Kaltura using as a nearly independently service from elgg

Hello,

I've got a question: I had the Idea to use kaltura not just for blog posts or other. I want to make it a video platform like youtube.com, with elgg login (e-mail-address and password from elgg registered users). Maybe also so independent from elgg, that I only have to call another website and log in with elgg password. (E.g. elgg site is example.com and the video portal is video.com and I use the password from example.com to log in video.com).

Is there any chance to change the code so that I can do this?

 

I hope you can understand my English :-)

  • Hello

    I have been working with kaltura_video during the past weeks (mainly converting it to Elgg 1.8).

    I'm not sure what you mean by making the video site independent. What features would you like to have that are missing form the original version? In the current version people can sort videos by tags and categories and there are separate pages for own videos and videos by others. Also rating and commenting are built-in. I think it is already quite similar to youtube.

  • Or do you mean by independent that the site would contain only videos and nothing else (like blogs, pages, groups etc.)?

  • (elgg 1.7.7)

    I mean that the site has to exist like it is now. But I haven't seen functions like a startpage (like on youtube where are displayed the most viewed videos etc.) and maybe the function that you can call a flat url with a page displayed even if you are not logged in... maybe I haven't seen this features...

  • This kind of start page doesn't really belong to kaltura_video plugin since it is site specific customization. A custom start page is usually made by creating an own version the Elgg's custom_index plugin. This page could be modified to view for example the newest and best rated videos.

    Elgg doesn't support flat urls but of course some external service could be used for making the urls. A video is visible also to non-logged-in users if it is defined as public.

    So I suppose that by creating an own version of the custom_index plugin would get you quite close to your goal?

  • that's right...Thanks!

    Just one question: du you know how to make an elgg login? I mean, on many websites you can see: login with facebook or something like that. I'd like to make it for my services (maybe I use kaltura in the original version without any elgg code/customisation). The users schould be able to create just one account for elgg and the video community.

  • So you need functionality that would allow users to login to your non-elgg site using the username and password of your Elgg site? That could be made using the Elgg web services API. http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Web_Services

    Enable the web services API from your Elgg site and make some client code that connects to the API using the login credentials as parameters. There is a built-in API-method auth.gettoken in Elgg API that authenticates using username and password.

  • Thank you! Seems to be quite much work...

  • Yes, it is if you're not already familiar with it :)

    I have actually made some client code that can be used to connect the API. (Basicly I copied some of the API code from Elgg core.) I can take a look if I can find it from somewhere...

  • Ok, I found it. The code is customer specific, so I won't add it to my plugins. But  you can use it to create your own web services.

    Send your email for example as a private message and I'll send you the code.

  • It seems that there's also other people who have a need for this kind of plugin, so I suppose I might as well upload it to the community. :)

    I'll tidy up the code first a bit and remove all customer specific stuff. I'll try to get it done by the end of the week.