both HTML5 and flash video.

Protovis Loader vs SWFPut – SWFlash Put