OSNews

1. How many pages do you read the source code of in a day? Pretty honestly doesn’t matter one iota to 99% of websites. It’s all churned out by messy blog engine anyway. My website’s code is specifically designed to be read (and people do) and even then I tried to make Video for Everybody fit in reasonably well.

2. Using JavaScript to enhance a solution is just fine. Video for Everbody can be enhanced by adding JavaScript controls. It’s _requiring_ JavaScript just to access a plain HTML tag that’s plain wrong. Does it annoy you when you can’t view an image on a site because of someone’s broken JavaScript?

JavaScript may be universal in _web browsers_, but it’s not universal in RSS readers, spiders and robots, screen readers and who knows what systems in the future.

:)

edit: Smiley added because I wish to educate, not interrogate.

Edited 2009-06-19 16:26 UTC

Good points. The screen reader that my visually impaired friend uses does work with Javascript. With all of the sites that already require javascript for stupid reasons, its almost a requirement for them.

Code that isn't easy to understand is more likely to be broken ( accidentally or maliciously) with out noticing.

Great points you have raised; it actually brings me to tears when I see such crappy code being written out on the internet. It might not be so bad if it were solely amateurs doing it but I see people who were actually educated at polytech or university making the worlds worse code - if I was their tutor I would be ashamed for not instilling some good habits.

I remember when I was learning some basic web design - even in the earliest classes you could fail an assignment simply by failing to make your website accessible, cleanly coded, non-verbose and descriptive comments for maintenance (if for a large organisation with a high staff turn over).

Kroc, I have been working (independently) on another solution that still uses Javascript to gradually enhance, but uses plain HTML5 video markup on the page, which makes it very easy to deploy.

I have written in my blog about it: http://gettingsoftware.posterous.com/html5flash-using-html5-video-a...

The main reason why I went down the Javascript path, is because I wanted to use the HTML5 video API to create interactive media players, so I needed a fallback that could do a bit more than just playing a video. Probably these two approaches should be combined to provide a fallback for those without Javascript or without Flash (but with Quicktime or Windows Media Player)

This is a very good concept and I’ve seen other people asking about this problem. Give me a few days for me to write to you properly with my thoughts.

The point of a fallback is that it works when something is missing; requiring JS entirely defeats that purpose.

With Video for Everbody if you are using IE on Vista or up then even if you have Flash uninstalled, QuickTime uninstalled and JavaScript disabled - the video will *still* play

A lot of sites use Javascript for file uploads. That does not mean fileuploads should only be possible using Javascript.

The basic html file upload works just fine without Javascript. In the same way, the basic "video" element should work without Javascript, having basic controls for stop, start, and the timeline should be included in the basic video html controls.

The implementation should also allow the controls to be hidden or formatted using CSS and controlled using JS.

Right, which is _perfectly fine_, as long as the Video tag is in the document itself and not added by JavaScript. It’s okay to enhance a video with JavaScript, those of us with JS switched off when we enter a site can still play the video using its native controls or by right-clicking on it. Added safety, but at the same time no loss in functionality.

I’m working on that now

Edit: Should be back in 30 mins, it was just the DDoS protection on the server kicking in.

Edited 2009-06-19 17:38 UTC

Because as the letter outlines, a million crappy dreamweaver developers are going to be copy/pasting code from somewhere, and if that’s JS-only video insertion then you’re not going to see a lot of videos, ever, even though your browser is perfectly capable if only the website’s programmers had a clue.

This matters to everybody using the web either publishing, or viewing video in the near future.

If you don’t care, that’s fine—but I’m fighting so that you don’t have to care and video “just works” for you.

Please refer Dreamweaver developers to this post on using audio and video in Firefox:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_audio_and_video_in_Firefox

It's well written and doesn't require JavaScript. It even specifically mentions how to use Flash as a fallback without using JavaScript.

Did you RTFA? No? Go back, and you’ll see the link pointing to hacks.mozilla.org

Is it just me, or did someone forget a closing italics tag?

Edited 2009-06-19 19:58 UTC

The linked article looks like it was perfectly justified to me - did YOU even look at the article he linked to? NO? Go look.

You misinterpret the spec (yes, I have read it).

<video> has a JavaScript interface (so that you can roll your own controls and interact with it) -- but JavaScript is not required for the video element to exist and to play video. The video element works without any JavaScript.

That is no different than changing an images size or src attributes using JavaScript. Completely optional and layered on top.

What Mozilla have published is a method of using JavaScript to detect capabilities and then write elements into the page using JavaScript. This is universally bad, regardless of the output being Video / Audio or Img.

