Web-stories-wp: Embed hotlinked images and video

[jauyong]

Feature Description

As an author I want to be able to embed external sources via hotlink

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Acceptance Criteria

1. I am able to embed an external image via hotlink
2. I am able to embed an external video via hotlink

Does not work in AMP Story:

1. As an author I want to be able to embed youtube videos
2. As an author I want to be able to embed instagram posts

QA Instructions

[jauyong]

Hey @samitron7 as discussed today, I'm flagging you for designs on this feature

[jauyong]

Paul and Sam to review, will not be part of sprint 25

[samitron7]

Sorry, what's a hotlink and is there a brief for this? @pbakaus @o-fernandez (Paul, apologize in advance if it's buried somewhere but I can't find it)

[swissspidy]

@samitron7 Hotlinking means taking an arbitrary image URL and embedding it in the story, without uploading it to the library. E.g. inserting the image http://someotherwebsite.com/picture.jpg

[samitron7]

@swissspidy Do you know what is needed from me for the ui? I'm not sure what I should be doing her.e

[swissspidy]

@samitron7 First of all, I don't know whether we want to support this functionality or not, but if we want to, there would need to be a way to enter a URL to embed an image. For example, Gutenberg offers this:

[o-fernandez]

I think this would be nice functionality, and we'll need it eventually, but should wait for user feedback before working on this. This is (properly) in the icebox, so we shouldn't work on it for now.

[pbakaus]

+1. I sense that users will want this, but OK for me to wait until this turns out to be true.

[samitron7]

+1 on waiting for feedback :)

[RobertoDonPedro]

Regarding feedback...:): I definitely encourage you to embed external urls, especially for youtube videos. This helps prevent unnecessary bloating of WordPress sites. Personallly I think this feature should be available as soon as possible.

[swissspidy]

@RobertoDonPedro Embedding YouTube videos is actually not possible from a technical perspective, i.e. it's not allowed in the AMP spec. So it's nothing we can implement. Instead of embedding YouTube videos, would you want to embed external videos or images by entering a URL?

[RobertoDonPedro]

@swissspidy I'm sorry that I have expressed myself badly. I would want to embed an external YouTube video by entering its URL, that should be possible, right?

[swissspidy]

@RobertoDonPedro I understood it :-) Yes, theoretically that would be _possible_, however it is now _allowed_ due to restrictions by the underlying AMP specification Web Stories are built on. So we cannot support embedding YouTube videos in stories in any way.

[RobertoDonPedro]

@swissspidy Hmm, so it would be allowed to embed other external video URLs but no YouTube URLs???

[swissspidy]

@RobertoDonPedro Currently supported is embedding videos from a specific video URL like https://example.com/mycoolvideo.mp4. No YouTube or the like as it‘s not allowed in Web Stories.

[traforate]

this is an important feature if we need to insert images from google maps like this https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipOR4RX87kJCARnqv-oV0blUTxFe-ciFxJf7Flau=w600-h485-p-k-no

or images from google my company posts like https://posts.gle/JxbF6

[blogtutor]

@RobertoDonPedro Currently supported is embedding videos from a specific video URL like https://example.com/mycoolvideo.mp4. No YouTube or the like as it‘s not allowed in Web Stories.

It seems that the WordPress Web Stories plugin does not allow embedding videos from an external URL -- it _only_ embeds videos hosted from within the WordPress media library. This is a huge problem for both server storage and bandwidth usage.

Can a feature to use externally-hosted video be added to the WordPress plugin?

[blogtutor]

I just found the public roadmap, and am very glad to see these:

Support hotlink: allow users to hotlink to images or videos (in supported formats) and use them in stories without adding to WP library.

Embed videos from other sites (TBD services)

I hope they can be bumped up on the priority list! Thanks! 🤞🙏

[Vindulge]

Hi all, first time contributor, be kind. (vindulge.com is the site with stories) I concur with being able to embed for a few reasons. We have 16 stories currently, at least half with video. If there was a way to embed URL or video segments versus essentially duplicating them again as a media upload and running the video twice (once in the story sequence and one in the underlying content we are hoping to get people to see), it would do a few things:

• Right size the amount of storage needed for essentially the same content. I find this especially important when it comes to video as we are leaning into video specific stories (and see dramatically more pick ups from video than our photo only stories)
• Easier for us to make. I have a whole word document on my experience in the editor. If we can simply add some source code or a link and it pulls the video for us and sequences it, so much easier to make and for the user.
• Somehow create better continuity to the video and content between the story and the post we may want to introduce the user to. So if I want to show the steps in making a smoked beef brisket and the video we have on the site is 15 minutes, I just want to bring at most a few highlights of that video or find a better place to store the video so I can simply take the 7 second clip and have you pull the clip media feature into that frame.

Right now I am essentially adding the video (again) to my story slide(s) which then causes the other unintended storage and bandwidth issues. Happy to share some examples.

I look forward to adding more feedback, but I am learning at ludicrous speed in this space. - Sean

[bemyhre]

Yes please. If I want to add video, I have to host it on my own server and bear the burden of costs. Not only space, but bandwidth. If I want to have 1 or 2, no big deal. If I want to create lots of web story content, it can be a huge issue. Space will become a problem over time and if I have one that happens to do really well, my costs might skyrocket, all for something that can be great, but requires a conversion from my own website to my actual website... which then needs another conversion to actually pay my costs.

[feastdesignco]

Can a feature to use externally-hosted video be added to the WordPress plugin?

Agreed with this. It's critical to be able to embed external videos, as the bandwidth costs are burdensome.