How can I set up IXIASOFT CCMS so that writers can insert videos into topics?

You can set up a new image format to use videos in your HTML output.

Symptom

I would like to include videos in my HTML output.

Problem

Video in HTML outputs is not natively supported and requires some customization of the IXIASOFT CCMS and Output Generator. IXIASOFT does not provide a fully automated solution for inserting videos because requirements vary between customers.

Note: The recommended way to insert videos by oXygen for their standalone version is not compatible with the IXIASOFT CCMS. It inserts an <object> image in the topic instead of an <image> element and does not require any output customization but IXIASOFT CCMS does not have any UI action that inserts an <object> element.

Solution

To allow the use of videos in HTML outputs, perform the following:

In the TEXTML Administration perspective, edit the system/conf/mimetypes.xml file to add the video format. For example:
```
<mimetype type="video/mp4">
	<extensions>
		<defaultextension>mp4</defaultextension>
	</extensions>
</mimetype>
```

In the TEXTML Administration perspective, edit the system/conf/multiimage.xml file to add a new video image format to both the <formatnames> and <imagetype> sections. For example:

<formatnames>
	<formatname>LowRes</formatname>
	<formatname>HiRes</formatname>
	<formatname>Source</formatname>
	<formatname>Video</formatname>
</formatnames>

<imagetypes>
	<type description="" translate="no">Screen Capture</type>
	<type description="" translate="no">Equation</type>-->
	<type description="" translate="no">Diagrams</type>
	<type description="" translate="no">Icons</type>
	<type description="" translate="no">Video</type>
</imagetypes>

To create the video object in IXIASOFT CCMS, create a new image and insert a caption frame of the video to the LowRes format and the video to the Video format. Make sure that the LowRes format is set to default. The LowRes version will be displayed in topics when inserted.
Add a special outputclass attribute to the <image> element to identify that it will have to be processed in a specific way in the OT.
During the output generation process, the Output Generator will download the entire image object and the image metadata in XML. By default, the LowRes format will be extracted and that is what the topic will reference. You need to add two things in your output processing:
- In your Ant conductor file, before the content is passed to the OT, extract the video file from the images. This can be done with an ant script that goes through all of the images, and for each one that has a video format, extract the video file from the image .zip file and put it beside the image file.
- In the OT, add the appropriate code within the HTML output to embed or link to the video. You will have to add special processing for images with the specific outputclass in order to create the proper html code. It could embed the video directly using the HTML <object> element or it could create an <img> element pointing to the caption frame and add a link to open the video in a separate window.