I got ya. It's about a code snippet, not the implementation itself.

I did understand that the spec meant that but from the way I read your letter the first time it looked like you were objecting to that.

In that case I agree with you, as browser sniffing is never a good thing.

Well, the problem is there are no released browsers at all that even support HTML 5. I do agree with your letter, however according to the Mozilla site you do not need JavaScript to run the video tag with the beta. It is not a requirement. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_audio_and_video_in_Firefox

Ignore the hacks blog, as that is not from the actual developers of Firefox. What you have been reading is the thoughts of others, not how the standard will actually be implemented, nor is implemented (please try the RC's)

The point isn't so much using JavaScript at all, or using it to control the playing of embeded media, but using JavaScript to dynamically insert the Video element in the first place. On a site where JavaScript is being used to selectively embed the video tag when the page is rendered, browsers with JavaScript turned off (or other apps that may not be full browsers and won't implement JavaScript at all) will not see the Video element at all. I think that was his point: coding a page that will not actually have any content at all without JavaScript being enabled is a bad idea.

Edited 2009-06-19 20:05 UTC

Downgrading to QT before WM will cause a lot of grief for Windows users.

Yeah, really - when it comes to CPU-hogging, Flash looks downright svelte compared to the Windows version of Quicktime.

I think it is about being practical. MP4 through Flash is omnipresent. QuickTime can play it. Windows Media Player, out of the box until Windows Vista, cannot (correct me if I am wrong).

If I understand correctly, the quote you reference is talking about the area inside the <video></video> tags, saying the contents you put there *should* be used as a fallback for older browsers, *but not as a fallback for accessibility purposes*....

I don't think Kroc was ever making an argument for using the fallback content for accessibility, though. He was saying that in the future, the <video> tag itself will be good for accessibility.... But this can only be possible if it is directly embedded into the HTML, and not inserted via JavaScript.

Edited 2009-06-20 09:42 UTC

But in what world is a JavaScript-only solution simply *better* than an HTML-solution, or an HTML-solution that optionally uses JavaScript on top?

As the article says -- what of robots and spiders wanting to index <video> and do mashups?

I never said it was better or worse. As I mentioned I advocate the non-JavaScript mechanism myself. You should be directing your comments at the website that is using the JavaScript based fallback and not at Mozilla as a whole.

Kroc (and myself, for I have signed it) are trying to encourage Mozilla to have best-practice guidelines. This letter shouldn’t exist, but it does, because it seems while some at Mozilla completely agree, there are article writers that do not (or rather, have not thought about it, choose not to, we dont know).

Want to have a javascript-injecting video post? Fine, just prefix it with dont-do-this-unless-you-must in 24em red Comic Sans.

Recent faux pas on Planet Mozilla: video demo that useragent sniffed, SlideShare widgets, Vimeo, Youtube & flash-only air.mozilla.com. Not a very good advert for Open Web, is it?

Basically: If it can be done better, it should.

How about the Open Video Conference, whose live streams required... Flash.

Just saying.

Whole-heartedly agree, myself and kroc were ranting about it on twitter (+identi.ca)

Planet Mozilla is an aggregation of weblogs of people that contribute to Mozilla. Mozilla has no control over the content of the weblogs and cannot tell them what to do. Mozilla does not even mandate what employees of Mozilla can blog about. For actual mozilla.com resources I agree that using the video element is good.

You mention air.mozilla.com. It has for a while now used Ogg Theora and the video element for streaming.

Certainly true, but as a mother to it’s engineers and community Mozilla can set the standards that people *should* follow. Sometimes you can’t leave everybody to their own devices because that’s not enough.

If Mozilla were to put out an official announcement that they will be using HTML5 video on their own sites, and provide code samples, instruction and encouragement to their bloggers -- uptake would be swift.

Quite simply not enough people are thinking about HTML5 video, it’s a complete afterthought and they use Flash instead out of habit and a lack of sample code / encouragement.

Video for Everybody only requires two encodes. I don't know where you get the idea of 4 from -- the FAQ even answers that question. Video for Everybody uses just one OGG encode and one MP4 encode. Perfectly reasonable.

AND a .mov encode and a .swf encode for the fallbacks for IE...

Gah, I'd pull it up now and point out the exact code, but his site is returning 403 right now.

Ok, got it from my cache... alright, my bad there, the .swf is a generic flash player.

At which point why the **** use that 38 lines of code to do what that file you would already need to provide for fallbacks can handle in all browsers using six lines of code?

Edited 2009-06-20 09:24 UTC

NO.

