26.01.2010

YouTube Thumbnailer v1.1

First, thank you for the bug reports. Without them, new & enhanced versions simply won’t come out.

The plugin now has better video detection capabilities, and a serious bug regarding the auto thumbnailing feature is fixed.

You can download the new version at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/youtube-thumbnailer/

Any bug reports, feature requests or comments are welcomed in the comments section below.

Related posts

Tags: , , Filed Under News, WordPress, YouTube Thumbnailer 

Comments

  1. Ken (1 comments) on 01.28.2010

    Hi I am trying to use your youtube plug in however it does not seem to work for me. It is active and is in my tools menu. how exactly do I post the vidoe so that the plugin sees it

  2. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 01.29.2010

    Just post or update a post as you would normally do.

  3. Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.02.2010

    Will this work if you embed local videos, for example with FLV Embed, as well?

    Thanks!

    Kermit Woodall
    Managing Editor
    GadgetNutz.com

  4. Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.02.2010

    Hmmm… I’m not actually seeing this work. Part of the problem may be that I don’t know what you mean by “embed your Youtube videos the way you usually would” since the built-in system didn’t work, Youtube Embed plugin didn’t work. Nothing I’ve tried for embedding the videos seems to be recognized by your plugin to make thumbnails.

    Also…does it generate WP 2.9.1 compliant thumbnails or just copy the thumbnail location to the custom field? Also — do you use the HD version of the thumbnail from Youtube?

    Kermit Woodall
    Managing Editor
    GadgetNutz.com

  5. Josh (4 comments) on 02.03.2010

    Hello,

    I too am trying to figure out where these thumbnails are? I want to have these thumbnails as a sidebar widget, i see this plugin is not a widget, so what widget should i use that will pull from these thumbnails?

    Thanks,

    Josh

  6. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 02.03.2010

    These thumbnails are saved in a custom field named “thumbnail” or whatever you change it to in the settings page.

    I don’t know what widget, sorry.

    The plugin detects the HTML embed code you get from YouTube.

  7. Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.03.2010

    Oren – did you have an answers for my questions?

    Thanks!

    Kermit Woodall
    Managing Editor
    GadgetNutz.com

  8. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 02.03.2010

    It just copied the URL to the custom field.
    I am not sure about the image quality. I use the following template:
    http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/$video_key/default.jpg

    And as for the detection process – the plugin just fetches the first YouTube video link that exists in the post. Well not exactly, only if the URL is in an HTML attribute like a link (href) or an embed tag (src).

  9. Josh (4 comments) on 02.04.2010

    Hello Everybody, Kermit, and Oren,

    Thanks Oren, by the way for this plugin! It is a huge help!

    Here is a good explanation that could help people figure this plugin out. What is meant by “embed your Youtube videos the way you usually would” is going to youtube, and getting the “embed code” off to the right, and inserting that whole block into your post. Hit puplish or update, and you will now see a custom field with the URL of the thumbnail. You can use a plugin like “Advanced Most Recent Posts” Widget to grab that URL from the custom field and give you a sidebar widget that shows the thumbnails of your recent posts!

    Hope that helps everyone!

    Josh

  10. Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.07.2010

    That’s the key! See, there are so many ways to embed Youtube videos that are specific to WordPress I had no clue what was meant. The most obvious way, since I was thinking WP, was the Media Uploader and use it’s URL option but that wasn’t the right way obviously.

    This works very well now! Thanks Oren.

    Now if I can only find something that will automatically tag a locally uploaded FLV with a thumbnail I’m set.

    Kermit Woodall
    http://kermitwoodall.com

  11. Josh (4 comments) on 02.13.2010

    Orem,

    I am trying to modify your plugin to look for the format used by many youtube embedding plugins, which just has you insert the full youtube URL instead of the youtube embed code

    Youtube URL looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLd77Zk7QyM
    The URL inside of embed code looks like: http://www.youtube.com/v/WLd77Zk7QyM

    I see your plugin scanning for that embed URL, so how do i modify for it to do the same magic but for the “watch?v=” version instead of the “v/” version?

    Thank you very much!!!

    Josh

  12. Josh (4 comments) on 02.13.2010

    I got it!

    My youtube embedding plugin (Vipers Video Quick Tags) formats the youtube video embed like this:

    [youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXX/youtube

    so i changed the code in two spots to this:
    if (preg_match(‘#http://www\.youtube\.com/watch\?v\=([^&"\' ]*)\[\/youtube]#

    it used to be this:
    if (preg_match(‘#http://www\.youtube\.com/v/([^&"\' ]*)#

    Hope this helps further the success of this plugin!

    Oren, could you have your plugin do its search for the youtube url in a post searching for it in different formats, and do an if/else situation to know how to format the thumbnail image?

