Add Video in ASP.NET MVC - asp.net

I am working in ASP.NET MVC. I want to add videos in my view. I have read article on Working With Videos in ASP.NET
But i want a generic way to play all type of videos in my web page. This article, although good, but confuses me that how to identify file format and then use related type of Web Helper. There are hundreds of video file formats, how to play all of them, by a single strategy. Mentioned article only describes three formats. Please guide me in this regard.

Your issue is less ASP.NET MVC and more general video playback accross multiple devices in different formats.
Your best option would be to use something like FlowPlayer, which allows you to add a player using either Flash or HTML5/JS (depending on the browser's feature set)

I think to say you want to play all types of videos is the wrong way to start. First of all I would think about what video types you want to support. This can be restricted by things such as the encoded videos available, file size, browser support.
Once you have decided on this you can look in to finding the most suitable player for the job.

Related

Embed editable MS Word document on web page

I need to present Word and PDF documents in a read-only preview, via an ASPX/HTML page to my internal users. In a related requirement, I need to present editable Word documents, via ab ASPX/HTML page, to parties outside of our network - effectively the public.
We cannot rely upon Word or Adobe-type PDF plugins being available on the destination PC.
Can anyone suggest a way to do this?
Edit - For clarity, the document/data would ideally stay on our own servers.
What about using Google Docs API? You could use either their word-like doc or a form to get the data you need, and then present that internally.
Not sure if this meets all of your requirements, or is an available option.
For our company, we have a few tools that utilize Google Docs. We upload data dynamically to them for specific needs.
Based on your requirements, maybe it's best to just write your own. I haven't created a Rich Text Editor. But it looks like there are quite a few tutorials online. Here is a basic tutorial for a rich text editor. It's using javascript, HTML, & CSS. If you prefer to not use js, then you may need to look for other tutorials.
This isn't the most glamorous solution, as it looks like the users view would be HTML. I'd think you could have it updating dynamically off to the side with an actual rich text view (similar to how Stack Overflow has theirs below an answer or question being written).
Update
Over the weekend I was exploring HTML5's contenteditable attribute, I came across an editor that builds off of that called Aloha Editor. It's a WYSIWYG type editor. But if that's something that you desire for your clients, than this would probably be a pretty simple integration. I have yet to use it, but it seems like it would be a great fit - if you decide to go the route of building your own editor.
You could use the Zoho API or, if you need to keep all data on your own servers and validated clients at all times, you could try the Aspose components.
If you're interested to provide documents in a view-only way then you can try GroupDocs as well: http://groupdocs.com/. They offer viewers for different file types which you can add to your website very easily: http://groupdocs.com/apps/viewer.
Since you need to keep data on your own server, aceoffix can be one of your alternative. It is a plugin installed on your own server and save all data on your server too.

Document sharing on whiteboard application using flex

I am creating a whiteboard application using flex. I want to add a document sharing functionality to the application i.e, the user can upload the documents which will be loaded into the whiteboard and users can annotate over the document.
I googled a lot but still not sure where to start how to start. I only got the idea that the document can be converted to series of images on the server side and can be loaded in to flex app.
Can the experts help me get started with this. I am planning to use java for the server side.
Thanks all.
I'm not sure about uploading files to whiteboard itself. I think it's better to use loader and put your whiteboard on top of it.
What about software to convert documents. I'm not server side programmer, but I can share programs that we are using to convert documents:
Now we are using Print2Flash for almost all documents, but planning to give a chance for iSpring to convert Powerpoint presentations.
Both are live projects, getting improvements often enough and can convert documents to swf files. Personally I like the way Print2Flash provides ability to customize resulting swf with your own patterns and gives great flexibility to interract with it. As I know, nowadays iSpring added AS3 API to converted files, which is huge enhancement, but it's kinda expensive.
And don't forget about OpenOffice. It has not that good converter, but at least it is free. We've used it before, but gave preference to Print2Flash.
Hope my answer will give you a place to start.
Cheers.

Ways to share a "Top X" list between two Drupal websites?

