User documentation: Configuration

Omeka Player StreamOnly Plugin

User Documentation

Configure Plugin page

License Settings: # Licenses

Here you may set the default number of site visitors who may simultaneously access a protected audio file. This setting may be overridden on an Item-by-Item basis.

When a site visitor accesses an Item, the plugin gives the browser the information it needs to download all the audio files associated with the Item. The plugin stores the information that the file has been reserved by a site visitor for some amount of time (see Timeout below). It will allow the number of site visitors specified, either the default stored during configuration or the number specified when the Item was edited, to listen to the audio file.

If the number of reservations reaches the maximum, instead of audio controls, a message will be displayed on the screen indicating how long until the file will be available for streaming. If the page is reloaded, the message will be updated with a new time.

If a site visitor has a file reserved, and reloads the page, the server does not know that the new request to stream the file is coming from the same visitor, and counts it as a separate request. Thus, a visitor who could, on the first page load, stream the file, may on subsequent page loads, be locked out of streaming the file.

Until the page is reloaded, the site visitor may stream any (or all) of the protected audio files. Thus it is possible that the number of site visitors listening to the file simultaneously may exceed the maximum, but the number of site visitors able to perform a page load that allows access to the file will never exceed the maximum, which has the same effect as limiting the number of simultaneous listeners.

Folder for Storing Audio Files: Folder Name

Here you may set the default folder where protected audio files will be stored. This setting may be overridden on an Item-by-Item basis. Typically, this folder is created by logging onto cPanel, or a similar utility for managing a server, and should be done by a server administrator. Use only those folders which have been designated for storing protected audio files.

• To ensure that the protected files cannot be accessed directly by a browser, the folder should be outside of the public_html folder.
• The folder is specified relative to the root folder of the file system, not the root folder of the Omeka website.
• The path to the folder should not be preceded by a forward slash "/".
• On a shared hosting account, the directories that contain the account's file space must also be specified. Thus a typical entry might look like this: home/account/so_files.
• When the site is hosted on a LAMP server, a typical entry might look like this: so_files.
• The folder must give the 'user' running the Omeka scripts create/read/write permissions. On a shared hosting plan, the scripts have run successfully when permissions were set to 0700'. On a LAMP server, the scripts have run successfully when permissions were set to 0777`.

Timeout: Timeout

Here you may set the number of seconds that a file is reserved for use by a single site visitor. Setting a lower value may be helpful if your site gets a lot of activity.

Custom Message: Custom Message

Here you may set a custom message. If the site visitor attempts to use the browser or a browser extension to download the protected audio file, a text file containing this message will be downloaded instead. The default message provided by the plugin is translatable; there is no provision for translating custom messages.

Styling

To allow for custom styling, the HTML elements generated for protected files have the class stream-only. The following HTML is generated:

• <audio class="so-audio">...</audio> for audio controls
• <span class="so-noaudio">...</span> for the message displayed when HTML5 audio is not supported
• <span class="so-msg">Message</span> for messages displayed when the audio is not available due to licensing restrictions

Translation

All messages (except the custom message sent when a site visitor attempts to download a protected audio file) are translatable using the standard Omeka translation techniques. For your convenience, a file with all translatable messages is included (not yet implemented).