GMC YouTube Gallery / Video Hub documentation

YouTube videos, playlists, channels and search galleries with privacy-enhanced embeds.

What this component does

GMC YouTube Gallery / Video Hub belongs to the FuerteventuraTV CMS catalogue and is supported through GMC AI Ticketing. Product package key: pkg_gmc_youtube_gallery.

Requirements

A supported Joomla 5/6 or WordPress install according to the product platform.
PHP 8.1 or newer unless the product page says otherwise.
Administrator access for installation, configuration and update checks.
A valid FuerteventuraTV purchase/licence for paid downloads and private updates.

Daily workflow

Use GMC YouTube Gallery / Video Hub from the CMS backend, not from external SaaS dashboards unless the product explicitly connects to one.
Document the exact page, shortcode, module position or menu item where the output is published.
Keep a small test item published so support can reproduce display and update problems quickly.

Updates and licence checks

Open the CMS administrator and confirm the product version before changing files.
Keep the licence/download id active in the product settings when the component exposes that field.
For Joomla updates use Extensions > Update, click Check For Updates, select the product and run Update.
If the update is not listed, clear the update cache and confirm the update site points to the FuerteventuraTV feed.

Support ticket

Open a support ticket with product name, installed version, domain, order email, licence/download id if available, and the exact error message. The AI assistant must cite this documentation or escalate to a human when the answer is not fully covered.

Installation guide

Use the Joomla or WordPress installation guide linked from the CMS documentation hub. Install the correct ZIP, keep a backup, save the license key when requested and test on a private page before publishing.

Configuration guide

Open the product settings in the CMS administrator area. Check license, roles, cache, privacy, notifications and provider keys only when that product uses an external provider.

User documentation

These notes are written for site owners and editors: first test, daily use, support limits, privacy duties and what to include in a support ticket. They do not require editing source code.

Everything included

62 real features, grouped by area — the full depth of GMC YouTube Gallery (Video Hub), one aligned feature set on Joomla and WordPress.

Video sources & gallery types

Single video by ID — drop in one clip with just its YouTube ID.
Single video by URL — paste any YouTube link (youtu.be/…, watch?v=…, /embed/…, /shorts/…) and it extracts the ID automatically.
Manual video-list gallery — hand-pick videos with a comma-, newline- or pipe-separated list; builds a gallery with zero API key needed.
Playlist gallery — render a full playlist as a styled gallery, or fall back to a native embedded playlist player with gallery="false".
Channel gallery — show a channel's latest uploads, always ordered newest-first.
YouTube search gallery — turn a search query into a live gallery of matching videos.
Multi-source merge — combine several playlists and/or channels plus a manual video list in a single shortcode; results are merged, de-duplicated by video ID and sorted newest-first before the limit is applied.
Channel header card — optionally show the channel avatar, title and description above a channel gallery.
Graceful bare-link fallback — a channel with no API key (or an empty result) degrades to a plain "YouTube channel" link instead of a broken block.

Display modes & templates

Three display modes per gallery — inline embed, thumbnail lightbox, or link (opens on YouTube); the mode is honoured inside galleries, not just single videos.
Autoplay lightbox — thumbnails open a full-screen modal that autoplays the video; closes on the Close button or a backdrop click.
Nine ready-made templates — Grid, List, Cinema (first video full-width), Compact (auto-fit tiles), Circles, Dark overlay, Flip cards (3D hover flip) and two circle grids (circular tiles with hover rotate) — no custom CSS required.
Template aliases — friendly names map automatically (default/cards → grid, circle → circles, flipcard → flipcards, plus legacy variants), so imported or typo'd names still resolve.
Configurable columns — 1–6 responsive columns from settings (up to 12 via shortcode); legacy circle templates auto-default to 7 columns unless you set your own.
Configurable gutter — control the gap between tiles from 0 to 48 px.

Frontend experience

Fully responsive — CSS Grid with automatic breakpoints (2 columns under 760 px, 1 under 480 px; circle templates have their own tuned mobile grids).
Load More pagination — show an initial batch and reveal the next set on click, keeping long galleries light on first paint.
Per-gallery header — optional title bar with a live video count.
Per-video titles and descriptions — toggle each on/off; descriptions are word-trimmed (max_words) to keep cards tidy.
Lazy loading — thumbnails and iframes load lazily for faster pages.
Zero external assets — all CSS and JS are injected inline once per page; no jQuery, no CDN, no bundled libraries, nothing extra to enqueue.

Authoring & editor integration

Four interchangeable shortcodes — gmcvideo, gmcvideohub, gmcyoutube, gmcyoutuber (Joomla curly-brace tokens in article text; WordPress square-bracket shortcodes).
Visual insert button — a toolbar/editor button drops a ready gallery snippet into a page without pasting embed code (Joomla editor-XTD button; WordPress classic-editor media button).
Per-shortcode overrides — every site default (mode, template, columns, gutter, limit, page size, title/description, header) can be overridden inline on any single gallery.
Silent legacy migration — old [mx_youtuber…] shortcodes and their attributes are transparently re-mapped (type/id, theme→template, cols→columns, rows→limit/page-size, display→toggles), so migrated sites keep rendering without editing content.