I'm trying to come up with some easy methods to share data between two Drupal websites. Here's my situation: Two websites both want a Top X Music listing with images, audio and data. One website is already creating and updating this list, and since they both use the same list the other website wants to straight up "steal" the first list, content, style and all. They want to take advantage of the work done to create the list on the other website. Their websites are structurally similar, and we control both sites. Audio is made playable using SWF tools.
Domain isn't really an appropriate solution here as the two sites share nothing besides the Top X Music list. I am able to create a view on the original site to feed the data in any format I want.
Some solutions I've been considering are:
Feed the data from one site to the other, hard link back to the other
site for audio/images.
iFrame the data on the site that is "stealing"
the list. (easy but seems too crude!)
jQuery AJAX load the data on the "stealing" site.
Basically I'm looking for suggestions of how you might handle this if they were your Drupal websites. I am familiar with Feeds, but would need to write a parser specifically for this feed, which seems like overkill for something so simple. Thanks! :)
You don't mention what version of Drupal you're using on the two sites. Assuming it's Drupal 6, you may want to check out the Web Widgets module and/or the Embed widgets module.
If you're just after a list of content from SiteA you could add a display to a given view and get RSS output. The ViewsRSS module gives you more control over what is returned.
If you're looking for more of a widget approach then I'd start looking at the Web widgets or Embed widgets modules. They're ok for basic functionality, but if you're looking to want more functionality I'd consider either embedding the content in an iframe (quick and dirty) or reviewing the services module(s) - although this may be overkill for your needs.
HTH.

Is content of webpage developed in Flex searchable?

If I developed my webpage entirely using Flex, is it searchable by Google and other search engines?
Thank you very much.
Yes. Google can.
If your browser can show you the contents of your flash object, for Google there is no reason to fail.
Check this article on Flash indexing on Google.
The answer is... you're probably taking the wrong approach if you are presenting your Flex app to be indexed.
Allegedly, Google has a Flash Player which allows indexing of Flash content, but no-one has ever seen it in the wild or had it confirm it's actually real.
The best way to approach this is to have an HTML landing page which links to your Flex application. The HTML page gets indexed, and your Flex app doesn't care. If there are things in your App which must be indexed, are you sure Flash was the right approach for it in the first place?
I've seen a lot of web sites use Flex/Flash objects only were needed, like 1 or more rich UI controls on the page. The rest is still HTML. That way you get the best of both worlds, and keep the site fairly simple (important to me), plus the we page is still searchable.
However, to answer your question, yes Google has been working on Flash site indexing algorithms:
Google learns to crawl Flash
More info:
SWF searchability FAQ
Making Flash websites searchable

How to make Flex RIA contents accessible to search engines like Google?

How would you make the contents of Flex RIA applications accessible to Google, so that Google can index the content and shows links to the right items in your Flex RIA. Consider a online shop, created in Flex, where the offered items shall be indexed by Google. Then a link on Google should open the corresponding product in the RIA.
Currently the best technique for making an RIA indexable by search engines is called progressive enhancement (or graceful degradation, depending on which way you see it). Basically you create a simple HTML version of the application using the same data as the application loads. This version should be dynamically generated by some kind of backend server technology. This HTML version can be indexed by Google, but each page also contains a check that determines if the visitor is capable of viewing the rich version, and if so replaces the HTML content with the Flash, Flex or Silverlight application, preferably in such a way that the application starts in a state where it shows the same data as the current page. "Replaces" can mean that it just embeds the application on top of the HTML content, or that it redirects the user to a page that embeds it. The former solution is preferable, because the latter can be considered cloaking.
One way of keeping the HTML and RIA versions of a shop synchronized is to decide on a URL scheme and make sure that RIA uses some kind of deep linking technique. If a visitor arrives to a specific item via a search engine, say /items/345 the corresponding pseudo-URL in the RIA should be the same, so that you can embed the RIA on top of the page and set that URL as a parameter to make the RIA display that same page as soon as it has loaded.
This summer, Google and Yahoo! announced that they would begin using a custom version of Flash Player to index Flash based applications by exploring them "in the same way that a person would". Now, two months later there is still no evidence that this is actually happening. Ryan Stweart had to cancel his Flex SEO competition because it became evident that no one could win. The problem seems to be that event though the technique may very well work (although I'm sceptical), the custom Flash Player needs some kind of network interface to be able to load any referenced resources, like XML data, other SWFs, etc., and this is currently not implemented by Google. This means that for an application that loads all it's data dynamically, like say, all that I can think of, Googlebot will not actually see anything relevant. Yahoo! ignores SWF based content altogether.
Oh, and it just so happens that I talk about Flex and SEO on the latest episode of the Flex show =)
There is a massive thread available here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/58926
But essentially, google already indexes .SWF files (you can test this out yourself by restricting search results to just .SWF files). It can search any text content within the SWF file.
However, if the text information in your site comes from a database / web server. Then it won't be able to access this information easily.
One example of getting this to work is using an XML file as your index page, then using an XSLT transform to render it using Flex. "Ted On Flex" has good information about this.
http://flex.org/consultants

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