The MP4 file is used in Safari, Quicktime and in the Flash as well (Flash 10 can play H.264)

The OGG file is used in Chrome 3 and Firefox 3.

Stop spouting FUD when you haven't read the article and the actual author is right here, correcting you.

I don't know where you get 38 lines from. In the article, I provide a more compact example that's 22 lines, and even then, that's well spaced; because technically only one single line break is required by the code.

And even then, what does that matter? Most websites output badly indented code all over the place that nobody reads. VFE is a *solution* to an end-user problem.

Video for Everybody works perfectly with IE. It's just HTML, there's no voodoo. I've just made some code that means website owners can embed video and ensure it plays in more places than just Flash alone can reach. What the crap is so evil about that??

Edited 2009-06-20 09:45 UTC

Ah yes, the wild claim of FUD when you cannot argue the actual points... Though is the site being actively edited right now? It seems to alternate between 404 and 403 and then pulling it up.

I READ the article (after zooming in 60% in opera to make it legible on my system since I'm on a 1920x1200, run large fonts/120dpi and don't plaster my nose a foot from the screen) though I only glanced through the code, but lemme ask you this:

Are you saying the website in question will pass any code validator? Are you saying it meets WCAG guidelines for accessability? Are you saying it does not use fixed metric fonts? Are you saying HTML 5 is actually real world deployable or even will be within the next five years? Are you saying that most existing major successful video websites do not in fact use flash to make direct downloads impossible? Are you saying you can't use Javascript without graceful degredation? Are you saying that the 'video for everyone' doesn't link in at LEAST three different media files to do the job of one .flv? Are you saying it is not 38 lines of code once comments are stripped to do the job of a 6 to 12 line validating HTML 4 OBJECT tag without any of that IE conditional nonsense and bloated code?

The best you can come up with is to argue that I miscounted the number of video files used - an easy mistake since you state the SAME MP4 file seven times, and the same .ogv file twice, and STILL have to load flash to give it backwards compatability?

You'll excuse me when I say the whole thing reads like ranting about some oddly percieved butthurt from using FLASH or Javascript, both proven and reasonably reliable technologies (when not abused for things they weren't meant for) But then I'm one of the people that open/closed means jack **** to me, I just want it to work and if that means closed and even PAYING to use it, big deal. Again the whole obsession with ogg over flash means bupkis to me and likely means bupkis to anyone apart from the handful of people raging against the 'evil corporations'.

Fight the power man... The man is keeping you down.

-- edit --

Alright, are you actively changing the page every two minutes or something? I saw no compact version, now the code isn't even showing up on the page at all (had to go all the way to the live demo page)

Which with the 400, 404 and 403 errors is getting entertaining at best, laughable at worst.

-- edit edit --

Oh, and like 22 lines with IE conditionals is somehow better than 38 for a lousy little video embed? (to come up with the 38 I took the only code sample I saw and stripped unneeded comment lines) Gah and we wonder why we see the average website blowing 60-120k of markup to deliver 1 to 5k of content.

Edited 2009-06-20 09:58 UTC

This is not about insulting his personal website nor about whether HTML5 will be implementable. It's about one f--king tag that is quite useful and without question implementable within the year.

And by the way, "I don't know if I should trust the opinion" of someone who brings up Microsoft as the prime example of "correctly implementing standards".

When using that one tag neccessitates some ten to fifteen extra lines of code and STILL including the old way of handling it, that's not an improvement or a great way to sell people on using it.


I didn't say they did. They most certainly did not even come close, even with IE8. What I said was they held off on even TRYING to add HTML5 and/or CSS3 until they made an attempt at getting HTML4/CSS2 correct.

Key word being attempt, as they fell a bit short of that goal since they have to maintain backwards compatibility in trident, or risk breaking all those applications that used Trident the same way many programs use XULRunner.

Were that Mozilla showed that type of battleplan, but instead they have people coding **** not even out of draft when they've not even polished off specifications that have been in 'final' for OVER A DECADE... as evidenced by bugzilla entries about rendering bugs that have been around since before Firefox was a twinkle in a FLOSS fanboy's eye that have repeatedly been marked as 'assigned' for the next major iteration then unmarked when the code to fix it never materializes in time.

Edited 2009-06-20 10:06 UTC

That's the way web development has always been. Code in the fallbacks until the transition period is over. That's the way it's always been and there's unfortunately nothing that can be done about it.

That doesn't automatically make the <video> tag useless, it just means that things are a little more complicated in the interim, until all browsers have implemented it.

You can use just the video tag on it's own and that's it.

