How to Add Youtube Videos to the Show Description in The Patron Edge Online

Sometimes it’s easier to show visitors to your website a preview of a show rather than simply describing a show to them. Film trailers, for example, would not be as appealing if they were simply text based. In this post, I will show you how to embed a Youtube video clip in your show descriptions. I have tested this in versions 3.4.1.3 and 3.4.1.2 of The Patron Edge Online using internet explorer 6,7 and 9.

1. Search for the video on Youtube and then click on share, then click on the embed button at at the bottom of the video and you will see the following screen:

Once you click the embed button you will have some additional options; depending on what you would like the video to do on your site, you may want to change some of these options. Each change you make here will automatically update the embed code for you. Youtube videos will play through and at the end they will provide you with a list of similar videos. These are selected at random so may not be appropriate for your site for this reason you may be best to leave this check box clear. The use https option changes each reference in the url from http to https if your Patron Edge Online site uses https addresses then you would be best to select this option. The privacy enhanced mode controls the way Youtube stores cookies on a users machine, which is explained in this Youtube guide . You can also set the size of the video you would like to use, which is important as the show description box on The Patron Edge Online has a limited amount of space.

2. Once you have the settings you would like to use, select use old embed code and copy the code under the video, the code should look like this:

3. If you log into The Patron Edge Online admin site and select content > events > shows. Highlight the show that you would like to add the video to and then click on update show description here:

4. Enter the text description for your show first, which is important as unlike a web browser, the edit screen has limitations in what it can display. By entering some text prior to the code, this is the first thing The Patron Edge Online will load and we can edit anything following this text. Without a description, the edit box will try to load the video as though it should be ready to be played from the edit screen. This can cause errors when loading the edit screen should we need to change anything.

A text description is also important as not every user who views your page will want to view a video. Users of mobile devices often have limitations in the amount of data they can download and videos do take up a large amount of these limitations.

5. Click on the text icon at the top of the edit screen here:

Here you will see the code surrounding the text you entered for the show description. Click at the end of this and allow an extra line or two to space the video code away from the text.

6. Paste the video code where you would like it to show and then click ok twice.

Once this code is added to the show description PEO will edit the code and remove the parts that are not needed to display the video. If you go back to edit the show description and click on the text icon again, you will see an updated code. You can edit this code again from here, however, if you want to change the code you would be best to copy out the full code and then paste in your new code in full. Leaving partial or incomplete code can cause errors when you need to edit the description again.

If you would like to use a basic code as a template you could use the following code. The highlighted part of the code is just the video url as you would see it shown on the address bar of your browser when you view a video on Youtube.

The size of the video you have selected is important, you can change this on Youtube with the custom width and height in pixels or you can edit this in the url above. In this case the video is W 351 and H 248 you can change this to suit the show descriptions on your site. You would be best to edit this in the code either on Youtube or in the code rather than re sizing the video on the edit show description screen. The height and width are referenced 4 times in the code as seen here

You can also add additional text after the code should you need to. The video should show on The Patron Edge Online site as soon as you click ok on the edit screen but if not you may need to close and re open your browser before this video shows on The Patron Edge Online site.

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