Video-Placeholder-Generator-Server

Server-side utility to generate a video placeholder image, especially useful for embedding in HTML email.

Accepts various GET parameters, and generates a static image with the imagemagick PHP extension.

Note: It is recommended to set up your own copy of this server-side installation to host your own thumbnails. Perpetual hosting on the default api.missionmike.dev domain is NOT guaranteed!

Customizable options include:

• Thumbnail Width (width)
• Play Button Image (from URL; play_button_url)
• Play Button Width (play_button_width)
• Play Button Opacity (play_button_opacity)

Sample URL Usage:

https://tools.missionmike.dev/video-placeholder-generator/thumbnails/H79gstz4qZI.jpg?pburl=https%3A%2F%2Ftools.missionmike.dev%2Fvideo-placeholder-generator%2Fassets%2Fyoutube_play.png&w=600&pbw=80&pbo=80&save=false

GET breakdown (URL Decoded):

• YouTube video (H79gstz4qZI.jpg): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H79gstz4qZI
• w / width: 600 (Pixels)
• pburl / play_button_url: https://tools.missionmike.dev/video-placeholder-generator/assets/youtube_play.png
• pbw / play_button_width: 80 (Pixels)
• pbo / play_button_opacity: 80 (Percentage)
• save: false (prevents saving - keep this set to preview changes)

Here's what happens under the hood:

1. An attempt is made to fetch H79gstz4qZI.jpg
2. If H79gstz4qZI.jpg does not exist on the server, .htaccess will then route the request to ../generator.php
3. generator.php then parses the GET parameters, and uses imagemagick (PHP extension) to generate a graphic image.
4. If &save=false is not set (or if &save=true), then H79gstz4qZI.jpg gets saved/written to the ./thumbnails/ directory -- if saved, subsequent calls do not consume any additional resources aside from serving the .jpg image!

Try out the front-end utility here: https://www.missionmike.dev/video-placeholder-generator/

Check out the front-end utilitiy repo here: https://github.com/missionmike/video-placeholder-generator-client