Making it easier to embed YouTube videos in your web content

We've just made some changes that will make it easier to add YouTube videos to pages in the CMS. You can now add videos to any content type that allows you to insert links, including standard page content, tabbed content, news and events.

To add a video, all you need to do is paste in a link to a YouTube video and assign a class to it of 'youtube-video-embed'. Your published page will then include the embedded video. The screenshots below show the steps in detail.

1. Paste in a link to a YouTube video

2. Use 'Insert/edit link' to set the class of the video to 'youtube-video-embed'

3. Done!

If you preview your page you'll now see your video embedded in your page. It will automatically resize to fill the width of your page.

A page preview showing the embedded video

As an added bonus, if you use this in a column that's too narrow for the embedded video to comfortably fit - for example in a three column layout or in a right hand column - then the video will be replaced with a thumbnail image instead. Clicking the thumbnail will take you to the full size video on YouTube.

A video in a narrow column automatically replaced with a thumbnail image

The old methods of embedding videos will still work. Full details can be found in the Web CMS Guide Wiki.

Welcome to new undergraduates

We've just launched a set of web pages to welcome new undergraduates, giving them easy-to-digest information about everything they need to know before they arrive, that they can dip into as and when.

What looks like a simple set of pages has actually taken about nine months to put together, given the huge amount of content planning that was needed before the web team could start building web pages. 

A small group of people in the Academic Registry spent weeks reviewing what is sent to new undergraduates, when and who by, in an effort to reduce the amount of paper that's posted out and tell people what they need to know in a way that doesn't overwhelm them. The results were translated into a web structure and content by our Internal Comms team.

We want give students a warm welcome before they get to campus, so there are eight short welcome videos from student reps and members of staff - people who new students will regularly hear from or meet when they get here.

But by far the most popular video on the site is the 'Unofficial official guide to the University'. This came from an idea originally suggested by Tim Ngwena while he was YUSU president. He realised that most students don't understand the way the University is organised and how they fit in, and wanted to do something about it. This cartoon is the result.

Put together by Tim (now working for the Alumni team) and talented student cartoonist Hugo Brook, it's been scripted to give a short, friendly, informal guide around the University's structure. Something that could be a very dull read has been brought to life - we think it's brilliant, and we hope you enjoy it too.

A year in the life of the Unviersity of York homepage

The current incarnation of the University of York homepage was launched this time last year, just in time for Christmas in December 2010.

Here's a look at how it has changed over the last year.

New videos - international and postgraduate student life

We've recently put up a couple more of the videos that were created for the University by video company Spectrecom.

Both videos are published using our video streaming service, with the player code generated using our media player wizard.

International student life

Postgraduate student life