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Session log — Past Events video description beside the Watch button

2 June 2026 · Hasmukh with Claude · auto-published from the local journal entry. A polished narrative version can be requested in any future Claude session.

Summary

• Hasmukh asked to take the description from a talk's video (the description box on Vimeo) and show it to the right of the green "Watch the recording" button in the Past Events spotlight, the same idea used on s2l.online. Bridget Hodkinson's Gout talk was the worked example.
• Delivered on the live medilearn.africa Past Events page. The description now sits beside the Watch button whenever a talk is featured in the top panel, and there is a new editing box so any talk can have one.
• Also looked into the recording player's fullscreen button not working in Safari. Traced it to a Safari setting on Hasmukh's Mac rather than the website, since the same thing happens on the s2l video library and both work in Chrome.

Decisions

• Stored the description as a per-event field on each talk rather than fetching it from Vimeo on every page load. This keeps to the agreed "manual fetch only" approach for Vimeo and means the text still shows even if the video's privacy changes later.
• Built it as a general feature (data field, on-page display, tile swap, and an admin box) with Bridget as the example, so the same can be added to other talks easily.
• Did not change which talk is featured by default. The panel still opens on the most recent event (Setshedi, 22 April 2026). Bridget's description appears when her photo tile is selected, which matches the screenshot Hasmukh shared.

Changes made

• Past Events plugin (ml-past-events) updated from v2.1.2 to v2.2.0 on the live site (/var/www/medistage).
• Spotlight now wraps the Watch button and a new description block in a side-by-side row (.ml-pe-spotlight__actions + .ml-pe-spotlight__vdesc); it stacks under the button on phones (≤720px).
• New video_description field threaded through the plugin (sanitize, resolve, spotlight render, tile data attribute).
• New "Video description" box added to the Past Events editing screen, wired into save, reset, and edit in the admin script.
• Tile click now swaps the description in via a data-description attribute in the public script.
• Style and behaviour files refreshed to ?v=2.2.0 so the change shows immediately.
• Pulled Bridget Hodkinson's Gout description from Vimeo (video id 1197321428, via the live site's existing Vimeo connection) and saved it on her talk (event id 5).
• Pulled Jantina de Vries' AI ethics description from Vimeo (video id 1196338185) and saved it on her talk (event id 4), at Hasmukh's request later in the session.
• Verified the live page loads cleanly (HTTP 200), the new layout is present, and Bridget's tile carries the full description text. PHP checked for errors before going live.
• Worked on the player's fullscreen button, which was not truly going fullscreen in Safari. The button flipped to "Exit full screen" but the video stayed boxed in the page. Tried two improvements to the player: v2.2.1, then v2.2.2, which puts the player into the page from the start like the s2l video library, plus a styling safeguard so a fullscreen video fills the screen. Neither changed Safari's behaviour. The cause turned out to be Safari on Hasmukh's Mac, not the website: the same fullscreen problem happens on the s2l video library, and both sites work in Chrome. Most likely a content blocker or privacy add-on, or an out-of-date Safari. Plugin left at v2.2.2, which works in Chrome and is a harmless, slightly more robust version of the player.

Backups

• Plugin files before the change: /root/backups/medistage/ml-past-events-20260602-190231/.
• Past Events data before adding Bridget's description: /root/backups/medistage/ML_Past_Events-before-vdesc-20260602-191022.json.
• Past Events data before adding Jantina's description: /root/backups/medistage/ML_Past_Events-before-jantina-vdesc-20260602-192544.json.
• Plugin files before the fullscreen changes: /root/backups/medistage/ml-past-events-fsfix-20260602-193702/ and /root/backups/medistage/ml-past-events-fsfix2-20260602-195452/.
• To revert the code, copy the backup files back and reset ownership to medistage.

Follow-ups

• Bridget and Jantina now both have a description. Any further talks can have one added the same way, either from their video or typed into the editing box.
• Setshedi's talk (the default featured one) still has a placeholder recording link from before. Not addressed this session.
• Fullscreen conclusion: Hasmukh confirmed the same fullscreen problem happens on the s2l video library in his Safari, and that it works in Chrome. So this is a Safari setting on his Mac, not the website. Likely a content blocker or privacy extension, or an out-of-date Safari. The website is working correctly. He can use Chrome for fullscreen in the meantime.