    Thanks,

    Josh

  13. Peter (1 comments) on 03.03.2010

    Hello Oren,

    Thanks Oren, by the way for this plugin!
    I have installed it in my blog but it is not working. I am using Studio press Lifestyle 4.0 theme. Has anyone got it work with this theme?

    Thanks

  14. matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010

    using viper quick tags plugin and your fix josh gave my fatel error, right on the line of the fix

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/ozcorps/public_html/bmrs/wp-content/plugins/youtube-thumbnailer/youtube_thumbnails_script.php on line 55

    not really sure where to go from this

  15. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.08.2010

    @matt May I see your line 55?

  16. Matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010

    There considerable difference from firefox where it shows NO images to IE where it shows one failed inmage and the rest are x out
    line 55 is below

    if (preg_match(‘#http://www\.youtube\.com/watch\?v\=([^&"\' ]*)\[\/youtube]#’,$p->post_content,$match) )

    thanks for your help

  17. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.08.2010

    You need to add a “{” at the end of that line (without the quotes).

  18. matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010

    Thanks for the reply, i did i didnt copy that in the paste. is there a difference between firefox and IE view?

    also when calling it up do i still have o use extended fields options in the post or does it automatically just add it in excerpt im totally confused, if you want i can give you access to the admin side of things of the site. lemme know

    once again thanks for the help

  19. matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010

    seems like it wont call anything with vipers plugin
    im guessing too much cross code confusion also, to know or not to know if im supposed to modify the theme code to support this i have managed to get it to work by placing in my theme

    <img src="ID, “thumbnail”, true);?>” />

    above the

    now i add in the posts custom field
    thumbnail – http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/vGhj1utme6k/default.jpg

    works fine shame though the plugin only worked by itself using the youtube embed code would have saved me alotta work manually adding but i cant go back and modify all the 100 or so post i have

    if you manage to find a fix or want to gain access on my admin side ill contibue to work but the more i test the worse it seems to get

    Thanks for your time

  20. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.08.2010

    Give me access and I’ll try to do my best.

  21. Matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010

    whats yah email or something ? ill give yah the admin there

    i really do appreciate this btw

    will make the major difference to the site

  22. Matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010

    Oren yOU ARE awsome, ITS looks GREAT

    Thank you so much

  23. diff (1 comments) on 03.17.2010

    Oh, but please share the solution here also :)
    I have the exact same problem as Matt did
    Thanks in advance

  24. mssbee (3 comments) on 03.24.2010

    I am not able to get the thumbnails to show. I am making a leap of assumption that some script must be added to my theme template to grab the thumbnail. I am currently trying timthumb, which is not working with the address of the thumbnail. I have tested the address in my browser and can see the thumbnail, any help would be appreciated.

  25. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.25.2010

    @mssbee Email me with admin access to your website and I’ll try to solve the issue for you.

    & @diff May you please post the problematic code line here? Or email it to me.

  26. mssbee (3 comments) on 03.25.2010

    I just found out the answer on the web. Timthumbs doesn’t work with images called from outside urls. I inserted this custom field call and now I have images:
    ID, ‘thumb’, true); ?>

    <img src="” alt=”" />

    (I renamed my field thumb)

    Thank you for the your generous offer of help and the wonderful plugin.

  27. mssbee (3 comments) on 03.25.2010

    Some of the code got cut off:

    ID, ‘thumb’, true); ?>

    <img src="” alt=”" />

    EDIT:Some of the code got cut off: ID, ‘thumb’, true); ?> <img src="” alt=”" />

    EDIT2:Well perhaps you should moderate out that code as I can’t seem to get it to print out the php parts, sorry.

  28. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.25.2010

    I’m sorry, try placing the code in tags.

  29. Jeff (3 comments) on 04.13.2010

    Hi Oren

    Thanks for this plugin – very handy. However, I have a problem.

    In my case I’m running the Smart Youtube plugin by Vladimir Prelovac, so for me the Youtube URL must be changed to “httpv” rather than just “http”. Thanks to Josh’s post, I also edited the script on lines around 107 and 149 to:

    [code]'#httpv://www\.youtube\.com/watch\?v\=([^&"\'? ]*)#'[/code]

    The thumbnail is generated, but unfortunately doesn’t show. I think this has something to do with my theme activating the thumbnail due to WordPress 2.9.

    Does this sound right?

    Any help would be much appreciated!

    Regards,
    Jeff

  30. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 04.14.2010

    The appearance of the thumbnail is totally up to your theme.
    The plugin saves the URL of the thumbnail image in a custom field.

  31. Jeff (3 comments) on 04.14.2010

    Hi Oren

    Ok, thanks for that explaination – I’ll try and find out where in my template it’s going wrong!

  32. Kira (2 comments) on 04.21.2010

    Thank you for this very useful plugin!
    Is there a way to alter the image size?
    thanks a million.

