A news story can lead with a video instead of a picture. Set the story’s format to Video and paste the video’s web address into the Media embed URL box. The player then appears at the top of the story’s page, and in the News widget when the story is in the large slot, so staff can press play without opening the story. The same works for blog posts and team news, and for audio.
Add the video to a news story
- Edit the news story. In the Format box in the right-hand column, choose Video. If the Format box is missing, open Screen Options at the top right and tick Format.
- A Media embed box appears below the editor. Paste the video’s address into Media embed URL, for example a YouTube or Vimeo link copied from the browser’s address bar. A preview of the player appears in the box once the address is recognised.
- Write the story as usual and set a featured image as well: it is used wherever the video cannot play, such as the News page cards and search results. See Set a featured image.
- Publish or update the story.
The box accepts any link that WordPress can embed automatically: YouTube, Vimeo, TED, SoundCloud and similar services. It does not accept a link to a video file uploaded to the media library. For an MP4 in the media library, or a video hosted somewhere WordPress cannot embed, put it in the story’s content instead: see Embed video, audio and animated GIFs.
Where the video plays
- On the story’s page: the player sits at the top, in the place of the featured image. The featured image is not shown there while a video address is set.
- In the News widget’s large slot: the widget shows the newest stories, with the first one or more as large cards. When a video story is in a large slot, the player replaces the card’s image and can be played from the homepage. Pin the story in the widget to keep it there. See (Govintra) News widget.
- Everywhere else, the featured image is used: the widget’s thumbnail and list items, the News page, search results, related lists and other widgets. A video story with no featured image shows no picture in those places.
The player is responsive, so it fills the width of the column it sits in on any screen.
Audio and the other formats
The Audio format works in exactly the same way, with the same Media embed URL box, for a podcast episode or a recorded message hosted on SoundCloud, Spotify or similar. The Standard format is a normal story with a featured image. Status marks a story as need to know and Link sends people to another web address; both are described in Add or edit a news story. The Image and Gallery formats are listed in the box but the theme treats them as Standard.
Remove the video
Edit the story and set the format back to Standard. The Media embed box disappears and the featured image is used again. The address is kept, so switching the format back to Video restores the player.