Done. Please delete the discussion.

[mtst99]

[avi12]

This is an interesting feature, though I'm not sure it completely suits the extension
I mean, I see the extension as "set the quality of FPS Y to X", and occasionally you'd want to select quality manually
I feel like adding a keyboard shortcut to change the quality in the current video to a specific one, for whom perhaps both will be configurable via the popup, will overall bloat the extension that I aim to keep simple

[avi12]

some users prefer to not listen to podcasts or musics on high quality to prevent unnecessary data consumption

What do you think of using an app that is better suited for podcasts like Spotify?

[avi12]

What I'm thinking of is to potentially automatically determine whether a video's quality should be low (<=720p), depending on its category
So for music videos & podcasts, the quality should be 480p or 720p to save on bandwidth but not degrade from the audio quality
Of course, this would've been toggleable from a setting

[avi12]

So far, judging by my small testing, it will be tricky because suppose I watch a podcast about science and technology, the category won't be "podcast" but rather "Science & technology"
However, for a music video, it will indeed be "Music"

[avi12]

If using the keyboard shortcuts is the way to go, I think I'd rather put it in a different extension like YouTube Like-Dislike Shortcut, and perhaps rename it accordingly

[avi12]

I don't know if it is possible to play video on the highest audio quality even with low video quality

The way the extension works is simply by mimicking this interaction, i.e. the extension clicks on the gear icon, "Quality" option, and clicks on the quality depending on the video's FPS, meaning it's not possible to isolate the audio & video
If Manifest V2 would have LTS (Long-Term Support), I could write a JavaScript code that interacts with the webpage; but unfortunately, that's not a thing with Manifest V3, which is what Chrome & CWS want developers to use

just a shortcut is the way to go.

Ctrl + 1-9 collide with the native shortcut of switching between tabs
I don't think that using a modifier + number is the way to go - what if YouTube will let the user in the future choose between 12 qualities?
I still need to think it through and whether to make it configurable or not

I think right now that maybe the way to go is to have a shortcut for choosing 480p and another one for the highest quality, which will probably cover most use cases

[avi12]

@mtst99 Can you make a new design for the popup that includes telling the user about the keyboard shortcuts?

[mtst99]

[avi12]

I don't see myself using your design as-is as I am a fan of Material Design
Right now to get the Material Design into the popup, I'm using Svelte Materialify

[avi12]

To clarify, I meant that I will use your design as a guideline to my design

[avi12]

Indeed!
When I put my mind into it, I'll sketch a design and share it here so I'll get your perspective on it

[avi12]

Please take a look and let me know what you think

[avi12]

Approved

[avi12]

Can you explain what "audio only" mean?
To my knowledge, I can't magically disable the video data stream so that the user only has audio

[avi12]

#66 (comment)

[avi12]

Also, do you think the user should be able to customize the quality shortcuts? Or he'll simply have to get used to them?

[mtst99]

[avi12]

I get you, but I believe in modularizing rather than bloating
I.e. if you want an extra feature, install an extension for it

[avi12]

Think like Facebook splitting its Messenger into a separate app
People who only want to chat with their friends & family will install that app, whereas those who want the social media, will install the relevant app

[avi12]

So as you said there are still desires for single functionality extensions but for youtube I prefer to provide all the possible functionalities in one place and do not force people to install this and that. I'm more considered towards ease of use and functionality to the maximum

I get your POV and I agree with it to an extent
One downside of having a bloated extension is the package size, another is the script execution times
In addition, the browser allocates resources per extension rather than per-extension-functionality
So, imagine me making a mistake with memory consumption and/or CPU usage in a certain extension - it will only affect that extension
If I was to make tons of features into a single extension, on the other hand, that whole extension would crash and the UX would be harmed, making the users frustrated that the extension randomly crashes

[avi12]

There is another POV - lots of Windows users dislike it for it being bloated with unnecessary Microsoft apps and many tutorials out there recommend uninstalling them as soon as Windows finishes installing
In extensions, similar to mobile apps, if you find yourself not finding a feature useful, you're kind of stuck

[avi12]

If a developer makes a mistake during the development and the extension begins to consume memory and/or CPU usage endlessly, the browser will kill it at some point, claiming "the extension has crashed"
In the meantime, I'm sketching your UX idea and I will let you know once I'm done in the relevant section

[avi12]

Also, keep in mind that the popup's height is limited
if the document content is too big, the popup will cut it and the user will have to scroll down, which I see as a bad user experience

[avi12]

They have done it already, you might find code for it on stackoverflow. I found this >> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8690255/how-to-play-only-the-audio-of-a-youtube-video-using-html-5 *** this is also an extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/audio-only-youtube/pkocpiliahoaohbolmkelakpiphnllog/related?hl=en

Interesting, I'll have to look into it
Though, there is a good chance that I won't be able to implement what the extension is doing, as it's made for MV2, whereas Chrome will end MV2 support by Jan 2023

[avi12]

And add a scrollbar to tell the user more about possible scrolling area.

