Flash Plugins API Reference

This page provides a reference of the Flash plugin API, intended for ActionScript plugin developers.

See About JW Player Plugins for a general overview on embedding plugins.
See Building Flash Plugins for a general overview on building Flash plugins.

Introduction

At large, JavaScript and Flash plugins have the same structure and features. Two overall areas in which Flash differs are event listening and class definitions.

Listeners

A big general difference between JavaScript and Flash is that the latter uses a formal event dispatcher model to send out events. Listening to an event generally works like this:

private function volumeListener(event:MediaEvent) {
    var newVolume:Number = event.volume;
}
player.addEventListener(MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_VOLUME, volumeListener);

JW6 defines four types of events:

MediaEvent: This event is dispatched for all media playback changes (like time ticks or volume updates).
PlayerEvent: This event is only dispatched on page load, when the player is set up and ready to play.
PlaylistEvent: This event dispatched on playlist updates, e.g. loading of a list or completion of playback.
PlayerStateEvent: This event is only dispatched when the player state changes between IDLE, BUFFERING, PLAYING and PAUSED.
ViewEvent: This event is dispatched when the display is clicked or the controls are enabled/disabled.

The Mapping section below includes the event type for all API calls.

Classes

Since ActionScript is a strongly typed language, plugins must import all JW6 classes they use. Here is a list of all packages plugins can import and the classes they contain:

com.longtailvideo.jwplayer.plugins.IPlugin6: This class defines the interface of a JW6 plugin. Every plugin must import and implement it.
com.longtailvideo.jwplayer.player.IPlayer: This class defines the JW Player API. Since it's a property of the required initPlugin() API call, every plugin must import it.
com.longtailvideo.jwplayer.player.PlayerState: This class defines the four player states (IDLE, BUFFERING, PLAYING and PAUSED). Use it when implementing logic around player states (e.g. doing something when the player pauses).
com.longtailvideo.jwplayer.events.*: This package contains the media, player, playlist, state and view event definitions (see above sub-section). Include it when listening to any type of player event in your plugin.

For compiling, this JW6 plugin SDK includes the jwplayer6.swc library, containing all class definitions. See Building Flash Plugins for more info.

Mapping

Flash plugins leverage the same API calls as JavaScript plugins or standalone scripts. Due to ActionScript/JavaScript differences and backward compatibility concerns, the APIs do not 100% translate though. Therefore, this section lists all JW6 API calls, mapping how they differ between JavaScript and Flash.

Ready API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getRenderingMode	-	The mode is always flash in Flash ;)
onReady	PlayerEvent.JWPLAYER_READY	-

Playlist API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getPlaylist	playlist	This is a getter that returns the playlist
getPlaylistItem	playlist.currentItem playlist.getItemAt	Separate calls upon the playlist object.
load	load	-
playlistItem	playlistIndex	-
onPlaylist	PlaylistEvent.JWPLAYER_PLAYLIST_LOADED	-
onPlaylistItem	PlaylistEvent.JWPLAYER_PLAYLIST_ITEM	-
onComplete	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_COMPLETE	-
onPlaylistComplete	PlaylistEvent.JWPLAYER_PLAYLIST_COMPLETE	-

Buffer API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getBuffer	-	Only available through the event
onBufferChange	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_BUFFER	-

Playback API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getState	config.state	This is a getter on the player config
play	play	-
pause	pause	-
stop	stop	-
onBeforePlay	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_BEFOREPLAY	-
onPlay	PlayerStateEvent.JWPLAYER_PLAYER_STATE	There's a newstate event property
onPause	PlayerStateEvent.JWPLAYER_PLAYER_STATE	There's a newstate event property
onBuffer	PlayerStateEvent.JWPLAYER_PLAYER_STATE	There's a newstate event property
onIdle	PlayerStateEvent.JWPLAYER_PLAYER_STATE	There's a newstate event property

Seek API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getPosition	-	Only available through the event
getDuration	-	Only available through the event
seek	seek	-
onSeek	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_SEEK	-
onTime	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_TIME	-

Volume API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getMute	config.mute	This is a getter on the player config
getVolume	config.volume	This is a getter on the player config
mute	mute	-
volume	volume	-
onMute	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_MUTE	-
onVolume	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_VOLUME	-

Resize API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getWidth	config.width	This is a getter on the player config
getHeight	config.height	This is a getter on the player config
getFullscreen	config.fullscreen	-
resize	-	plugins cannot resize player
onFullscreen	-	plugins have an inline resize()
onResize	-	plugins have an inline resize()

Quality API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getQualityLevels	getQualityLevels	-
getCurrentQuality	getCurrentQuality	-
setCurrentQuality	setCurrentQuality	-
onQualityLevels	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_LEVELS	-
onQualityChange	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_LEVEL_CHANGED	-

Button API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
addButton	controls.dock.addButton	This is for compatibility purposes
removeButton	controls.dock.removeButton	This is for compatibility purposes

Controls API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
getControls	getControls	-
getSafeRegion	getSafeRegion	-
setControls	setControls	-
onControls	ViewEvent.JWPLAYER_CONTROLS	-
onDisplayClick	ViewEvent.JWPLAYER_VIEW_CLICK	-

Error API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
onError	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_ERROR	-

Metadata API

See the JavaScript API Reference for details on these API calls.

JavaScript	Flash	Comments
onMeta	MediaEvent.JWPLAYER_MEDIA_META	-