SDAweb Channels for YouTube

Visit the Google Cloud Console, create a project, enable the YouTube Data API v3, and create an API key. Step-by-step instructions are included on the plugin's Settings page.

Yes. Google provides 10,000 free quota units per day. A typical site with 10 channels uses 300–500 units per day. Visitor page views use zero quota.

By default every 6 hours. You can change this to anywhere from 1 to 24 hours in Settings. Live stream status is checked every 5 minutes automatically.

The plugin checks for live and upcoming broadcasts every 5 minutes using the YouTube API and RSS feeds. Currently live streams show a red LIVE badge with viewer count. Upcoming streams show a blue UPCOMING badge with a countdown to the scheduled start time. Streams are automatically sorted by proximity to the current time, so the most imminent broadcasts always appear first regardless of when they were originally scheduled.

No. Live and upcoming streams are automatically excluded from [sdawchfo_channel], [sdawchfo_channels], and [sdawchfo_feed]. Use [sdawchfo_live] to display them separately, or add live_only="true" to any shortcode to show only live content.

Drag channels into the desired order on the Channels page. This order is used for tabs and sections site-wide. To set a different order on a specific page, list channel IDs in the shortcode: [sdawchfo_channels layout="tabs" ids="UCabc,UCxyz"].

Yes. Set count to up to 100 in the shortcode or Shortcode Builder. The plugin paginates through the YouTube API automatically.

Yes. Use the Import/Export section on the Settings page to download a JSON file with your channels and settings, then upload it on another site. Videos are not included — they are re-fetched automatically.

Yes. The plugin uses WordPress transients for its own internal cache, which is compatible with object caching plugins and page caching plugins.

The plugin offers four player modes, selectable in the Shortcode Builder or via the player attribute:

• Auto (default) — Adapts to screen size: plays inline on desktop, opens a lightbox on mobile phones. Best for sites with mixed audiences.
• Lightbox — Always opens a fullscreen overlay with prev/next navigation. Best for desktop-heavy audiences.
• Inline — Always plays directly inside the video card with an expand-to-lightbox button. Best for mobile-heavy audiences.
• Link — Opens the video on YouTube in a new tab. No on-site playback.

The plugin automatically detects and removes them. When a channel is refreshed, any cached videos that YouTube no longer returns (because they were made private, deleted, or removed from the uploads playlist) are purged from your local database.

The tabs layout offers three navigation modes, configurable in Settings > Appearance:

• Scroll (default) — A horizontally scrollable tab bar with arrow indicators. Works well with any number of channels.
• Wrapping Pills — All channels are shown as pill buttons that wrap to multiple rows. Best when you have many channels and want them all visible at once.
• Avatar Strip — A compact row of channel avatars with labeled names below. Long channel names are automatically truncated with a configurable truncation direction (show beginning or end).

Broadcast Boost increases the live status polling frequency from every 5 minutes to every 1 minute during a configurable time window. This is useful if your channels have a regular broadcast schedule (e.g. every Saturday from 10:30 to 13:00). Enable it in Settings and choose the day and time range. Outside the boost window, normal 5-minute polling continues. For best results, set up a real server cron that runs every minute.

WordPress uses a pseudo-cron that only runs when someone visits your site, which can cause delays. For reliable scheduling:

1. Add define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true); to your wp-config.php (before "That's all, stop editing!").
2. Set up a cron job on your server (via cPanel, Plesk, or SSH) to run every minute: */1 * * * * wget -q -O /dev/null https://yoursite.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1

As of version 1.4.9, the plugin uses YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed domain (youtube-nocookie.com) which resolves most Vivaldi playback issues. If you still experience problems, Vivaldi's built-in tracker and ad blocker may be blocking the embed. Click the shield icon in the address bar and disable the blocker for your site.