metaphor
Open Graph, Twitter Card, and oEmbed Metadata Collector
metaphor uses three web protocols to obtain information about web resources for the purpose of embedding smaller versions of those resources in other web resources or applications. It is very common for applications to expand links into a formatted preview of the link destination. However, obtaining this information requires using multiple protocols to ensure maximum coverage.
This module uses the Open Graph protocol, Twitter Cards, the oEmbed protocol, and information gathered from the resource HTML markup and HTTP headers. It takes an optimistic approach, trying to gather information from as many sources as possible.
Usage
const Metaphor = require('..');
const engine = new Metaphor.Engine();
engine.describe('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts', (description) => {
/*
{
site_name: 'YouTube',
url: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts',
title: 'Cheese Shop Sketch - Monty Python\'s Flying Circus',
image: { url: 'https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cWDdd5KKhts/maxresdefault.jpg' },
description: 'Subscribe to the Official Monty Python Channel here - http://smarturl.it/SubscribeToPython Cleese plays an erudite customer attempting to purchase some chees...',
type: 'video',
video: [
{
url: 'https://www.youtube.com/embed/cWDdd5KKhts',
type: 'text/html',
width: '480',
height: '360'
},
{
url: 'https://www.youtube.com/v/cWDdd5KKhts?version=3&autohide=1',
type: 'application/x-shockwave-flash',
width: '480',
height: '360',
tag: ['Monty Python', 'Python (Monty) Pictures Limited', 'Comedy', 'flying circus', 'monty pythons flying circus', 'john cleese', 'micael palin', 'eric idle', 'terry jones', 'graham chapman', 'terry gilliam', 'funny', 'comedy', 'animation', '60s animation', 'humor', 'humour', 'sketch show', 'british comedy', 'cheese shop', 'monty python cheese', 'cheese shop sketch', 'cleese cheese', 'cheese']
}
],
thumbnail: {
url: 'https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cWDdd5KKhts/hqdefault.jpg',
width: 480,
height: 360
},
embed: {
type: 'video',
height: 344,
width: 459,
html: '<iframe width="459" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cWDdd5KKhts?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>'
},
app: {
iphone: {
name: 'YouTube',
id: '544007664',
url: 'vnd.youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts&feature=applinks'
},
ipad: {
name: 'YouTube',
id: '544007664',
url: 'vnd.youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts&feature=applinks'
},
googleplay: {
name: 'YouTube',
id: 'com.google.android.youtube',
url: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts'
}
},
player: {
url: 'https://www.youtube.com/embed/cWDdd5KKhts',
width: '480',
height: '360'
},
twitter: { site_username: '@youtube' },
icon: {
'32': 'https://s.ytimg.com/yts/img/favicon_32-vfl8NGn4k.png',
'48': 'https://s.ytimg.com/yts/img/favicon_48-vfl1s0rGh.png',
'96': 'https://s.ytimg.com/yts/img/favicon_96-vfldSA3ca.png',
'144': 'https://s.ytimg.com/yts/img/favicon_144-vflWmzoXw.png',
smallest: 'https://s.ytimg.com/yts/img/favicon_32-vfl8NGn4k.png'
},
preview: '<html><head><title>Cheese Shop Sketch - Monty Python\'s Flying Circus</title></head><body><div class=\'metaphor-embed\'><div class=\'metaphor-embed-header\'><img class="metaphor-embed-header-icon" src="https://s.ytimg.com/yts/img/favicon_32-vfl8NGn4k.png"/><div class="metaphor-embed-header-site">YouTube</div><a class ="metaphor-embed-header-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts"><div class="metaphor-embed-header-title">Cheese Shop Sketch - Monty Python\'s Flying Circus</div></a></div><div class=\'metaphor-embed-body\'><div class="metaphor-embed-body-description">Subscribe to the Official Monty Python Channel here - http://smarturl.it/SubscribeToPython Cleese plays an erudite customer attempting to purchase some chees...</div><img class="metaphor-embed-body-image" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cWDdd5KKhts/hqdefault.jpg"/></div></div></body></html>',
sources: ['ogp', 'resource', 'oembed', 'twitter']
}
*/
});API
new Metaphor.Engine([options])
A reusable engine used to set global processing settings for each description where:
options- optional settings where:providers- iftrue, the oEmbed providers list file is used to look up resources when oEmbed discovery doesn't work. The module ships with a copy of the providers.json file. To use a different provider list, pass an array compatible with the providers.json format. Iffalse, oEmbed usage will be limited to discovery only. Defaults totrue.whitelist- an optional array of HTTP or HTTPS URLs allowed to be described. The URLs use the format{scheme}://{domain}/{path}where:scheme- must be'http'or'https'. The module will ignore which protocol is specified and will describe both schemes.domain- the domain name with an optional*.prefix. The'www.'prefix is automatically removed and ignored.path- if specified, but be'*'or a path where at least one segment is'*'.
maxWidth- an optional integer passed to the oEmbed endpoint to limit the maximum width of elements in the description. While the protocol requires providers to comply, many do not so this is at best a recommendation.maxHeight- an optional integer passed to the oEmbed endpoint to limit the maximum height of elements in the description. While the protocol requires providers to comply, many do not so this is at best a recommendation.preview- can be set to:true- a HTML preview is generated and returned indescription.preview. This is the default.false- no HTML preview is generated.- a function with the signature
function(description, options, callback)where:description- the resource description document.options- the engine settings.callback- the callback method using the signaturefunction(preview)where:preview- the HTML preview string ornullto skip setting a preview.
summary- iftrue, asummaryobject is include with the description which contains the same data provided by thepreview. Defaults tofalse.tweet- iftrue, tweets are parsed to include specific information required to show a proper embeded tweet without the use of the Twitter scripts. Defaults tofalse.maxSize- the maximum image size in bytes allowed to be included in an image preview. The limit is only enforced when creating apreview(ignored whenpreviewis disabled). When set, an HTTP HEAD request is made to each image URL to obtain its size. Defaults tofalse.css- if set to a URL, it is used as a style sheet link in thepreview. Defaults tofalse(no link).script- if set to a URL, it is used as a script link in thepreview. Defaults tofalse(no link).
engine.describe(url, callback)
Described a web resource where:
url- the resource HTTP or HTTPS URL.callback- the callback function using the signaturefunction(description)where:description- the metaphor description object.
Note that the describe() method does not return errors. Errors are optimistically ignored and best effort
is made to use as many sources for describing the url. The description always includes the following
two properties:
type- set to'website'when the type is unknown.url- the resource canonical URL, set to the requestedurlwhen no source can be utilized.
When resources are successfully used, the description includes the sources property set to an array
of one or more of:
'resource'- information was gathered from the resource HTML page.'ogp'- Open Graph protocol tags (og:) used.'twitter'- Twitter Card tags (twitter:) used.'oembed'- oEmbed service used.