Adding a Youtube Video in the Background of a Blogger blog

Some of you might have wondered how to put a video to play in the blog's background, so that instead of having just a color or an image, to have a video. We can do this thanks to the jQuery plugin Tubular that lets you use a YouTube video as a background of a web page.

Although the result can be very original and attractive, I must say it has three drawbacks: they can not be silenced, if the video has ads, they will also appear, and it can slow the loading time of the blog, so if anyone wants to use it, may consider putting it only on special occasions, or on blogs that load very quickly.

Also it can be done in HTML5, the problem with this method is that you need to load the video in 3 different formats (.mp4, .webm and .ovg) along with a picture for browsers that do not support them, so this YouTube option seems more practical to me, despite the drawbacks.

blogger gadgets, blogger tricks, blogger widgets

You can see it working on this demo blog

Steps 

1. The first step is to just above the </head> tag, this script:
<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>

<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
/* jQuery tubular plugin
|* by Sean McCambridge
|* http://www.seanmccambridge.com/tubular
|* Copyright 2012
|* licensed under the MIT License
|* Enjoy.
|*
|* Thanks,
|* Sean */

var videoWidth = 853;
var videoRatio = 16/9;
var defaultDiv = 'wrapper-video';

jQuery.fn.tubular = function(videoId,wrapperId) {
wrapperId = (typeof(wrapperId) == undefined) ? 'wrapper-video' : wrapperId;
t = setTimeout("resizePlayer()",1000);

jQuery('html,body').css('height','100%');
jQuery('body').prepend('<div id="yt-container" style="overflow: hidden; position: fixed; z-index: 1;"><div id="ytapiplayer">You need Flash player 8+ and JavaScript enabled to view this video.</div></div><div id="video-cover" style="position: fixed; width: 100%; height: 100%; z-index: 2;"></div>');
jQuery('#' + wrapperId).css({position: 'relative', 'z-index': 99});

var ytplayer = 0;
var pageWidth = 0;
var pageHeight = 0;
var videoHeight = videoWidth / videoRatio;
var duration;

var iframe = '<iframe id="myytplayer" width="' + videoWidth + '" height="' + videoHeight + '" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/' + videoId + '?autoplay=1&controls=0&modestbranding=1&showinfo=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&version=3&wmode=transparent&loop=1&playlist=' + videoId + '" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>';

jQuery('#ytapiplayer').html(iframe);
jQuery(window).resize(function() {
resizePlayer();
});
return this;
}

function onYouTubePlayerReady(playerId) {
ytplayer = document.getElementById("myytplayer");
ytplayer.setPlaybackQuality('medium');
ytplayer.mute();
}

function resizePlayer() {
var newWidth = jQuery(window).width();
var newHeight = jQuery(window).height();
jQuery('#yt-container, #video-cover').width(newWidth).height(newHeight);
if (newHeight > newWidth / videoRatio) {
newWidth = newHeight * videoRatio;
}
jQuery('#myytplayer').width(newWidth).height(newWidth/videoRatio);
}

//]]>
</script>
And this one too:
<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
$().ready(function() {
$('body').tubular('61BLn00AN_w','wrapper-video');
});
//]]>
</script>
2. Then locate the <body> tag (CTRL + F)
Or if you are using a template from Template Designer, find this line:
<body expr:class='&quot;loading&quot; + data:blog.mobileClass'>
3. Under either of these two, add this:
<div id='wrapper-video'>
4. Now search for the </body> tag, and before it put this:
</div>
Save the changes and that's it. In red you must put the ID of Youtube video, the ID are the characters that appear at the end of the URL:


Remember: There is no option to mute, so if you don't want to have sound as in the demo blog, you have to choose a video that has no sound. I also recommend using a video in HD in case you don't want any black parts to show around it.

If you are using jQuery, remove other versions that you have to avoid duplication and have problems.

Author | jQuery Tubular

Create a Background Slideshow for Blogger

In the previous post we saw how to make the blog's background fill the screen regardless of the resolution of the monitor. The method that we'll use now with jQuery is a plugin called BackStretch which also has the option of creating a slideshow of pictures as a blog wallpaper without losing the property of adjusting to the width and height of the screen.

slideshow for blogger, blogger widgets

What we will do in this entry is just this, try to make the blog's background to have some images that are changing, all with fade effect between each transition.

You can see an example in this demo blog.

