Product Brief #3:
Video Support, Better Prerendering & SDK Features

March 2, 2018 (5 years ago)

Microlink API

The new video data property in action.

the rest!

A new video field

added support for video 🎉.

Now, the Microlink API provides a new field called video for identifying streaming sources detected from the target url.

Added auto prerendering mode

Pre-rendering is a technique for retrieving the HTML content simulating the user browser navigation.

Although it will provide better data, it will take more time to respond. Most popular services do not need it.

In order to improve the response timing, we’ve provided an auto value by default.

This means that the service will determine if the target URL needs to use the pre-rendering technique or not.

We tested that this decision speeds up the process up to 50%.

A great merit of the improvements is related with our work improving our abstract library for interacting with headless Chrome,

browserless

Also thanks to the

Puppeteer community

for helping us address performance issues.

Microlink SDK

Microlink SDK now supports video previsualizations.

Explore

the rest!

Added video support

Because Microlink API can detect video, we use the new field to place the streaming source into our preview cards, via our SDK.

video support is included for normal or large card sizes.

We added properties to control the video, like autoplay, muted or loop options.

Smooth image loading

Our fancy loading animation, claps to

@breadadamas

👏.

We improved the transition between how the card looks before the content of the card is loaded, to give it a more natural look.

Add reverse property

Using the new direction API paramter for invert the media position in the card.

We added the possibility to invert the orientation of the content in the card using a new field called reverse.

How to update

You’ll need to make sure you have version 1.7.0 or above of the Microlink SDK.

From CDN

The easiest way to consume the frontend library. Just paste the corresponding script before the closing <body> tag:


<script type="text/javascript" src="//unpkg.com/@microlink/vanilla@latest/umd/microlink.min.js"></script>

<!-- Microlink SDK AMD bundle -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="//unpkg.com/@microlink/vanilla@latest/amd/microlink.min.js"></script>

<!-- Microlink SDK CJS bundle -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="//unpkg.com/@microlink/vanilla@latest/cjs/microlink.min.js"></script>`}</PreCode>

See more information.

From NPM

If you’re using Microlink from your `package.json` then you’ll need to consume the library from the NPM registry:

Vanilla version


npm install @microlink/vanilla@latest

React version


npm update @microlink/react@latest

See more information.

Join the community

All of these improvements or features are community driven: We listen to your feedback and act accordingly.

Whether you are are building a product and you need fancy previews, you’re an indie hacker or simply you like frontend stuff, come chat with us 🙂.