Can't control Youtube embed even with document.getElementById('xyz').playVideo() - not a function?

Question

OK, I\'m stuck and I don\'t know what\'s wrong even after following Google\'s docs and reading suggestions here on Stackoverflow. Why can\'t I control Youtube embeds in my

Answer 1

OK, so here's the answer found in one tiny line of text on the API page: http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/js_api_reference.html

"Note: To test any of these calls, you must have your file running on a webserver, as the Flash player restricts calls between local files and the internet."

So to allow me to continue to develop on my Mac laptop I did the following:

1. Edited my /etc/hosts file to include an entry back to my localhost:

   127.0.0.1   testhost.com
   

2. Edited my /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file to add a virtual host entry pointing back to my development directory:

   
       ServerName testhost.com
       DocumentRoot /Users/amy/flashproj
       
           AllowOverride all
           Options MultiViews Indexes FollowSymLinks
           Allow from All
       
   
   

3. Restarted Apache:

   sudo apachectl restart
   

4. Browsed back to my own localhost via my new virtual server:

   http://testhost.com
   

Voila. That totally works now. I can query the page for the player:

document.getElementById('e1');                // OK
document.getElementById('e1').playVideo();    // OK!

Whew! No onYouTubePlayerReady() required either!