Show HN: Search YouTube without stopping the video, and make your own playlists

[roansh]

Why does it need permission to Read and Change the data on _all_ of the websites that a user visits?

There are so many cool extensions but most of them need access to every single domain - even if its functionality doesn't need it. Which is what keeps me (and probably a lot many other people) away from installing them.

[tnorthcutt]

I opened a PR to limit permissions to youtube.com; hopefully it will get merged: https://github.com/darajava/youtube-smooth/pull/24

[shortstuffsushi]

I don't think you have the option to say "this app needs Read and Change for just this one domain," it's pretty much an all or nothing sort of deal. This one uses it to edit the page on YouTube, so it has to require it for all.

[splike]

On the subject of YouTube related chrome extensions, I created one called WikiTube a couple of years ago. Its super simple, and just adds relevant YouTube videos to the top of Wikipedia pages. I'm quite happy with it

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikitube/aneddidib...

[dvdgsng]

Thanks. Another very good extension for youtube is 'Youtube Plus': https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-plus/nkdal...

[kldavis4]

Hopping on the bandwagon :) my Chrome extension to improve the Youtube video editor: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pro-mode-for-youtu...

Source is on github as well: https://github.com/kldavis4/yteditorpro

[darajava]

Such a cool idea! Installed and I already love it!

[yonilevy]

Just came to say thanks, WikiTube is awesome.

[rjuyal]

This is awesome. By the way is it open sourced as well? Would love to learn from this.

[ElijahLynn]

Brilliant, gonna keep this one too!

[parr0t]

That's really cool, I like it.

[andy_ppp]

I mean YouTube UI is a disgrace really, what is it about big companies that stop them from being able to do design properly (even Apple post Jobs is starting to experience this).

[virtualized]

This is my personal experience as a YouTube user:

- There are these weirdly looking fixed (Googleish) bars for no other reason than to steal my screen space.

- Recommendations are mostly awful (10 things that will shock you!) or videos I have already watched.

- The subscription to a whole channel is a dumb concept. I usually care only about specific series of videos, not the whole channel. Example: New movie reviews, not the bullshit rambling filler videos. The effect is that I often unsubscribe from the whole channel even though there is some interesting content.

- The video controls cover part of the video for no apparent reason.

- The volume control slider disappears for no reason when you move the cursor away from it.

- There are wrong defaults like showing annotations or autoplay.

- Annotations are abused so much that you cannot leave them enabled.

- Obvious missing feature: Next/previous buttons for videos that belong to a series. Playlists are used as a bad workaround.

- I can only use YouTube on my Desktops because that's where the ad blocker works.

- Obvious missing feature: Donations to content creators.

I don't think this is a big company problem. It is a culture problem. When your boss has no taste and does not take criticism very well, you end up with wrecks like Twitter, Google+ or YouTube.

[csydas]

Probably because it becomes design by committee at a certain point, and some functionality interrupts or excludes other design intents by nature.

For example, in the linked extension, it overlays (replaces?) the youtube recommended videos once you submit a search query - as part of the recommendation stuff seems to be driving high-traffic related vids to the viewer, many of which are ad-monetized, this has a marginal impact on some revenue figures. How much I wouldn't dare make a guess at, but I do not feel it's hard to imagine wanting to keep that space operating "as is" for Youtube's benefit.

Other bad UI changes probably stem just from apathy, a decision having been made somewhere when no one considered a better alternative, and the change would be considered too much work for whatever reason.

These aren't necessarily satisfactory answers as to why bad design sneaks through, but they are answers.

[MichaelBurge]

What's wrong with it, exactly? The video player gives me fewer problems than other players, and the site as a whole seems to have everything needed to watch videos.

[tdkl]

It's the result when pendulum swung from Google being out of place regarding design to madness of designers running the show (whitespaces, huge fonts, images on a desktop intended website).

It's engineered to cater the most average Internet user. A drone. Stick out of the average with your wishes and you're out of luck.