I purposefully hid the scrollbar as it makes the design ugly

youtube-auto-hd/src/popup/views/styles/popup.css

Lines 1 to 19 in f8072cc

	/* Chromium browsers */
	::-webkit-scrollbar {
	width: 0;
	}
	/* Firefox */
	html {
	scrollbar-width: none;
	}
	.s-app {
	overflow: hidden;
	box-sizing: border-box;
	margin: auto;
	width: 250px;
	padding: 16px 16px 4px;
	font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size: 1rem;
	}

[avi12]

Also, I purposefully set the quality as a slider as it's more compact and I think is clear enough for the average user

[avi12]

Also, can you look into making a light-mode design?

[avi12]

I don't really see the "click on a small point and drag" as a huge issue, as the average user will only mess with it once or twice during the extension's lifetime
if you really want, I could potentially make the point bigger, like so:

[avi12]

Also, it would be helpful to see how users feel and respond to the new design. If they don't like some changes, we react and learn.

I agree
TBH, I've never A/B tested before, so it'd be an interesting experience

[avi12]

I feel like there should be an additional shortcut for "max quality"
The "min quality" will always be "144p", while the "max quality" can vary

[avi12]

Yes, but the thing is that it's pointless to play at a quality that's higher than your monitor's as the browser will scale it down anyway

[avi12]

That's what the extension does by default

youtube-auto-hd/src/shared-scripts/ythd-setup.ts

Line 31 in f8072cc

const qualityClosest = qualities.find(quality => quality <= screen.height);

[avi12]

The "min quality" thing will be used to set the quality to 144p, as it's guaranteed to be available for every video
Well, maybe not for videos played from Google Photos/Drive

[avi12]

I only mentioned adding a "max quality"

[avi12]

Indeed, so you can perhaps ditch "144p" in favor of "min quality" as they're basically aliases and "min quality" will be clearer

[avi12]

Also, keep in mind that the extension is available in many languages, which will significantly widen the button widths

[avi12]

what about the word "optimum" instead of max?

I think they mean different things
"max" means that the selected quality will always be the maximum, but I don't think that's good
Suppose the video's max quality is 1440p but the user can only view 1080p - the extension will need to select 1440p, which is wasting CPU & RAM resources

"optimal"/"optimum" means "select the quality that's determined by the resolution", similar to

youtube-auto-hd/src/shared-scripts/ythd-setup.ts

Line 31 in f8072cc

const qualityClosest = qualities.find(quality => quality <= screen.height);

The role of this line is to set the quality like so by default, so the optimal quality is selected for the user out of the box
If the user desires to change the quality to a lower or a higher one, that's on him

[avi12]

I just had an idea - add the keyboard shortcuts (preloaded and/or customized) to the player quality menu

[avi12]

"player quality menu"

as in the YouTube player

as 3 columns of qualities don't allow putting shortcut text in front of them

I don't really like the 3-column design as it takes a lot of space

[avi12]

I feel like a better fit for the shortcuts menu will be that it has to "open" a new section within the popup, similar to how extensions like Dark Reader do it

[avi12]

I'm not talking about global keyboard shortcuts, which are also possible
What you're asking for is to apply regular keyboard listeners, which is done entirely by JavaScript, no need for extra permissions
See YouTube Like-Dislike Shortcut

[avi12]

I get what you mean, but setting global shortcuts is useless for this extension as they're only intended to be used on youtube.com

[avi12]

What if the user has set shortcuts that conflict with YouTube's?
Should I override them or inform the user that they collide?

[avi12]

Next week I'll be somewhat busy and soon enough I might even get hired by a tech company, but I'll do my best to progress and I'll definitely ask more questions to get the right idea of what to do

[avi12]

Thanks for taking the time and effort for making YTHD better for all of the 80,000 users!

[avi12]

@mtst99 Can you incorporate this feature into the popup design? #5

[avi12]

I'm considering using some sort of an analytics script within the extension to track what percentage of users will actually use the shortcuts feature
This way, if the percentage is high enough, it might be worth a shot to make the shortcuts configurable