In part two I demonstrated a single dropdown menu that controls an audio or video player in SharePoint. What if a user wants to separate files into topics? This is not easy to do with a single dropdown. You can give each topic its own dropdown menu and player but then you are back to multiple players in a window. Again I got a simple question: If a player with a dropdown is possible then why not multiple dropdowns and one player? I love that kind of logic.

In part one I demonstrated a single audio or video player in SharePoint. The player was frequently used by the site administrators in my environment. So frequently that it took less than 4 weeks for my users to out-grow a single player and request a multi file player. One of my site administrators asked a simple question: if a single player is possible then why not a multi-file player? How can you argue with that kind of logic? Back to the sandbox. As I stated in the first article, I have used this player for .WMV, .AVI and MP3 files but it will play the file types associated in each individual computer. With my company’s desktop image all 3 work fine.

My challenge was simple. Create a simple to use, easy to administer, user friendly interface that will not prompt for authentication. Although posting to YouTube and using their embedded link is an option for some, business related materials must be kept “in House” so the sound and video files must be stored and run from SharePoint.