Using XML to create navigation for your video files with videoMaru is very easy. But once you’ve loaded that XML file into videoMaru you’re pretty much locked in.

Not any more.

I’ve made a simple addition to the videoMaru API - that required a good bit of replumbing - that allows you to change the source XML that you’re using for navigation. Now you can switch between XML files easily. ( You’ll need the latest videoMaru 3.5 beta SWC for this located in the example fiile. )

Here’s all you need to use it:

videoMaru.switchXML( "path/file.xml" );

switchXML accepts either the path to a file or a string of XML code. So you could also do this:

videoMaru.switchXML( "<videos><video path=’movie.flv’ linkText=’Movie’></video></videos>” );

In usage you would have the above code inside of the videoMaruCreationComple function or inside an onRelease event.

Here’s an example in action using the later method of injecting an XML string. Click on the Group# buttons to switch the navigation.

[ download example ]

video.Maru now has the ability to respond to cue-points in your Flash videos.

Using this feature is very easy. Just use the videoMaruCreationComplete() event to tell video.Maru which function you want to use as a callback for when a cue point is reached. Then when a video passes over a cue-point it will send that information to your callback.

Below is an example. Look for the text field below the controls to change when a cue point is reached. You could use something like this to initiate changes in your design or display a message to your users.

Here is all the code that is needed to enable the reaction to cue points: ( Download Source )

To add cue points to your video using the Flash Video Encoder just select the Cue Points tab and drag the playhead across to the scene where you want to add a cue point. Then click the “+” button and give the cue point a name. That’s pretty much all there is to it. You could then use a switch () statement in your callback function to perform complex actions or like I did in the example just update a TextField.

Watch a video tutorial showing how you can stream youTube videos with video.Maru.

NOTE: youTube/Google have changed the process to get to the necessary query strings from the URL. The video tutorial above is inaccurate in the specific details of how to make this work but is still a good general overview of how it works. Just read the info below for the details of the changes.

I have made the necessary changes to video.Maru but streaming youTube videos only works with the latest build of video.Maru 3.0.

Since making the change youTube has changed again and the fix doesn’t seem to be working. If the video below plays when you click the play button then it’s working. Otherwise youTube is messing around with things again. Use this feature at your own risk.

Here’s the new method of getting the ID string:

1 - Go to youTube and pick out the video that you want to stream through video.Maru.

You will get a URL that looks something like this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IDstring.

2 - Edit the URL string by removing the word watch? And change the “=” sign to a “/”. Here is an example:

3 - Now browse to that URL and you will get a very long URL and the video you were watching will appear in a large video interface. You need to grab two pieces of that new URL as illustrated below:

4 - The string that you want to give to video.Maru in order to play a video is: youtube=SomeID&t=SomeLongString.

To play the video above would be: youtube=uCsdPszJLNQ&t=OEgsToPDskJK0D5QnoklN-REer7a0Cq2

You can use that in your XML or directly in your videoWindow or in a linkBtn.

Watch a video tutorial on creating links to other videos in you video interface.

videoLinks allow you to create links to other videos in your video interface.

Creating a videoLink is similar to creating the videoWindow. Somewhere inside your videoLink MovieClip there needs to be a dynamic TextField with a text value that is the path to the video you would like to play when the user clicks on the MovieClip.

If you have more than one videoLink you must differentiate their instance names by appending an index number to the end of the instance name.

Example, if you have 3 videoLink MovieClips then you could give them instance names of videoLink1, videoLink2, videoLink3. However, the index numbers do not need to be sequential, just make sure they are unique or you will get an error when publishing the FLA: 256 levels of recursion exceeded.

You can also create next and prev (previous) buttons for the user to navigate through the videoLinks. The order of navigation is based on the index number appended to the videoLink MovieClips.

The videoLinks also support states for the currently playing video. To enable states create a keyframe inside your videoLink MovieClip with a frame label of nowPlaying. When the user clicks that MovieClip the nowPlaying state will be displayed. Otherwise it will display frame 1. The next/prev MovieClips are also integrated with the videoLink states.

If the video that plays at startup is also one of the videoLink MovieClips then it will automatically display that MovieClip in the nowPlaying state. Otherwise all of the videoLinks will display frame 1. In that case if the user clicks on either the next or prev button the videoLink with the lowest index number will always be selected first.