Adding Videos Clips to a Site

One way to easily add a video clip into your web site is to attach the video file to a page.

To attach a video clip to a page

When in edit mode you have a number of options available to you, the 'File Attachment' option allows you to attach a file.
 
1.  Ensure that the File Attachment option is expanded
2.  Click on 'Browse' and find the video file on your machine
3.  Click 'Attach'
4.  A bar will show the progress as the file loads onto the server
5.  Once the file has loaded you will see that it is listed, note that underneath the listing is the full URL of where the file is stored
6.  Submit the page
 
When you click on the attachment the file will launch using the video player on your computer.

To attach a video clip to an image

Having loaded the video clip you can now link it to an image.

The steps to attach a file to an image are:

1. Place the image you wish to use into the page, and on the link option choose Go to URL from the drop down list. At the side you will see the box for the URL will appear
2. Copy the URL location from the file upload area and paste it into this box
3. Click 'Insert'
4. Don’t forget to submit your page

Troubleshooting

Problems that may occur if the browser does not understand the format of the video; it may just download and not playback. You should ensure the video is stored in a popular format (eg. Windows Movie Video, QuickTime or MPEG-2). Most computers have video players for these already installed.

If necessary convert the video file from your video camera into a more common format, and consider compressing the video to reduce traffic and improve playback.

Keeping a Drupal book contents sticky in the left column

By default, a navigation menu for a Book (hierarchical structure of pages) will appear in the left column only when you have opened one of the pages of the book.

How to get the Book navigation menu sticky in the left menu?

The Staffordshire CVYS site has all their static content organised in a book, and wanted this feature.

The trick was done by creating a new block (administer -> blocks), select 'PHP code' as input format. And copy the code that you find on Book Module: How to make a book navigation block appear on all pages.

Don't forget to change the value of $book_top_page on the 2nd line to the node number of the index of your book.

(Mind you, you can only do this when you are logged in as an administrator.)

RSS links for top ten games

Found some good RSS Links, for example to post the top 10 online games to your web site

Choose Administer, Aggregator,

and choose 'Add Feed'

Give it a Title 'Top Games' or something

and in the URL copy and past the following http://www.play2day.co.uk/rss-10.xml