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YouTube Insertion Frustration
How do I get Zemanta to stop putting a thumbnail of a YouTube video in, overwriting my insertion command to put in a YouTube video into a WordPress post?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Zemanta should replace the thumbnail with the actual youtube video upon save. Is this maybe failing for you?
We understand that's not perfect but right we have to do that due to technical limitations of wordpress platform. -
Inappropriate?Why does Zemanta even replace a URL entry with an image? With anything? This is a native WordPress command string, and you're messing with it!
This worked fine until recently. This is the first I've experienced it, and there seems to be no way to stop Zemanta from appropriating my explicit entry. I've tried it in the HTML editor, and your program still zaps it.
I wouldn't shift the blame to WordPress. I'll uninstall Zemanta if I have to get this to work. Your plug-in is causing the problem.
Also, why is Zemanta FORCING itself into my post in this way? Usually, it suggests. Now, I can't make it STOP!!
I’m really frustrated
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Inappropriate?By the way, I've been a huge fan of Zemanta. This is the first mistake I've seen you guys make. Don't cop a plea. Don't shift the blame. You've messed up, please now fix it.
I’m sad
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Inappropriate?Since I implemented this, I should also probably explain what is happening and why. Jure wasn't avoiding explanation, but he probably can't describe it in every detail.
We recently started suggesting YouTube videos that are listed in gallery part of the widget. We wanted videos to work as everything else does in our widget, which among other things mean that if you try to re-edit a post, that it will recognize our media and you'll be able to work with it as otherwise, which means easily remove by clicking on it in gallery, drag something else over it or resize it.
The problem happens on WP.com, where YouTube videos are added as [youtube=<link />]. What we do with our media items is to replace them on save/publish with such a link.
I think it is quite obvious that it is difficult to distinguish between links that were ours and those that you added on your own.
Hence we were left with a decision to either leave all of them as custom links and break what we think our users expect of us or handle other links as well.
Our guess was that later was better, but it obviously isn't what you want for which I am truly sorry. If you can think of a better solution, we would be happy to consider it. We are thinking about it too, but so far we haven't come up with a better plan.
I’m disappointed.
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Inappropriate?Hi Marko,
Great to have your ear! The main problem is that this is violating my blogging. Every other Zemanta feature is a suggestion, not an intrusion -- tags, links, pictures, stories. This is the first time I've seen Zemanta appropriate part of my post without my permission, do something that messes it up, and leave me no option.
Frankly, it's very clear what the option is -- suggest, and let me insert it. Don't insert it yourselves. It doesn't work, and it has me on the verge of uninstalling a tool that I find otherwise incredibly valuable and of which I've been a huge fan and public advocate when I speak on these topics.
I think you chose poorly. You should leave the links as custom links. Obviously, the author has inserted the media asset and knows what he/she wants. You shouldn't intrude.
I think you guessed dead wrong.
Please fix!
Thanks.
I’m confused
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Inappropriate?Can you be more specific what doesn't work?
What should happen, if everything worked correctly, is following:
1. When inserting youtube video from our gallery, it should insert its image representation. This image can be resized and its size will determine the size of inserted video.
2. If link was inserted as [youtube=...] then we should leave it alone while editing.
3. When post gets saved or published, ALL videos get changed to their [youtube=...] representation.
4. If video is further edited or you go and re-edit an older post that includes a youtube video, then ALL included videos will have their [youtube=...] representation replaced with their thumbnail (that can be resized...). When we do this, we try to read video's dimensions, size its thumbnail accordingly and make sure it doesn't get lost on any later republish or save.
5. If that post gets republished or saved again, then step 3. should happen.
So if everything is working as intended, it should never break anything and videos in post should always be saved as [youtube=...] links. If that isn't happening, then there must be a bug.
Of course even if above steps are happening, it isn't what you want. It is our understanding that most users of Zemanta prefer to work with image representations, but it is also true you are not alone who doesn't.
You are right that we are touching parts that weren't inserted by us and that is at least inappropriate if not completely wrong.
Ideally we would love to distinguish between our links and others, but that is difficult because through time a post might produce a different set of suggestions (we gather new information all the time and what used to be the best pick might not be best in week's time). Hence when we encounter a youtube link, we don't have a way to tell if its ours or not.
One options that was considered was adding additional HTML wrapper around our links, so we could tell them apart, but we decided not to do this because we have been previously, in my opinion justifiably, berated for inserting too much HTML code.
So here we are now in situation, where every options upsets a group of our users and no group is wrong. It is a problem that should be limited to wordpress.com, since standalone WP installations are a bit more flexible (again, if this isn't true, then it is a bug).
All I can currently do is ask you for a bit more patience while we try to find a solution that would satisfy everyone. I can assure you that this is high on our list of tasks to do. -
Inappropriate?I put in [youtube= . . .] and when I save it, it gets saved as a thumbnail of the video, but not as the player. It gets jammed out to the right, under the Zemanta Reblog logo at the bottom. It's a mess.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Thank you. Obviously there's more wrong with our code than we knew.
We'll try to fix this as soon as possible and most certainly before end of this month.
I’m thankful
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Inappropriate?Hi Marko,
One sidenote. Messing around with this a little more during our exhanges (and thanks for the prompt and thorough exchanges), it seemed that the FIRST save worked OK. It was when the post would either auto-save, or when I'd save it again, that the asset would go bad.
The workaround I found was to put in the [youtube= . . .] just before publishing, and letting the Publish event act as the save. Then it worked. I just won't edit the post again!
;-)
Good luck. You do have a great service with Zemanta. Keep it awesome!
I’m satisfied
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Inappropriate?Hi Kent,
We published a bunch of fixes today which we hope should fix your problem as well. Could you please check and let me know if they do?
We shouldn't break videos anymore and we should only replace those shortcodes that were inserted by our widget.
I’m hopeful
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