Javascript – How to get the reference to an existing YouTube player

iframejavascriptyoutubeyoutube-api

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/M7lc1UVf-VE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I have a few questions on what happens when I embed a YouTube video using source code like above. The code should generate a YouTube Player object that processes the video the way users like. When I generate a Youtube Player by myself using Youtube Player API(instead of using the embed code), I can call call functions on it.

var player;
function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
  player = new YT.Player('player', {
    height: '390',
    width: '640',
    videoId: 'M7lc1UVf-VE',
    events: {
      'onReady': onPlayerReady,
      'onStateChange': onPlayerStateChange
    }
  });
}

//player.playVideo(); will play the video.

My question is, how do I control the player object generated by the embed code? To put it in another way, from page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7lc1UVf-VE, how do I play the video by calling SOMEPlayer.playVideo()? When you go to the url, ytplayer object is available, but it doesn't seem to contain the necessary functions.

This question might be a duplicate of this.

Best Answer

This can be done like the following.

Given a general YouTube embed source code:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/M7lc1UVf-VE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

a. Add a enablejsapi query param and set it to 1 in the src URL

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/M7lc1UVf-VE?enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

b. Give it a unique id

<iframe id="youtube-video" width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/M7lc1UVf-VE?enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

c. Load YouTube iFrame API

<script src="https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api"></script>

d. Create a player that references the existing iFrame

var player;
function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
  player = new YT.Player('youtube-video', {
    events: {
      'onReady': onPlayerReady,
      'onStateChange': onPlayerStateChange
    }
  });
}

function onPlayerReady() {
  console.log("hey Im ready");
  //do whatever you want here. Like, player.playVideo();

}

function onPlayerStateChange() {
  console.log("my state changed");
}

Short & Snazzy:

+ new Date()

A unary operator like plus triggers the valueOf method in the Date object and it returns the timestamp (without any alteration).

Details:

On almost all current browsers you can use Date.now() to get the UTC timestamp in milliseconds; a notable exception to this is IE8 and earlier (see compatibility table).

You can easily make a shim for this, though:

if (!Date.now) {
    Date.now = function() { return new Date().getTime(); }
}

To get the timestamp in seconds, you can use:

Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)

Or alternatively you could use:

Date.now() / 1000 | 0

Which should be slightly faster, but also less readable.
(also see this answer or this with further explaination to bitwise operators).

I would recommend using Date.now() (with compatibility shim). It's slightly better because it's shorter & doesn't create a new Date object. However, if you don't want a shim & maximum compatibility, you could use the "old" method to get the timestamp in milliseconds:

new Date().getTime()

Which you can then convert to seconds like this:

Math.round(new Date().getTime()/1000)

And you can also use the valueOf method which we showed above:

new Date().valueOf()

Timestamp in Milliseconds

var timeStampInMs = window.performance && window.performance.now && window.performance.timing && window.performance.timing.navigationStart ? window.performance.now() + window.performance.timing.navigationStart : Date.now();

console.log(timeStampInMs, Date.now());

Javascript – How to get the children of the $(this) selector

The jQuery constructor accepts a 2nd parameter called context which can be used to override the context of the selection.

jQuery("img", this);

Which is the same as using .find() like this:

jQuery(this).find("img");

If the imgs you desire are only direct descendants of the clicked element, you can also use .children():

jQuery(this).children("img");

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Javascript – How to get a timestamp in JavaScript

Short & Snazzy:

Javascript – How to get the children of the $(this) selector

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