To put this slideshow in the blog's background, just go to Template - Edit HTML and before </head> add the following code:
<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script>
//<![CDATA[
/*
* jQuery Backstretch
* Version 1.2.8
* http://srobbin.com/jquery-plugins/jquery-backstretch/
* Add a dynamically-resized background image to the page
* Copyright (c) 2012 Scott Robbin (srobbin.com)
* Licensed under the MIT license
* https://raw.github.com/srobbin/jquery-backstretch/master/LICENSE.txt
*/
;(function(a){a.backstretch=function(p,b,l){function s(){if(p){var b;0==c.length?c=a("<div />").attr("id","backstretch").css({left:0,top:0,position:m?"fixed":"absolute",overflow:"hidden",zIndex:-999999,margin:0,padding:0,height:"100%",width:"100%"}):c.find("img").addClass("deleteable");b=a("<img />").css({position:"absolute",display:"none",margin:0,padding:0,border:"none",zIndex:-999999,maxWidth:"none"}).bind("load",function(d){var b=a(this),e;b.css({width:"auto",height:"auto"});e=this.width||a(d.target).width();d=this.height||a(d.target).height();n=e/d;q();b.fadeIn(g.speed,function(){c.find(".deleteable").remove();"function"==typeof l&&l()})}).appendTo(c);0==a("body #backstretch").length&&(0===a(window).scrollTop()&&window.scrollTo(0,0),a("body").append(c));c.data("settings",g);b.attr("src",p);a(window).unbind("resize.backstretch").bind("resize.backstretch",function(){"onorientationchange"in window&&window.pageYOffset===0&&window.scrollTo(0,1);q()})}}function q(){try{j={left:0,top:0},rootWidth=h=o.width(),rootHeight=r?window.innerHeight:o.height(),f=h/n,f>=rootHeight?(k=(f-rootHeight)/2,g.centeredY&&(j.top="-"+k+"px")):(f=rootHeight,h=f*n,k=(h-rootWidth)/2,g.centeredX&&(j.left="-"+k+"px")),c.css({width:rootWidth,height:rootHeight}).find("img:not(.deleteable)").css({width:h,height:f}).css(j)}catch(a){}}var t={centeredX:!0,centeredY:!0,speed:0},c=a("#backstretch"),g=c.data("settings")||t;c.data("settings");var o,m,r,n,h,f,k,j;b&&"object"==typeof b&&a.extend(g,b);b&&"function"==typeof b&&(l=b);a(document).ready(function(){var b=window,d=navigator.userAgent,c=navigator.platform,e=d.match(/AppleWebKit\/([0-9]+)/),e=!!e&&e[1],f=d.match(/Fennec\/([0-9]+)/),f=!!f&&f[1],g=d.match(/Opera Mobi\/([0-9]+)/),h=!!g&&g[1],i=d.match(/MSIE ([0-9]+)/),i=!!i&&i[1];o=(m=!((-1<c.indexOf("iPhone")||-1<c.indexOf("iPad")||-1<c.indexOf("iPod"))&&e&&534>e||b.operamini&&"[object OperaMini]"==={}.toString.call(b.operamini)||g&&7458>h||-1<d.indexOf("Android")&&e&&533>e||f&&6>f||"palmGetResource"in window&&e&&534>e||-1<d.indexOf("MeeGo")&&-1<d.indexOf("NokiaBrowser/8.5.0")||i&&6>=i))?a(window):a(document);r=m&&window.innerHeight;s()});return this}})(jQuery);
//]]>
</script>
<script>
//<![CDATA[
var images = [
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
 "Image URL",
  ];

  $(images).each(function(){
 $('<img/>')[0].src = this;
  });
  var index = 0;
$.backstretch(images[index], {speed: 1000});
  var slideshow = setInterval(function() {
  index = (index >= images.length - 1) ? 0 : index + 1;
    $.backstretch(images[index]);
  }, 5000);
//]]>
</script>
Here add the URLs of the images that will be the background of your blog.
If you would like to add more pictures, just add after the var images = [ another line like this:
 "Image URL",
The images will be changing in the order you have added them, if you want these to appear in a random order, then change the second part of the code with this:
<script>
//<![CDATA[
var images=new Array();
images[ 1 ]="Image URL";
images[ 2 ]="Image URL";
images[ 3 ]="Image URL";
images[ 4 ]="Image URL";
images[ 5 ]="Image URL";

  Array.prototype.shuffle = function() {
  var len = this.length;
  var i = len;
  while (i--) {
  var p = parseInt(Math.random()*len);
  var t = this[i];
  this[i] = this[p];
  this[p] = t;
  }
};

  images.shuffle();
  $(images).each(function(){
 $('<img/>')[0].src = this;
  });
  var index = 0;
$.backstretch(images[index], {speed: 1000});
  var slideshow = setInterval(function() {
  index = (index >= images.length - 1) ? 0 : index + 1;
    $.backstretch(images[index]);
  }, 5000);
//]]>
</script>
You can also add more pictures by adding a line like this:
images[ 6 ]="Image URL";
But you will see that in this case there are some consecutive numbers in blue, so if you add another such as 6, then the next one should be 7, etc..

In both cases you can change the duration of each image which is in the 5000 value that is at the end of the script.
The advantage of this slideshow in the blog's background is that images are automatically resized to the size of the monitor, so that, no matter of the resolution, it should look good.

It is worth remembering that if you are using Scriptaculous, you have to make some changes, and if you already use jQuery, should leave only one version.

Author page | Backstretch