Brightcove Player Sample: Enlarge Player on Mouseover

In this topic, you will learn how to use JavaScript and CSS to enlarge a small player when you mouse over it, and then shrink it to small size when you mouse off.

Player example

Mouse over and off the player below to see the functionality.

See the Pen 18165-enlarge-player-mouseover by Brightcove Learning Services (@bcls1969) on CodePen.

Source code

View the complete solution on GitHub.

Using the CodePen

Here are some tips to effectively use the above CodePen:

  • Toggle the actual display of the player by clicking the Result button.
  • Click the HTML/CSS/JS buttons to display ONE of the code types.
  • Later in this document the logic, flow and styling used in the application will be discussed in the Player/HTML configuration, Application flow and Application styling sections. The best way to follow along with the information in those sections is to:
    1. Click the EDIT ON CODEPEN button in the CodePen and have the code available in one browser/browser tab.
    2. In CodePen, adjust what code you want displayed. You can change the width of different code sections within CodePen.
    3. View the Player/HTML configuration, Application flow and/or Application styling sections in another browser/browser tab. You will now be able to follow the code explanations and at the same time view the code.

Development sequence

Here is the recommended development sequence:

  1. Use the In-Page embed player implementation to test the functionality of your player, plugin and CSS (if CSS is needed)
  2. Put the plugin's JavaScript and CSS into separate files for local testing
  3. Deploy the plugin code and CSS to your server once you have worked out any errors
  4. Use Studio to add the plugin and CSS to your player
  5. Replace the In-Page embed player implementation if you determine that the iframe implementation is a better fit (detailed in next section)

For details about these steps, review the Step-by-Step: Plugin Development guide.

iframe or In-Page embed

When developing enhancements for the Brightcove Player you will need to decide if the code is a best fit for the iframe or In-Page embed implementation. The best practice recommendation is to build a plugin for use with an iframe implementation. The advantages of using the iframe player are:

  • No collisions with existing JavaScript and/or CSS
  • Automatically responsive
  • The iframe eases use in social media apps (or whenever the video will need to "travel" into other apps)

Although integrating the In-Page embed player can be more complex, there are times when you will plan your code around that implementation. To generalize, this approach is best when the containing page needs to communicate to the player. Specifically, here are some examples:

  • Code in the containing page needs to listen for and act on player events
  • The player uses styles from the containing page
  • The iframe will cause app logic to fail, like a redirect from the containing page

Even if your final implementation does not use the iframe code, you can still use the In-Page embed code with a plugin for your JavaScript and a separate file for your CSS. This encapsulates your logic so that you can easily use it in multiple players.

Implementation details

There is additional logic using the Player API to remove the shrink behavior while the video is playing, and then restore it again when the video is paused or ends. As created here, this sample must use the Advanced (in-page) player embed. You could create this functionality using the iframe embed code also, but the logic would be a little different and would not lend itself to being turned into a plugin.

API/Plugin resources used

API Events
play
pause
ended

Player/HTML configuration

In this example, the Brightcove Player code uses a style attribute with the width and height properties set to 100%.

Other HTML

A player wrapper <div> element is added around the player embed code to dynamically control the size of the player.

Remember to add the id attribute to the video-js tag in the player embed code.

<video-js id="myPlayerID"
...

Application flow

The basic logic behind this application is:

  • Define the large and small player sizes.
  • Add functions to make the player large or small.
  • Add listeners for the mouseover and mouseout events.
  • On mouseover, make the player large. On mouseout, make the player small. While the video is playing, keep the player large. When the video is paused or the video ends, make the player small.

Get DOM references

Get a reference to the Brightcove Player and the wrapper. Define the size of the large and small players.

Change the size of the player

Find the code which is labeled:

// +++ Change the size of the player +++

Add functions to make the player large and small.

Listen for the mouseout event

Find the code which is labeled:

// +++ Listen for the mouseout event +++

Listen for the mouseout event on the playerWrapper. When the event is triggered, make the player small.

Control the player size

Find the code which is labeled:

// +++ Control the player size +++

Add logic to do the following:

  • Initially make the player small.
  • On mouseover, make the player large.
  • On play event, keep the player large.
  • On pause or ended events, make the player small.
  • On mouseout, make the player small.

Application styling

The CSS initially sets the playerWrapper and defines the transition between the small and large player.

Plugin code

Normally when converting the JavaScript into a Brightcove Player plugin nominal changes are needed. One required change is to replace the standard use of the ready() method with the code that defines a plugin.

Here is the very commonly used start to JavaScript code that will work with the player:

videojs.getPlayer('myPlayerID').ready(function() {
var myPlayer = this;
...
});

You will change the first line to use the standard syntax to start a Brightcove Player plugin:

videojs.registerPlugin('pluginName', function(options) {
var myPlayer = this;
...
});

As mentioned earlier, you can see the plugin's JavaScript code in this document's corresponding GitHub repo: enlarge-player.js.

Using the plugin with a player

Once you have the plugin's CSS and JavaScript files stored in an Internet accessible location, you can use the plugin with a player. In Studio's PLAYERS module you can choose a player, then in the PLUGINS section add the URLs to the CSS and JavaScript files, and also add the Name and Options, if options are needed.

Implementation notes

  • If you want to be able to specify the small and large sizes of the player for each instance, you could pass those in as options to the plugin, and then modify the plugin code to read the values from the options object. See the Step-by-Step: Plugin Development for more detail on how to do this.

  • If you want to use the iframe player instead of the inpage player. The player wrapper div would surround the iframe tag, and the Javascript to manage the size of the player would be very similar to what you see here. It would need to be in the HTML page, however, rather than a player plugin.