jQuery Preview

Embedly’s jQuery Preview is a jQuery plugin that allows a site’s users to share links with rich, customized previews attached.

Unlike the standard Embedly jQuery plugin, which generates previews in a preset format, jQuery Preview allows users to select a thumbnail image and edit the title and description. Additionally, jQuery Preview takes advantage of the Preview endpoint, which provides precise control over how embeds are displayed on the page.

../_images/jquery_preview.png

Basic Setup

To get started you need to put jQuery, jquery.preview.full.js and preview.css. into the head of your page:

<head>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://scripts.embed.ly/p/0.1/jquery.preview.full.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://scripts.embed.ly/p/0.1/css/preview.css" />
</head>

jquery.preview.full.js bundles Underscore.js and Mustache.js in with jquery.preview.js. If you already have or use these two libs you can see up the head of the document like so:

<head>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="lib/mustache.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="lib/underscore.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://scripts.embed.ly/p/0.1/jquery.preview.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://scripts.embed.ly/p/0.1/css/preview.css" />
</head>

Next set up a simple form that allows a user to input link:

<form action="/update" method="POST">
<input id="url" type="text" name="url"/>
</form>

You then need to tell preview what field to listen to:

<script>
$('#url').preview({key:'your_embedly_key'})
</script>

And you are done setting up the front end solution for jQuery Preview!

Note that the Preview endpoint is only available to Embedly developers with a Starter plan or above. You can sign up for a Starter plan at embed.ly/pricing.

The full demo and documentation for jQuery Preview can be found at github.com/embedly/jquery-preview.