How to create a playlist - Blog on the Run

Step 1

We start this tutorial by assuming you have already uploaded several videos that you want to use for your playlists. Also make sure that (some of) your videos have tags added as well if you wish to make a dynamic playlist.

Remember that if, at any time, you need more information on a specific section you can always click the 'i' icons for more information.

Step 2

Though perhaps a bit counterintuitive we start out by selecting the players tab. In the same way that each video in Bits on the Run can be published with it's own player, each playlist needs to be assigned a player as well. While there are a few default players available, we'll create our own now to get familiar with the workflow. On the players tab click the add a player button to create your new player.

Step 3

You will be offered a variety of options to customize the player to your needs. Let's go over each option one by one. Note: remember to save each form individually after you're done with it!

The first form sets the layout of the player and offers the following options:

name Choose the name carefully as it will be used to identify the player later in this tutorial. Call it for example 'tutorial player'.

width & height The width and height of your player. Choose a value large enough to contain both our playlist an video. For example 400 wide and 250 high.

background color This will be the background color and whether it's visible depends on the skin you use for the player. As for now you can leave this option as is, as we won't be diving into skins in this tutorial (but we will in another soon!)

Don't forget to save your changes now.

The second form sets the behavior of the player and offers the following options:

automatically start When checked your videos will immediately start to play after your webpage has loaded without requiring the visitor to click play first.

repeat playback Do you want your videos to loop continuously? Then use this option.

shuffle playback Check this option if you want your videos to be played in a random order.

stretch videos How the player deals with resizing your videos if the do not exactly match the size of this player. By clicking the little 'i' icon above you can get a clear explanation of what each type of stretching will look like in the end.

when clicking the display What action will be taken when the users clicks on the video, use the dropdown menu to select your action of choice.

enable fullscreen Allow users to watch your videos fullscreen by checking this option.

open links When you have a link set for the contents of this player you can choose here how to handle that link. (You set the link in the 'link' field in the video properties)

Don't forget to save your changes now as well.

We are now done creating our player. We will be using this player for the both the dynamic and manual playlist.

Step 4

Now that we have a player we need to create our playlist next. Go to your playlists tab and choose to add a manual playlist.

Here you are again presented with two forms to configure the playlist.

title Set the title of your playlist, this will be shown in your RSS feed as well.

description> A short description what your playlist contains. e.g: Joe's podcasts about wildlife photography and everything else.

category (for iTunes) Select the best fitting category for the playlist so that when you choose to publish your playlist through iTunes people will be able to find it. How you publish your playlists in iTunes will be explained in another tutorial.

Save your settings

In the publish form you can see the URL to the RSS feed for this playlist and a player option. The player dropdown menu allows you to select the player to use with this playlist, click it and select the player you just created, i.e: 'tutorial player', unless you choose a different name of course.

Click the show preview and codes button and you can preview your playlist player. Oh wait, it still needs content! Press either the back-button in your browser or the back link in the top-left right corner to go back to your playlist.

At the bottom you can see all the videos you have uploaded, click the plus icon to add a video to the list. By using the dropdown menu you can also select a specific point where the video has to be added, this can be useful when you start building larger playlists.

After you added a few videos click the show preview and codes again and your video should now have a nicely filled playlist next to it. And that is all! If you also want to know how to create a dynamic playlist continue to step 5.

Step 5

Most of the settings are the same as for a manual playlist except that you have 3 extra options and you can not add any videos. The reason you can't add any videos is because the videos are added based on the tags assigned to videos.

The extra fields you have are:

included tags All videos that contain one or more of the tags in this list will be added in the playlist. Seperate your tags by commas, i.e: these, count, as, five three,tags

maximum length The maximum amount of videos that will be added to your playlist. Be cautious about making this number too big because that will result in longer loading times before you video will start playing.

sorted by By what criteria the videos in your playlist will be sorted. Play with the different options in the dropdown menu to see what the results are.

Save the changes and you should see the playlist that is automatically generated. If you don't make sure you have tagged the videos as well as correctly spelled the tags here.

That's all, happy posting and if you require more help or have useful tips for use please use the feedback button!

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