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How SiteClip Works

Definitions | Creating Request URL | Video Recording | Video Uploading | Getting Back | Limitation

Definitions

API Key Unique string key which you receive after activating SiteClip. It can be accessed from SiteClip's Settings page on the website.
Handler Page URL to the handler file, located on your server. This file is used to handle the server call back containing new video recordings and save them on your server.
Default Return URL URL of the page, where user is redirected once he/she finishes recording a video.
Request URL Link to SiteClip, which includes your API key and additional parameters. Your site users will follow this link to record a video.

Step 1 - Creating Request URL

In order for your website user to create a new recording, he/she has to follow a hyperlink which you need to place on any page of your website.

Bellow is an example of the link format:
http://www.seetheface.com/api/?api_key=API_KEY&api_return=RETURN_URL&PARAMS

API Key your API Key
RETURN_URL Optional parameter. If for some reason, you want to point the user to a page different from the default return URL, you should specify it here.

Important: please enter the URL excluding your website domain name i.e. if you want to point the user to www.yoursite.com/folder/pagename.htm you should set the api_return value to "/folder/pagename.htm"
PARAMS any additional parameters which are sent to a handler page i.e. user_id, user_name etc.
Request URL Link to SiteClip, which includes your API key and additional parameters. Your site users will follow this link to record a video.

Important: please make sure that any additional parameter names which you are going to use are different to the SiteClip variables which are being sent to your handler page by default.

Example:

Assume you want your handler script to receive back user_id and user_login in order to update the database or save video files in a corresponding folder. In this case, your request URL will the following format:
http://www.seetheface.com/api/?api_key=API_KEY&api_return=RETURN_URL&user_id=54&user_name=David45

In this example your handler script will receive 2 additional POST variables: user_id and user_name, containing the corresponding values.

For more information please refer to the handler page section of this manual.

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Step 2 - Video Recording

By clicking a link, described above, your website visitor will get redirected to the recorder page, located on SeeTheFace server.

You can modify the look and feel of this page, by editing the HTML code. This is done in the page Settings area.

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Step 3 - Video Uploading

Once the client has finished recording a video he/she clicks the finish button, which initiates a POST request to your handler file, which you've specified in the Handler Page parameter.

POST request will contain the following variables:

video_name user's specified recording name
video_length recording length in seconds
video_width video recording width
video_length video recording length
file_flv_name original FLV file name
file_swf_name original SWF player file name
file_flv video recording file content
file_swf flash player file content
file_flv_size flash player file size in bytes
file_swf_size video recording file size in bytes
player_width flash player width in pixels
player_height flash player height in pixels
PARAMS parameters which have been specified in request URL

Depending on the size of the recorded video it may take some time for the request to complete. During that time user will see a notification telling, that the video is being processed.

Bellow is an outline for the handler script which can be written using practically any server side script language (PHP, PERL, ASP, RUBY, etc.)

The script should be able to create 2 new files, a video content file with FLV extension and a flash player file with swf extension. If you plan to use your own flash player you are free to use any file name. If you plan to use pre-build players, the files should be named according to the post variables file_flv_name and file_swf_name.

These files can be stored in any folder on your server; however they must be saved to the same folder.

You can download a sample handler script from the SeeTheFace Help page.

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Step 4 - Getting Back to the Website

After the video has been uploaded the user returns to your website.

If no custom return URL has been specified in the requested URL the user will be redirected to the default return URL.

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POST Request Limitation

So as files' content is send via POST request, make sure that your server settings allow you to handle larger POST requests. We recommend that you set it to at least 32MB.

For example if you run an Apache web server with PHP, please check that PHP settings post_max_size and upload_max_filesize are set to at least 32MB.

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