You've long been able to embed content from external sources—YouTube, Vimeo, Scribd—in news posts and course lessons. We recently made this feature even better: you can now embed content from 17 different services. Here's a look...

Auto-embeds

Auto-embeds work simply by pasting the content's URL right in the text of the post or lesson. This works with YouTube, Vimeo, Scribd, and now Prezi, a service that lets you create and share presentations.

First, copy the URL of the media you want to include from one of those services.

Next, paste it right into the news or lesson editor.

Once you save, Populi does the rest: the content is now embedded in your post or lesson!

Iframes

An inline frame—or iframe—is a way to embed one web page within another. We've been cagey about those in the past because, when done poorly, an iframe can present a security risk. But seeing that our users were needing more flexibility in this area, we decided to "whitelist" a number of trustworthy sites and services. So, you can now use embed codes from any whitelisted service to incorporate external content in news and lessons—without anyone having to worry about security.

Here's how to embed content using an iframe:

First, grab the embed code. Different services have different ways of doing this and give you different appearance options—and some, like Spotify, require a paid account to get the embed code. Whatever you do, make sure you get the embed code, and not some sort of "share this" link!

Then, open the HTML source editor.

Paste the embed code directly into the HTML source editor and click Update.

You'll see the embedded content right in the news/lesson editor—and, of course, in the finished product when you click Save.

The whitelisted services are Google Docs, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Scribd, Prezi, Soundcloud, Rdio, Spotify, Twitch, Vine, TED, Slideshare, Imgur, Box, Crocdoc, and Quickcast. If you have another service you'd like to us to add, send us a support request and we'll take a look at it.