My code specifically uses the built in facilities to fall back to Flash and QuickTime so that the same code can be be used to transition a site over to the video element without dumping old browsers like IE6.

You say yourself you don't care as long as it works, so why are you ranting against the code, when you are implying you only care about the final solution, which works far better than Flash alone. When native HTML5 video is used, it uses far less browser resources.

The compact version has always been there. I can now, since I helped testing the page.

These are references to files, they only need one file for all the same references. Do you understand URLs?
You also don’t seem to understand fallback. Only one file is loaded once it has found a playable-option.
Let’s walk through references with mother…

Native Ogg - Chrome, Firefox 3.5, Safari (if you have XiphQT)
Native h264 - Chrome, Safari
Flash 10-based h264 - any browser with Flash 10
Flash 10-based h264 - hack for IE
Quicktime h264 - iPhone
Quicktime h264 - IE
Quicktime h264 - Safari/Chrome

You forgot to add:
(Windows Media Player loads if QuickTime is not installed for IE/Vista and up)

QuickTime - iPhone
Windows Media Player - IE/Vista,7
Final Fallback Text with Donwload Links - VLC / Pam Pre / Anything else

I can't see why people are so vehemently against something that makes sure that videos just play in their browser and they don't have to care about the code at all.

Edited 2009-06-20 10:14 UTC

Englisc, mōdor wyrter! Gedōn ēow cweþan hit!?!

I didn't say load, I said STATE. I get twitchy about declaring the same file twice in a standard flash embed to get a validating cross browser implementation, 7 times for one video format and twice for another? Bloat Bloat Bloat Bloat Bloat in the markup for no good reason apart from implementing something that apparently isn't ready for prime-time.



You mean dropthrough, and yes I realized only ONE of them is actually loaded. It would be pretty ***** stupid otherwise. Hence my dislike for it - since we're talking about stating the SAME basic file/embed over and over nine different ways with two encodings. **** that on a deployment website.

Though I have equal wrath for the Mozilla page on the exact same grounds in terms of technique.

Seems like one hell of a lot of effort to avoid using a FLV. I could MAYBE see the MP4 playback fallback for 'less capable' devices like the iPhone, but there has to be a point where you tell them "get to a real computer you're not playing the HD version of this movie"

But then I'm more in favor of letting the user CHOOSE their video format before playback instead of just shoving the choice down their throat using browser sniffing and other chicanery. That's the path that leads to mistakes like Opera 10 being detected as Opera 1.0

Edited 2009-06-20 10:19 UTC

OMG, noo, a few bytes duplicated that mod_gzip can vanish away…


Might wanna blame shitty browser implementations for that


You’ve missed the point of it entirely.
We are at a point of moving from one crappy method of doing things, to a simple clean single-tag that will cover everything.
As we migrate to the new, we still have to bring along the old, or else, the new alienates people, and we’re stuck with the old.
Everything inside the <video> you see should have been used previously for video, the fact it didn’t is besides the point.

I don’t know how the future will go, but it is very likely in a year or two, the code can be trimmed to have fewer fallbacks- even so, the previous verbose code will still work.


It’s still only two media files, one mini flash flv, and some basic HTML. wtf is your problem?


And for the people that didn’t have Flash? What did they see? An empty box? Seems nothing to me to get that advantage…

I'm not going to bother quoting any of the crap you have posted so far in this thread - there isn't a shred of it that is worthy of a reasoned response.

If you don't like the video tag and think using flash video is the way to go, well have fun. To each their own - I couldn't care less. But don't pretend your reasons are rational - they aren't.

The purpose of the web having a standards body are not to tell the browser implementers what to do - that is YOUR JOB. Web developers are the ones who decide what standards get supported, not implementers. Remember the blink tag? The point is if everyone uses the video tag and gives it preferential treatment, guess what happens???

I'm a professional web developer and I definitely want video tag support. Therefore I am going to implement it. The browsers will come around eventually...

Hehe, using Microsoft as a sterling example of "sticking to the standards" -- what a laugh!!!!

The <video> tag is something so basic that it should have been in HTML since version 3.2. That is the reason Mozilla (and every other browser maker other than Microsoft, btw) is pushing for it, "official" standardization process be damned.

I believe Kroc's hosting provider removed the actual video. Not sure though.

Yes, sorry to say that the videos are down at this moment, but I should have it solved before the day is out. Apologies for the inconvenience!

You’ve got your wish!

SWFObject is another JavaScript solution and so isn’t as comprehensive as Video for Everybody, but also as we will bring out in the podcast soon to be published -- <video> goes well beyond what Flash can do, and should be favoured.