Admin & configuration

Branded settings screen — a clean, card-based admin page (top-level "GMC YouTube" menu in WordPress; plugin Options in Joomla).
Guided API setup wizard — step-by-step instructions to create a YouTube Data API v3 key in about five minutes.
Live "Test connection" button — validates the API key on the spot and returns a specific diagnosis (working, invalid/restricted key, API not enabled, quota exceeded, or network error) instead of a generic failure.
Per-site defaults — display mode, template, video limit, columns, gutter, items-before-Load-More, channel header, title/description visibility and privacy mode.
Collapsible advanced panel — request timeout and cache lifetime tucked away from everyday settings.
Default-shortcode component option — a Joomla component config field for a house default.

YouTube API, caching & performance

YouTube Data API v3 — pulls real titles, thumbnails and metadata for playlist, channel and search galleries (playlistItems, search, channels).
API key is optional — single videos, manual lists and bare playlist/channel embeds work with no key at all; a key is only needed to list items with real metadata.
Local metadata cache — API responses are cached (file cache in Joomla, transients in WordPress) with a configurable TTL to cut repeat calls and keep pages fast.
Stale-cache resilience — on a transient YouTube outage the gallery serves the last good result instead of going blank.
Negative caching — a dead or misconfigured key's empty result is cached briefly so it isn't re-hit on every page view, protecting your API quota.
Atomic, safe cache writes — temp-file-and-rename writes avoid partial or corrupt cache files (Joomla).
Cache off switch — set cache lifetime to 0 to disable caching entirely.
Configurable request timeout — 2–20 s, so a slow API never hangs a page.
Failure logging — API transport/HTTP errors are logged (Joomla log channel; WordPress error_log under WP_DEBUG) for easy diagnosis.

Privacy, GDPR & security

Privacy-enhanced embeds — youtube-nocookie.com embeds are the default, deferring YouTube cookies until the visitor actually presses play.
No key leakage — the API key is never emitted in front-end output.
Hardened iframes — every embed carries referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" and a scoped allow permissions list.
Full output escaping — all dynamic values pass through Joomla escape() / WordPress esc_*, and video/playlist/channel IDs are sanitised to a safe character set.
CSRF-protected admin actions — the Test-connection call is token/nonce-checked and admin-only.
Backend access control — Joomla enforces core.manage for backend access and shows Preferences only to core.options users.
Clean uninstall — WordPress removes its settings, licence key, cached metadata and last-known-good files on deletion, leaving no orphan data.

Licensing & updates

Licensed one-click updates — new versions are delivered automatically from the GMC / FuerteventuraTV gateway (Joomla update server in the package manifest; WordPress update checker via the same gateway).
Download Key activation — paste the Download Key from your licence email; Joomla surfaces the key field via the manifest dlid.
Hard licence gate with grace mode — shortcodes render only for a valid licence, but a previously valid site keeps working through a temporary gateway outage (12-hour entitlement cache plus persisted last-known-good); only a fresh, explicit valid:false disables rendering.
Instant re-check on key change — saving a new key clears the cached entitlement so the new licence is verified immediately (WordPress).
Validated update downloads — WordPress only accepts an update package from an HTTPS URL on the official host (no embedded credentials, port 443), blocking tampered download URLs.
Correct "up to date" reporting — WordPress registers a no_update entry so the plugin shows a proper current-version state.

Trust & licensing

GPLv2-or-later — released under the GNU General Public License; the official build ships with licensed updates and support for one site.
Self-hosted, your own key — runs entirely on your server with your own YouTube API key; the only outbound calls are to YouTube/Google and the GMC licence/update gateway.
No database footprint — no custom tables and no migrations; nothing to clean up at the DB level.
No build chain — pure PHP with inline CSS/JS; no Composer, npm, Node or compile step.
Download Key by email — the key arrives with your purchase email and unlocks updates while the licence is active.
Translation-ready — all UI strings are externalised (Joomla language keys; WordPress wp-gmc-video-hub text domain with a /languages path); English (en-GB) ships in the package.

Joomla & WordPress

Parity — both builds share the same shortcodes, sources, modes, templates, caching, privacy and licensing behaviour, and are released in lockstep at the same version.
Joomla — ships as a package installing the com_gmc_youtube_gallery component, the plg_content_gmc_videohub content plugin and the editor-XTD button; galleries are curly-brace tokens in article text; Test-connection runs over com_ajax; caching uses Joomla's file cache.
WordPress — a single self-contained plugin with square-bracket shortcodes, a top-level admin menu plus a dedicated License page, a classic-editor media button, transient-based caching with last-known-good options, and Test-connection over admin-ajax.

FAQ

Do I need developer access?

No for normal use. Administrator access to the CMS is enough for installation, configuration, updates and first tests.

Can I install Joomla and WordPress packages interchangeably?

No. Use the Joomla ZIP on Joomla and the WordPress ZIP on WordPress. If a product exists on both platforms, follow the guide for that CMS.

Where do I configure license and updates?

Use the product settings or update/licensing screen in the CMS. Paid downloads and private updates require the active FuerteventuraTV license/download key.

What should I send to support?

Send product name, version, CMS, site URL, screenshot, exact error and what you already tried. Do not send passwords, API keys or tokens in the ticket.

GMC YouTube Gallery / Video Hub documentation