Providing detailed instructions on adding YouTube and Vimeo videos as I'm seeing folks with questions on how and new members that haven't figured it out. Embedding is preferred over a link because the latter requires you to leave the forum and if the video has been removed, you find out after clicking the link and going to YouTube or Vimeo--inconvenient, unnecessary and detracts from the flow of a discussion.
Step 1 - Go to Advanced Posting mode. At the bottom of each thread or if you click the + Reply to Thread button (top left of each thread) you are placed in Quick Reply mode (not what you want). Click Go Advanced (lower right). Your posting area should now look like this below, only we've highlighted the YouTube and Vimeo buttons you're going to use to embed your video.
This is what an Advanced posting window looks like:
Step 2 - Embedding YouTube and Vimeo is essentially identical but we'll show that below. To embed a YouTube video, you first need to acquire the YouTube video ID. Here's what you're going to see in your browser when you're at a YouTube page. Every web browser has an address or URL field. We've highlighted the video ID for you underlined in red:
Step 3 - Copy only the video ID, click the YouTube button in the Advanced window and paste the video ID into the dialogue box you received by clicking the YouTube button. Example:
Step 4 - Click OK and your video is successfully embedded and you're ready to post.
Same process as above demonstrated for Vimeo
Vimeo video ID underlined in red as shown in a browser address or URL field:
Vimeo dialogue box you received after click the Vimeo icon in Advance Posting mode:
The most important part of this tutorial:
Yes, there are other ways to get videos to work, but unless you're doing it exactly as shown here, there's no promise that video will be displayed properly in the future. Example: Vimeo recently changed the way they allow their videos to be embedded. For old videos posted correctly in the past, those will now display on phones and hand-held devices. Cool! For those old Vimeo videos that are visible in the browser but were not added correctly, sorry--they don't display at all. Boooooo.
Look, we don't care if you just want to provide a link instead of embedding, but conversations flow better when videos are embedded, and embedded correctly. If you want someone to see a video you're interested in, the first rule is don't make them click on a link unless you just have to because half (or more) won't. This is one of the oldest and wisest known usability truths on the web.
Questions? Post them here or post test videos of your own below. And for fun, here are the two videos we used to prepare this tutorial. Got an iPhone? Check out the Vimeo video on it. That rocks.
Bookmarks