[RankingMember]

The first thing I think of when I think of places YouTube's UI could be improved would be to simply allow logging in without bringing you to a completely separate screen (the generic Google login screen), which interrupts the content you were viewing.

[enibundo]

That is probably made on porpuse because of their view on user experience is based on "clicking videos". So they want you to click from video to video rather than search your stuff directly.

[dexterdog]

It becomes incredibly difficult to fit new features into an interface that everybody knows without changing it and when you change something like this you alienate and non-power users which makes them watch less which means less advertising.

[Kiro]

Do you have any examples or are you just saying that because you hate big companies?

[yoo1I]

Do you mind sharing what you don't like about it? I'm honestly curious.

[hyperdunc]

The Android app isn't very good, especially with regards to commenting: notifications sometimes don't come through, the layout is inflexible, and it isn't possible to edit or vote on comments.

[erelde]

One possible reason: think of the groups that formed on Facebook each time they changed the design, they didn't have any impact but they still existed that part of users.

[ManlyBread]

They once got everything right then screwed it up with the Google+ integration.

[darajava]

I think YouTube is amazing!!!

[nachtigall]

Now that Firefox (at least Dev Edition) is almost WebExtensions ready I wonder if... Does it work in Firefox 48? http://arewewebextensionsyet.com/

[downandout]

Out of curiosity....since ad injection is bad, what is the most common revenue model behind very popular extensions? Donations never make much money, and only ad blockers with enormous install bases can use the extortion model. Does anyone know how extensions make money if they aren't injecting ads?

[gozmike]

Great extension! I added it to ProductHunt for you: https://www.producthunt.com/tech/youtube-stay

Good luck!

[gozmike]

I really would love to know why this gets downvoted.

I gave the author additional exposure for his work. I've been on HN for years and this is the first time I've seen something like this.

[crypt1d]

What probably annoys me the most about youtube, is that there is no elegant way to queue the next song easily and without a few second of 'buffer' between them.

[foobarbecue]

I've been wanting to make one that displays times mentioned in comments on the time bar.

Ideally the interface could be expanded to add annotations to videos and even graph funniness over time.

Has anyone seen something like this out there yet?

[crisnoble]

This was the feature that kept me coming back to soundcloud initially, it would probably be much more useful on youtube.

[darajava]

Cool idea! I will steal it if you don't do it! :D

[ElijahLynn]

Love the new UX, hopefully YouTube contacts you for integration globally!

[ngzhian]

Cool extension! My YouTube session usually happens on my subscriptions page, so I made this extension for non-stop, no-click viewing (hover to play video!): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quickview-for-yout...

[smegel]

Magic Actions for YouTube is also worth checking out.

[globolobo]

I was just talking about exactly this like 3 days ago with my one of my friends, awesome stuff, good job!!

[n4r9]

This is fantastic, it's always been a pain to move between Youtube videos at social happenings. Out of curiosity, are there any plans to make this a collaborative feature, perhaps just over the local network by integrating with Chromecast?

[Splendor]

Thanks for sharing this. I'm excited to try this out because I use the YouTube iOS app with Chromecast exclusively because of how easy it is to create ad-hoc playlists and queue up items while you're watching.

[learnaholic]

How about making the HTML5 video element a hovering dialog which always stays in view and you can continue to search and browse youtube the way you want. Pretty much analogous to the YouTube Android app?

[trevpost]

I still find Youtube is the best way to listen to music while sitting around having drinks with friends. This is perfect for when everyone has a next song they want to play. Thank you!

[darajava]

You're most welcome :)

[kafeltz]

I think we should create an extension to fix that `search` behavior and using placeholder html5 attribute. Every time I focus on that the text moves. =D

[kschiffer]

Very nice, love it! BTW is there any plugin that hides videos with over a certain amount of views? (I know I'm so edgy, right)

[erelde]

What is your rationale behind that ? (curious)

[jharohit]

This is a perfect use case mate! love it

[kneel]

I like the functionality but that big red 'add to playlist' button is really ugly.

[darajava]

Soz.