  33. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 04.21.2010

    I don’t know any other way to retrieve a larger image from YouTube.
    So.. nope.

    I’d be glad to be corrected.

  34. Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 04.22.2010

    Oren – which image are you retrieving from Youtube? They offer an HD image that’s pretty large.

    Kermit Woodall

  35. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 04.22.2010

    You are right.

    I can use this pattern:
    http://img.youtube.com/vi/nQMgfhE3Nzc/0.jpg

    I don’t know if I should implement it in my next update because most people use small thumbnails.

  36. Kira (2 comments) on 04.22.2010

    Perhaps – for a future update – it is possible to add definitions for width (resp. height) in the thumbnailer settings. The larger thumbnail you linked to earlier could be resized. That would be awesome!

  37. Mary (1 comments) on 05.11.2010

    Hi Oren -

    I’m creating a website for a client and would like to use your plugin. The site also uses a featured content slider and we’d like to be able to add posts that have youtube videos to the slider. The slider takes the value of a custom field and then uses timthumb to resize the images to fit nicely in the slider. (Currently I have this turned off, the slider is using the actual size of the image rather than uses timthumb to resize.

    So basically my problem is that I’d like to be able to use your plugin but have it create the thumbnail on our server so that timthumb can be used with the thumbnail.

    I tried changing your code:
    $img=”http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”;
    to this:
    $img=”http://hellocupcakeonline.com/news/wp-content/uploads/thumbs/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”;

    and made sure the permissions were set correctly on the server but no files get created in the thumbs directory.

    Can you please help me with this or maybe point me in the right direction?

    Please let me know if you need more information from me.

    Thanks!

    Mary

  38. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.11.2010

    Hey Mary,

    ”http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”
    Is the path to the thumbnail image hosted on YouTube.

    What I believe you want to do is to download the image to your server and then save it in your desired location, which is I guess:
    ”http://hellocupcakeonline.com/news/wp-content/uploads/thumbs/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”

    Read on file_get_contents and curl. They might help you download the image.

    Good luck,
    Oren.

  39. Japanese Commercial (2 comments) on 05.13.2010

    Hi Oren

    First of, thanks for the plugin, it’s really REALLY useful!

    It’s been working great on my site, except one annoyance. Ever once in a while (and I haven’t pinpointed why it does this), it inserts the URL for the thumbnail, but it puts the URL onto 2 lines, and often inserts part of the code from the actual post, so that it will look like:

    http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/Uu_vq0lK3xo
    h2./default.jpg

    When it does this I have to deactivate the plugin, edit the URL, and then reactivate the plugin – if I didn’t, every time I edit the URL it just changes back to the incorrect one.

    Any ideas why it’s doing this?

  40. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.14.2010

    I think it’s somehow related to the way the YouTube video is embedded.
    If you give me access to that specific post, I may be able to pinpoint the issue and fix it.

  41. Japanese Commercial (2 comments) on 05.16.2010

    Hi Oren

    Sorry for the late reply.

    How do I give you access to the specific post? It hasn’t published yet – it’s scheduled to go out on the 1st June…..

  42. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.16.2010

    You can give me admin access. Only if you want to.

  43. Niema Bryson (2 comments) on 05.26.2010

    This plugin seems to be what I’m looking for but I can’t get it to work. I installed it now what. I already have a video embedded in my post and a image. Please someone help so I can play with my kids. Thanks

  44. Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.26.2010

    Check to see if the plugin populates the custom fields or not. Look for a custom field named “thumbnail”.

  45. Niema Bryson (2 comments) on 05.26.2010

    Thanks for responding so quickly. I still don’t understand. I’m new at computers. I was reading the forums earlier today and the information is just all over the place. I’m doing something wrong. I’ll keep trying for awhile until I get tired. Thanks for your help, but I would really like to use your plugin though.

    Thanks

  46. Mike (3 comments) on 06.07.2010

    What I did to get this working was:

    Creating a new posted I pasted the entire embed code from Youtube and also pasted the url from the address bar on a seperate line. Published or updated the post…..then returned and removed te entire ember code just leaving te url and it’s working great

  47. neon (1 comments) on 06.30.2010

    hi, I am using theme “news magazine” and it uses post thumbnails. i installed your plugin (very easy to use!). I see the correct youtube thumbnail link in the custom fields box, but the thumbnail custom box information is still not communicating with the theme. Still no youtube thumbs on the site.

  48. Cathi (1 comments) on 08.29.2010

    I have a video inserted in my post using Smart YouTube where the http adds a v, so it is an httpv://…….. video. I have installed Thumbnailer v1.1.1 and clicked run. The Thumbnailer custom field name says Thumbnail. The add thumnail posts when saved or updated says yes. I update the post. When I go to my blog the video does not show up as a thumbnail. It still shows as regular size. Am I doing something wrong? Thank you.

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