moodle-media_jwplayer (JW Player 7)

This version of plugin is no longer maintained as JW Player 7 has been deprecated. Media plugin that supports JW Player 8 is located at kabalin/moodle-media_jwplayer

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This a media player plugin that allows using JW Player 7 for playing HTML5 and Flash content in Moodle 3.2 and higher¹. The plugin is designed to achieve consistency of the player appearance in all major browsers and mobile platforms. The player supports Flash fallback, which provides more devices and formats coverage than either HTML5 or Flash can handle alone. The player also supports RTMP as well as HLS and MPEG-DASH streaming².

_{¹ See plugin release notes for the list of supported Moodle versions. ² HLS and MPEG-DASH support require paid license.}

Installation

JW Player installation procedure consists of three steps: player libraries installation (optional), player plugin installation and player plugin configuration.

The plugin does not include JW Player libraries due license limitations. You are supposed to make sure that JW Player libraries are available in your system, either by copying them in specified directory in Moodle (self-hosted mode), or by configuring plugin to use the cloud version of JW Player hosted by JW Player CDN (more preferable option). In either case you need to register on JW Player website http://www.jwplayer.com/sign-up/ and accept terms of use.

Media player plugin installation

The player plugin installation is pretty strightforward. Plugin files need to be placed in ./media/player/jwplayer directory in Moodle, then you will need to go through installation process as normal by loggining in as admin.

JW Player libraries installation (only for self-hosted player)

If you decide to use self-hosted player, you need to download player libraries from License Keys & Downloads area of account dashboard, unpack, and place the content of unpacked jwplayer-x.x.x directory to ./media/player/jwplayer/jwplayer directory in Moodle. This is where plugin will be looking for jwplayer.js file when you select self-hosted mode in the plugin settings.

Media player plugin configuration

When the player plugin installation is completed, the plugin configuration page will be displayed (alternatively you may access it via Site Administration -> Plugins -> Media players).

At a minimum, you need to specify player hosting method of your choice and a license key. The license key is required for any hosting method, irrespective whether you are using a free or premium version of JW Player. The license key can be found on License Keys & Downloads area of account dashboard. You need to copy a licence key text field for "JW Player 7 (Self-Hosted)" and insert it in the "Player licence key" field in the plugin settings, even if you decided to use cloud-hosted player for your installation³.

There are more settings, allowing you to configure media types for which player will be used, player appearance, analytics.

Once the player is configured, the final step would be to enable the player on Manage media players page in Site Administration area and move it above "VideoJS player" to give it a higher priority (or according to your preference).

_{³ Notice, that cloud-hosting method has nothing to do with Cloud Player concept you will find on JW Player website, that allows pre-configuring player and using it anywhere else. In our case, cloud is similar to self-hosted, the difference is that libaries are hosted using JW Player CDN rather than located locally in Moodle.}

Upgrading from filter_jwplayer

Notice, that this plugin replaces moodle-filter_jwplayer, which you may use in Moodle 3.2. It is advided to remove (or at least disable) JW Player filter plugin when installing this plugin.

While the player plugin configuration settings are the same as in moodle-filter_jwplayer plugin, there is no automatic settings import, so you need to configure player plugin after installation.

There are some important differences:

• Self-hosted player files are no longer located at ./lib/jwplayer, player plugin will look for them in ./media/player/jwplayer/jwplayer directory.

• If you were overriding any php constants for default configuration, they changed from FILTER_JWPLAYER_* to MEDIA_JWPLAYER_*.

• FILTER_JWPLAYER_VIDEO_WIDTH constant has been deprecated, use Site Administration -> Plugins -> Media players -> Manage media players page (or $CFG->media_default_width in your config file) to set default player width.

Usage

Any multimedia content added to Moodle through HTML editor (either using the URL or media embedding dialog), as well as File/URL resource, will be rendered and played using JW Player if the format is supported and enabled in the plugin configuration. For more details on supported formats see Media Format Reference on JW Player website (ignore YouTube and RSS sections as they are not supported by plugin).

Advanced use

The plugin has extensive customisation features.

Global HTML attributes

Global HTML attributes in the player link will be applied to the rendered player outer span tag. These attributes are:

accesskey, class, contenteditable, contextmenu, dir, draggable, dropzone, hidden, id, lang, spellcheck, style, tabindex, title, translate

In addition, attribures that start with data- (but not data-jwplayer-) will be applied to player's outer span tag.

For example, <a style="text-align: right;" href="https://some.stream.org/functional.webm">functional.webm</a> will make player aligned to the right.

JW Player specific attributes

HTML attributes in the player link that start with data-jwplayer- prefix, will be used as player configuration options. The possible options are:

aspectratio, autostart, controls, height, mute, primary, repeat, width, androidhls, hlslabels, description, mediaid, subtitles

For full description of each option, please refer to configuration reference on JW Player website. Options file and image are not relevant, thus can't be applied.

For example, <a data-jwplayer-autostart="true" href="https://some.stream.org/functional.webm">functional.webm</a> will make player start playing video automatically on page load.

Subtitles

You can use data-jwplayer-subtitles attribute to add subtitles: <a href="https://some.stream.org/functional.mp4" data-jwplayer-subtitles="English: http://someurl.org/tracks/functional.txt" data-jwplayer-description="some description">test subtitles</a>

Default player dimentions

The player default width is defined in Manage media players page. If responsive mode is enabled in plugin configuration, player will expand.

CDN JW Player version

While in self-hosted mode, choosing a different release is a matter of downloading desired JW7 release and replacing files in ./media/player/jwplayer/jwplayer, cloud-hosted version is using a constant to determine the version to use in JW Player CDN. Plugin is using the most recent stable version of JW Player available at release time, however if different version is required, it can be specified using MEDIA_JWPLAYER_CLOUD_VERSION constant defined in Moodle config.php, e.g. define('MEDIA_JWPLAYER_CLOUD_VERSION', '7.12.1'); will make plugin using player version 7.12.1.

When changing version, makes sure it exists in CDN by substituting version number in the URL and testing its availability in the browser, e.g. https://ssl.p.jwpcdn.com/player/v/7.12.1/jwplayer.js