Ionic Background Video Web Component

This is a very simple Web Component for Ionic 4 applications to have a fullscreen video playing in the background of a page.

Why make a Web component?

Turns out there are many tweaks to do to make it work perfectly, like we need for a clean and profesionnal app. So I figured I would save you the trouble.

Remarks

The video will not play correctly on iOS 9 and less. it was not supported yet: https://webkit.org/blog/6784/new-video-policies-for-ios/

This component is designed to play a video that is already on the device.

How to use it with you Ionic App

I actually made an article on our blog explaining how to do that: https://geeklearning.io/how-to-create-a-reusable-web-component-with-stenciljs-and-use-it-in-your-ionic-4-application/

For more information about importing it in your app, refer to the Stencil documentation: https://stenciljs.com/docs/angular

Manual modifications

config.xml

First, you have to allow inline media playback in your Cordova config.xml, otherwise it will not work on iOS :

<preference name="AllowInlineMediaPlayback" value="true" />

ion-content

You don't want your ion-content to scroll at all on this page, so you need to set it's force-overscroll attribute to false:

<ion-content force-overscroll="false">
  <gl-background-video src="assets/your_video.mp4" poster="assets/your_video_screen.png"></gl-background-video>
</ion-content>

Install with npm

Install this Web Component with NPM:

npm install --save gl-ionic-background-video

Import it

Import it in the module of the page which will use it (home.module.ts for example):

import 'gl-ionic-background-video';

Include the Custom Element Schema

You also need to tell your page's module to allow non-angular elements. Add the CUSTOM_ELEMENTS_SCHEMA to the list of schemas of you module:

@NgModule({
  imports: [
    CommonModule,
    FormsModule,
    IonicModule,
    RouterModule.forChild([
      {
        path: '',
        component: HomePage
      }
    ])
  ],
  declarations: [HomePage],
  schemas: [CUSTOM_ELEMENTS_SCHEMA] // here is the schema declaration to add
})
export class HomePageModule {}

Call defineCustomElements

Call the defineCustomElements function from the Stencil component collection in your main.ts like this:

import { defineCustomElements } from 'gl-ionic-background-video/dist/loader'; // add this line

platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(AppModule)
  .catch(err => console.log(err)); // This is already in main.ts, it's just to show you where to put everything.
  
defineCustomElements(window); // call the function here

Usage

This Web Components accepts 3 parameters :

• The video source : src
• The fallback image : poster
• The mute state of the video : muted