Embed YouTube Videos with JavaScript
This explains how you can embed YouTube videos using the Google+ approach - only the video thumbnail is loaded along with the page and the actual player loads when the user hits the play button.
<!-- You can embed multiple Youtube videos on a page -->
<div class="youtube" id="LcIytqkbdlo" style="width:560px; height: 315px;"></div>
<div class="youtube" id="_Jmisv1Spck" style="width:560px; height: 315px;"></div>
<!-- Include the JavaScript only once -->
<script>
// Find all the YouTube video embedded on a page
var videos = document.getElementsByClassName('youtube');
for (var i = 0; i < videos.length; i++) {
var youtube = videos[i];
// Based on the YouTube ID, we can easily find the thumbnail image
var img = document.createElement('img');
img.setAttribute('src', 'http://i.ytimg.com/vi/' + youtube.id + '/hqdefault.jpg');
img.setAttribute('class', 'thumb');
// Overlay the Play icon to make it look like a video player
var circle = document.createElement('div');
circle.setAttribute('class', 'circle');
youtube.appendChild(img);
youtube.appendChild(circle);
// Attach an onclick event to the YouTube Thumbnail
youtube.onclick = function () {
// Create an iFrame with autoplay set to true
var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
iframe.setAttribute(
'src',
'https://www.youtube.com/embed/' + this.id + '?autoplay=1&autohide=1&border=0&wmode=opaque&enablejsapi=1'
);
// The height and width of the iFrame should be the same as parent
iframe.style.width = this.style.width;
iframe.style.height = this.style.height;
// Replace the YouTube thumbnail with YouTube HTML5 Player
this.parentNode.replaceChild(iframe, this);
};
}
</script>
Amit Agarwal
Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion
Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.
Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory