Creating a Video Playback Activity

This section contains CLIO documentation.

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Overview

The Video Playback activity type plays an MP4 video. It can be configured to disable the audio or the control bar.

Read More: Video Playback (activity type)

Creating the Activity

We have provided a template for the configuration file, which is used by the CLIO interface to set up the activity. We also include a content drafting template created in Microsoft Word that can aid collaboration when creating activities as part of a development team.

Define the Activity

All CLIO activities, regardless of their Activity Type, contain many of the same configuration settings.  These are used to configure the screen and load the correct content.  By defining this information, we can begin to draft more specific activity content.  This information is included in both the drafting template and the coding template provided with each activity type. These are the most common settings:

Setting	Description
Title	The name for the activity.
Description	The description for the activity shown to visitors.
Preview	The image displayed for the activity in Exhibit Mode.
Introduction Video	The video displayed under the Activity Menu to provide a video introduction to the activity.
Audience	Each Program can have custom audiences groups, which are included as a way to help sort activities for predefined demographics.  When setting up the kiosk as part of their pop-up exhibit, facilitators have the power to configure which activities they think would best fit their audience and what they’re trying to achieve. Read More: Defining CLIO Audiences
Theme	Each Activity can have a configured theme that allows each activity's aesthetic to vary slightly from the primary interface. Read More: Creating CLIO Activity Themes
Attributions	Notifications for copyrighted content used within the activity.
Acknowledgements	Notifications of appreciation for content creators.

Read More: Defining a CLIO Activity

Drafting the Content

Download the template.

Open the provided Content Template for drafting the Video Playback activity.  First, we must decide on the basic descriptive information for the activity, such as the title, description, preview image and theme.  This information is required because it is used by the CLIO interface to properly display the activity.

Next, we can start to write the content needed for the Video Playback activity type.  This activity type will play an MP4 video and allow the user to control playback, including playing, pausing, navigating and changing the volume.  The activity can also be configured to disable audio.

For this activity, all we need is the relative location to the MP4 video file we would like to play.  We can include a title for the video, but it is not currently used.  This activity can also be configured to disable the audio playback and hide the volume controls, which can be useful for infographic videos.

Coding the Activity

Download the template.

Edit the template.

The next step will be to take the content that was created in the Content template and begin to migrate it into the Configuration template.  We will need to open the provided Configuration Template for drafting the Video Playback activity.  This can be done in a plain text editor, but for the purpose of this manual we will be using jsoneditoronline.org/.  

The video is found labeled as ‘1’, underneath the Content object.  When we open ‘1’, we can see that it has the same fields as we first created in our content draft.  We can enter the relative location for our video into “Video” and our optional video title into “Title”.  If we would like to disable the audio in our video and hide the playback controls, we can remove the checkmark from “IncludeAudio” to change it to false.

Once you are finished, you can download the finished JSON file by clicking ‘Save’ and then ‘Save to Disk’.  This file can be copied to the Program’s @Activity folder, and the media can be copied to the Program’s @Media directory.

Options

Content Configuration

These are configuration settings for the video.

Property	Description	Expected Parameters	Examples
Video	The video to be played when this activity is opened.	MP4 file
IncludeAudio	Toggle audio playback and volume control.	"true" or "false"

Documentation
Installation	Look and Feel
Interaction Modes	Developing Activity Types
Creating an Interactive	Framework
Integrating CLIO	Contribute