Community Server on my mind

Videos on the CS Home Page

After writing the article "CSModule for MSN SoapBox" I got a question on how to put up a Soapbox video on the Home Page of Community Server. And since the last 2 articles has been about Soapbox and CS, why not have one more? Tell me if it's getting a bit too soapy (yes, I love really bad jokes, that almost noone understands) .

Of course, what I've written in my two last articles, applies to other video players to embed that just Soapbox. So will this article.

I made a little research on the options to embed a video on the home page. My first thoughts/alternatives was:

• Build an ASP .NET server control that read the whole HTML or just a video link from a local text file/DB table.
• Do it via CS built-in Content Parts framework.
• Just put the HTML for embedding the video, straight into the Default.ASPX (or other page or similar where you want to display it)

I don't know which method that is best for you. I can imagine there are at least one situation where each of the alternatives is the best choice.

I haven't done an ASP .NET server control for the above yet. But the risk is high that I am going to, and post it here.

A word about the Content Parts alternative: You won't get it to work "out-of-the Box" (OOB), since CS currently is using tiny_MCE as an editor for these. And by default tiny_MCE strips out HTML tags like <embed etc. You can configure tiny_MCE to accept those tags like it's described in this forum post. But I am not sure that's a good way to go security wise. It opens up those tags everywhere on the site for any kind of post done with tiny_MCE.

If you write the Content Part by going straight to the DB table cs_Content, nothing will be stripped out. By default, SQL's DB Manager don't handle pasting too large strings into the table though. But I was thinking, there should be a tool for handling all your Content Parts for a site. Maybe a WIn Forms client, that lists all your current Content Parts for easy editing. There is a small risk that I will do such a tool, if no none beats me to it. In any case, I think it would be a very useful tool.

Or, why not create a new CS Admin page, which lists all your Content Parts of the site, and provides easy editing in plain HTML (no tag stripping) text box? It too would be a great tool to have.

Sorry, I fell off topic in this article, began with videos on home page, and quickly drove right into Content Parts.

Since there were no nice screenshots in this article, I'll give you an off topic video to wrap things up instead. Why? Well, because I can!