SlimFast – YouTube Lazyloader vs Youtube Playlist Thumbs

This minimalist lazyloader makes your video pages slimmer and faster. SlimFast replaces heavy YouTube iframes by their thumbnail. View a demo. How to use it? Paste the url of the YouTube video in a page (for example https://youtu.be/neV3EPgvZ3g). WordPress will convert it into a video iframe. SlimFast will take it from there and replace the iframe by the video thumbnail and a button to play the video. This will also work for all pre-existing videos embedded this way. What is lazyloading and why is it important to use it on YouTube videos? Lazyloading is a technique to make your pages load faster, by only loading required elements when the visitor requests them. The page speed is a key element in Google’s algorithm to rank pages. Embedding a YouTube iframe will load a lot of scripts for every single video and will slow down your page, especially if your visitor doesn’t have a top connection. Hence the need for lazyloaders! 2 types of lazyloaders exist: Those who load the video iframe when the visitor scrolls down to the point where he sees the video on his screen. Those who load the iframe after the visitor clicks the Play button. SlimFast is one of those. We believe it is the best approach to let your visitor decide if he wants to click or not, and only load the iframe if he clicks. See a comparison of performances with/without SlimFast in the “Screenshots” section. Why is SlimFast better than other YouTube lazyloading plugins? Because they require 2 click to play a video: 1 to load the iframe, 1 to play it! This is actually the reason why we built this plugin: SlimFast loads & play videos with 1 single click, even on mobile! Think about your User Experience, it’s crucial. Your visitors are frustrated if they have to click twice on that Play button to launch a video! Because it doesn’t use any custom shortcode. WordPress already recognises YouTube videos when you paste their urls. SlimFast takes it from there. Why bother with shortcodes? Think long term! Shortcodes are painful if you decide to drop a plugin. If you’re unhappy with SlimFast, just deactivate it and all your YouTube videos will be back to their default iframes. Because we’ve made it as light as possible! The plugin only adds 3 small scripts (YouTube iframe API, 1 custom javascript and 1 css) to your pages containing YouTube videos, for an extra weight of 4KB only. And nothing will be loaded if your pages don’t have YouTube videos! This is why you’ll only see 1 custom setting. We decided to sacrifice all settings (such as playlists support and video titles) that would add unnecessary weight. How many options do you really need on your WordPress plugins? Is it possible not to use SlimFast on specific videos? Of course! Juste paste the iframe code provided by YouTube (for example ) and SlimFast will leave it intact. Do it if you feel like certain videos deserve features we’ve cut. What is in the code? Just 3 little scripts (YouTube iframe API, 1 custom javascript and 1 css). These will be loaded on your pages containing YouTube videos for an extra weight of 4KB only. Nothing will be loaded on pages that don’t host YouTube videos. No JavaScript library such as jQuery is used to ensure a maximum compatibility with all themes. Demo View a demo.

Demo Install and activate the plugin. Insert the [ypt playlist_id=] shortcode in your page or post and insert your playlist ID after the equal. When that content is published and viewed, a Youtube player will appear and a column of thumbnails will load to the right of the player. Clicking the thumbnails switches between videos. This plugin includes a small CSS file for minimal styling that was written to target the specific IDs of the thumb list and player. Youtube Playlist Thumbs plugin depends on the Youtube Iframe API. Any bugs experienced with that service will affect this plugin. Please check for bugs with Youtube Iframe API before reporting a bug for this plugin. See “Other Notes” for usage. Usage Place this shortcode in your posts or pages and insert your Youtube Playlist ID after the equal. [ypt playlist_id=] To get a Youtube Playlist ID, copy the string after ‘&list=’ when viewing a playlist on Youtube.com. See screenshot #3. To trigger the playback of an ordered video in the playlist, add this attribute to the clickable element: data-ypt-index="X" Where ‘X’ is the order number of the video with the first video starting at 0. The third video would be 2. For example: Click to play the third video. The ‘Now Playing’ thumbnail text and arrow is inserted by CSS. Add this rule to your CSS to change it: #ypt_thumbs .ypt-now-playing > span::after { content: "YOUR NEW TEXT" !important; } The height of the list of thumbnails is set by Javascript. It is first set when the player is ready and it adjusts when the window changes size. If you are using modals or any dynamic method to show/hide the player, you will need to trigger this function when the player is shown: yptThumbHeight(); For example, with Bootstrap modals: $('#videoModal').on('shown.bs.modal', function (e) { //modal shows yptThumbHeight(); //update the thumb height }); A Javascript event triggers at the end of a playlist. It can used to trigger other events: jQuery(document).on('playlistEnd', function () { //playlist finished last video alert("That's all, thanks for watching!"); //do something });