Wimpy RAVE Player

Wimpy RAVE by Mike Gieson
Available at: www.wimpyplayer.com

 

 

Contents

- About
- Installing Wimpy RAVE
- Customizing Wimpy RAVE
- Real World Usage
- Additional Documentation
- Troubleshooting

 

About

With Wimpy RAVE, your media plays directly in your web page. Managing what gets played in Wimpy RAVE is simply a matter of uploading and organizing media files in your Wimpy RAVE installation folder.

To install Wimpy RAVE, simply upload the Wimpy RAVE files to your web site. Wimpy RAVE will automatically list and play any media files that are located in the same folder as Wimpy RAVE.

Visit the support section at www.wimpyplayer.com for more information about Wimpy RAVE Player, including:
- Updated versions
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- How to create FLV or SWF video files
- How to convert your existing video to FLV or SWF video

 

 

Installing Wimpy RAVE

1. Create a new folder named "wimpy" on your website.

This folder will be refered to as the "Wimpy Installation Folder." It is not required that the new folder be named "wimpy" -- you can name the folder anything you want. We highly recommend only using alpha-numeric characters for the folder name, try not to use spaces or punctuiation characters such as: ? ' & % $. The only punctuation symbols that are acceptable are _ (underscore) and - (hyphen).

Example:
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/

2. Upload Wimpy Rave.

Upload the contents of the Wimpy RAVE package to your Wimpy Installation Folder

Example:

Core Wimpy Files:
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rave.php*
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rave.swf
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rave.js
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rave_downloadFile.html
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rave_fullscreen.html
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rave_popout.html
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/customizer.html
Media Files:
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/Example FLV.flv
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/Example NP3.mp3
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/Example SWF.swf
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/skins/  <-- all files and folders in the "skins" folder.

Core Wimpy Files and Special HTML Files MUST be located in the same folder.

Media Files should be in the dame folder as Wimpy. You can organize your media files in subfolders within your Wimpy Installation Folder.

Example:

Core Wimpy Files:

www.yoursite.com/wimpy/alternative/*.*
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/ambient/*.*
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rock/*.*
www.yoursite.com/wimpy/r_and_b/*.*

NOTE: *.* means "any file name, any extension"

NOTE: Notice that we did not use "R & B", instede, we only used acceptable punctuation and alpha-numeric characters.

 

3. Navigate to Wimpy Rave on your web site.

Open your web browser and pull up rave.php on your web site by typing the URL to rave.php into your browser's address bar.

Example:
http://www.yoursite.com/wimpy/rave.php*

NOTE: The URL to the file is case-sensitive , so be sure to capitalize the AV when entering the address into the browser.

 

4. Upload Media.

If the example files display in the playlist and play, then Wimpy is working fine in "automatic" mode -- upload additional FLV, MP3 or SWF files to your Wimpy Installation folder. You can create sub-folders within the Wimpy Installation folder to better organize your media. Sub-folders will appear within the Wimpy Rave Playlist with a + next to the folder name, so folks can navigate your Wimpy Installation folder for additional media.

If the files did not display properly, review the "Troubleshooting" section of this page.

* NOTE: If you are installing the ASP version, references to "rave.php" should be assumed as "rave.asp." Likewise, if you are installing the ColdFusion version, references to "rave.php" below should be assumed as "wimpy.cfm" -- because all three versions are installed in the same manor.

 

 

Customizing Wimpy RAVE

Use the Customizer Tool to generate the necessary HTML code to include Wimpy RAVE on existing pages within your web site. To access the Customizer Tool, simply use a web browser and type in the address to "customizer.html" on your web site.

Example:
http://www.yoursite.com/wimpy/customizer.html

Once you've configured Wimpy RAVE to your specifications, click the "Refresh Player / Code" link to update the HTML code at the bottom of the page. Then click the "save" button to save the HTML code, or right-click into the text area that contains the HTML code and choose "Select All" from the menu and copy and paste the HTML code into your exiting HTML page.

When entering URLs to files, it is important to use "full URLs." Using full URLs will ensure that Wimpy RAVE will work other pages throughout your site. See "Real World Usage" below and "Relative and Absolute."

To customizer Wimpy RAVE even further, download and install Wimpy Manager. Wimpy Manager is a tool we've developed specifically for Wimpy RAVE that includes Playlister and Skin Machine. Playlister allows you to generate suztom XML playlists and Skin Machine allows you to create your own custom skin.

Click here for more information on Wimpy Manager.

For additional information including FAQs and special features, check out the User's Manual.

Click here to go to the User's Manual.

To get the latest skins, visit the Skins section at wimpyplayer.com

Click here to download new skins

 

 

Real World Usage

When using Wimpy in the "real world" all references to all files associated with Wimpy should be full URL's.

Although "relative" URLs can be used, we highly recommend using full URL's or "absolute" paths to files. Flash is a little tricky with how it determines it's relationship to other files. In a nut shell, SWF files "take on" the location of the HTML file that it is embedded in.

Using full URLs will eliminate many hours of frustration.

For example, in this documentation we may reference a single file as:

<script language="JavaScript" >
      makeWimpyPlayer("example3.flv");
</script>

When you go to test out Wimpy on your web site, you should use something similar to:

<script language="JavaScript" >
      makeWimpyPlayer("http://www.yousrsite.com/path/to/example3.flv");
</script>

Using a full URL will enable you to move HTML snippets around from page to page on your site, without having to re-edit the HTML code to set the proper path.

Click here for more information on using "relative" paths (e.g. "../../file.xyz" ).

 

 

Additional Documentation

- JavaScript Controls
- Wimpy Rave API
- User's Manual
- Frequently Asked Questions

 

Troubleshooting

If after accessing rave.php with your web browser, you get a bunch of code, then your web serve does not support ASP. Try installing the PHP demo.

If the player displays, but does not contain any files in the playlist, then chances are your server administrator has limited the capabilities of ASP, preventing Wimpy RAVE from taking advantage of certain functions such as being able to automatically read the contents of the directory and automatically presenting the list of files within the player. Contact your server admin to see if they can configure ASP to allow Wimpy to work properly.

If the player displays the SWF and MP3 example files, but not the FLV example, you may need to configure your web server's "mime types" so that it recognizes FLV files properly, or you may need to ensure that you have uploaded the FLV file using "binary" mode. Click here for more information on this type of problem.

See Also:

- User's Manual
- Frequently Asked Questions

There's a lot of information on the two links above, so it may be easier to go to the main Support Page and search:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2002-2007 Plaino. www.wimpyplayer.com