Vimeo widget
Your Vimeo films on your own site
The Vimeo widget turns a Vimeo showcase, channel or member page into a grid or a slider of films on your website. Each film opens in Vimeo's own player, which carries no ads, over your page, so a visitor watching your work never leaves your site. Change the showcase on Vimeo and the widget follows.
It is made for one platform. If your films also live on YouTube or elsewhere, the Video Showcase shows them together, a tab each.
Add your films
- Open the Videos tab in the editor. It is the first tab after Templates. At the top is a box headed Add a source as a new tab.
- Paste a Vimeo link. A showcase such as vimeo.com/showcase/1234567 (older links say album), a channel such as vimeo.com/channels/yourchannel, or a member page such as vimeo.com/yourname.
- Press Add as a tab. The newest films in it appear in the preview with their pictures, titles, dates and play counts. The tab is named after the showcase or channel; you can rename it.
- Add more showcases, if you like. Each becomes a tab of its own, so a reel, a set of case studies and a festival selection can sit side by side.
There is nothing to set up on Vimeo: DreamWidget reads public Vimeo pages with its own access. A private showcase cannot be read this way; make it public or unlisted. Films you add to the showcase on Vimeo reach your site on their own, and Refresh videos fetches them straight away.
Each tab has a panel that opens and closes with its sources and their films. Beside every film is a switch: turn one off and it stays in your list but leaves the widget.
Start from a template
Every Vimeo widget starts from a template: a finished look you can keep as it is or change. When you make the widget on the dashboard, each template plays a short clip of itself, and Use this template opens it in the editor with your own films in it. Every template comes as a dark and a light version, for a dark or a light page.
Changed your mind later? The Templates tab, first in the editor, shows them all again. One click puts a template on your widget straight away. Your videos, words and links stay; only the look changes, and Undo takes it back.
Two screens: Desktop and Mobile
Above the preview is a switch with two choices, Desktop and Mobile. Every setting in Layout and Design is kept for each of them separately, so a grid can have four columns on a computer and one on a phone. A tablet is drawn from the Desktop settings. Your videos are shared by both.
- Choose the screen you want to change. Press Desktop or Mobile above the preview. The preview takes that screen's size, and every change you make from then on is for that screen only.
- Use the same change on both, if you want. Tick Edit all screens under the preview, and a change goes to Desktop and Mobile together.
The player, and how it opens
A click on a video opens it in Vimeo's own player, over your page, and starts it. Nobody is sent to another site. By default the player grows out of the video that was clicked and shrinks back into it when it closes. While the player loads, the video's picture is held with a play button on it, and the moment the video really plays the button gives a small press and fades away.
- Open the Video player card. It is on the Design tab. While it is open, the preview shows the player, so you can see every change.
- Choose how it opens. Under How it opens, Grows from the click is the default. At once shows the player with no motion. Visitors whose device asks for less motion always get a short fade instead of the grow.
- Pick the play button. The Play button card sets the button on every video card: Vimeo's own play mark, a circle with a triangle in your colors, a triangle alone, your own image, or none, with its size and colors.
Your files
Every picture you upload is kept in your account, not in one widget, so you can use it again anywhere. Beside each place that takes a picture, such as your own play button image, a custom logo in Social Links, or the widget background, there is a Your files button that lists everything you have uploaded before. Pick one and it is used at once, with nothing uploaded twice. Your account page shows how much space your files take.
The widget's background has its own library: on the Design tab, in Widget background, press Change background style. Add a picture or Add a video puts your own behind the videos, and once one is there, Effects for your picture offers slow movements and effects under the pointer, each with its own settings.
Buttons that say what they do
You can add your own titles, text and buttons above or below the videos, in Layout under Added titles, text and buttons, each placed with sliders. A button does one of two real things: it goes to a link you give it, or it adds an event to the visitor's calendar. Give it words that say which, such as "Subscribe on Vimeo" for a link to your channel. The templates follow the same rule: no button in them promises something that will not happen.
Publish and put it on your site
- Press Publish changes, at the top right. It lists what you changed and asks once. Publish sends it.
- Copy the code. The window that says your widget is live has the embed code and a Copy code button. The same code is on the Settings tab, and on the dashboard as Copy embed on the widget's card.
- Paste it once, where the widget should appear. It is a frame and a short script together; keep both. A page that already has the code picks up every later publish within a minute. Embedding on your site shows where to paste it on each website builder.
If something goes wrong
The tab is empty. The showcase or channel is probably private. Make it public or unlisted on Vimeo, then press Refresh videos.
"This Vimeo Widget takes Vimeo only." A link from another platform was pasted. It belongs in its own widget, or in a Video Showcase, which mixes platforms.
A film will not play on your site. Some films are set on Vimeo to play only on certain sites. Check the film's embed settings on Vimeo and allow your site's address.
Anything else: hello@dreamwidget.com, and tell us the widget's name.