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First thought on this project: hey, why electron yt-dl works perfectly from the command line, I type the programm, paste the url. Second thought: might be nice

by fock 7y ago

First thought on this project: hey, why electron yt-dl works perfectly from the command line, I type the programm, paste the url. Second thought: might be nice for selecting from the myriad of options. Well...

toomanybeersies 7y ago
Not everyone is familiar or comfortable with the command line. A lot of my friends don't use youtube-dl for this exact reason. They end up messaging me, asking me to download files for them.
- xwdv 7y ago
  Why not just create a simple phone number with twilio that they can text a url to and then it fires a script to download that video and upload it to s3 for them? Shouldn’t take more than an hour IMO.
  - kevinzg 7y ago
    There are various Telegram bots that receive a YouTube URL and send the audio as an mp3 file.
  - halfjoking 7y ago
    If it wasn't for the copyright infringement this wouldn't be a bad business idea. One video per day is free - if you want extra "credits" pay for it on the website.
    - xwdv 7y ago
      It doesn’t really matter, if you get a dmca takedown just delete that file. But I doubt you will, especially if it’s just your friends hosting it.
  - toomanybeersies 7y ago
    Mainly because I actually like talking to my friends, and I'm often interested in whatever video/music they want me to download for them. I have no desire to automate my interactions with my friends, especially for something that's easy enough for me to do and only takes a minute of my time.
    - xwdv 7y ago
      You could just look at the logs to see what kind of stuff they download. And since they know it’s automated they will likely download even more stuff. If you see something interesting then maybe you can start a conversation with them at that point.
- nacs 7y ago
  There's already a bunch of websites that do this if they can't use youtube-dl -- why are they messaging you when they can literally go to one of these sites and paste the URL in to get the video?
  - anbop 7y ago
    If you’ve trained a computer illiterate person well, they will not go to sketchy ad-ridden websites and download files to their PC and double click them.
  - sharcerer 7y ago
    Name 1 which works flawlessly. No ads. On a side note, is it possible to port this CLI program to Android or web? My mom needs a downloader and the Firefox ext which I used till now , doesn't work all the time.
    - fock 7y ago
      install termux, install youtube-dl, define a "handler"-script, share the link with termux
- fock 7y ago
  I understand this too, but being on HN, familiarity with the CLI probably can be taken for granted. For all the other people this will stop them from using shady sites, but even some of them might like to have some more options included in such program... For the current feature-level there is 0 reason to do a bloated electron app - just do your 100 lines of code with tray integration for all the major OS (with a GUI) (Java might even have systray integration)
benj111 7y ago
You've just summed up the gui/command line dichotomy. It's something we could do better at bridging the gap between. Tbh things like this, a gui front end for a terminal app seem the best way forward. I don't know why they aren't used a lot more in open source, it just seems to match up so much better to the open source model of a random person developing a project and no one taking over when that person loses interest. The front ends are the sexy bits where you get more churn but also more interest. The boring back end doesn't attract, but also doesn't need so much attention. I suppose you could argue we do it at the library level, I still think there's room to do it at this level also.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err. Each have their pros and cons. I'd say what makes most sense is a library with frontends (CLI, TUI, GUI, (web)socket, etc) In this case I wouldn't need a GUI with Electron. All I would need is a Firefox extension for youtube-dl (or the hypothetical library). Why keep reinventing wheel? Hence library. One annoying thing with CLI is defaults. You might wanna set defaults (in CLI often used in an alias). So I end up managing a large alias list but what if I use more than 1 shell depending on machine? What if the machine does not use Git to sync such files?
  - benj111 7y ago
    "You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err" No but you can script the underlying youtube-dl so with the gui front end you get the best of both worlds. Re defaults, that isn't an inherent shortcoming of terminal apps. Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. I agree it's a common problem though.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      > Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. The error in your reasoning is that you assume the existence of a singular right thing. Software that attempts to just do the right thing tends to suffer from what I call Overly Clever Syndrome. I hate waiters or store clerks that second-guess my motivations. Why should I like software that does the same? That said, `youtube-dl $url` will download the pointed-to video in the best available quality, so that's a pretty decent default.

by fock 7y ago

toomanybeersies 7y ago

Not everyone is familiar or comfortable with the command line. A lot of my friends don't use youtube-dl for this exact reason. They end up messaging me, asking me to download files for them.

xwdv 7y ago
Why not just create a simple phone number with twilio that they can text a url to and then it fires a script to download that video and upload it to s3 for them? Shouldn’t take more than an hour IMO.
- kevinzg 7y ago
  There are various Telegram bots that receive a YouTube URL and send the audio as an mp3 file.
- halfjoking 7y ago
  If it wasn't for the copyright infringement this wouldn't be a bad business idea. One video per day is free - if you want extra "credits" pay for it on the website.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    It doesn’t really matter, if you get a dmca takedown just delete that file. But I doubt you will, especially if it’s just your friends hosting it.
- toomanybeersies 7y ago
  Mainly because I actually like talking to my friends, and I'm often interested in whatever video/music they want me to download for them. I have no desire to automate my interactions with my friends, especially for something that's easy enough for me to do and only takes a minute of my time.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    You could just look at the logs to see what kind of stuff they download. And since they know it’s automated they will likely download even more stuff. If you see something interesting then maybe you can start a conversation with them at that point.
nacs 7y ago
There's already a bunch of websites that do this if they can't use youtube-dl -- why are they messaging you when they can literally go to one of these sites and paste the URL in to get the video?
- anbop 7y ago
  If you’ve trained a computer illiterate person well, they will not go to sketchy ad-ridden websites and download files to their PC and double click them.
- sharcerer 7y ago
  Name 1 which works flawlessly. No ads. On a side note, is it possible to port this CLI program to Android or web? My mom needs a downloader and the Firefox ext which I used till now , doesn't work all the time.
  - fock 7y ago
    install termux, install youtube-dl, define a "handler"-script, share the link with termux
fock 7y ago
I understand this too, but being on HN, familiarity with the CLI probably can be taken for granted. For all the other people this will stop them from using shady sites, but even some of them might like to have some more options included in such program... For the current feature-level there is 0 reason to do a bloated electron app - just do your 100 lines of code with tray integration for all the major OS (with a GUI) (Java might even have systray integration)

benj111 7y ago

You've just summed up the gui/command line dichotomy. It's something we could do better at bridging the gap between. Tbh things like this, a gui front end for a terminal app seem the best way forward. I don't know why they aren't used a lot more in open source, it just seems to match up so much better to the open source model of a random person developing a project and no one taking over when that person loses interest. The front ends are the sexy bits where you get more churn but also more interest. The boring back end doesn't attract, but also doesn't need so much attention. I suppose you could argue we do it at the library level, I still think there's room to do it at this level also.

Fnoord 7y ago
You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err. Each have their pros and cons. I'd say what makes most sense is a library with frontends (CLI, TUI, GUI, (web)socket, etc) In this case I wouldn't need a GUI with Electron. All I would need is a Firefox extension for youtube-dl (or the hypothetical library). Why keep reinventing wheel? Hence library. One annoying thing with CLI is defaults. You might wanna set defaults (in CLI often used in an alias). So I end up managing a large alias list but what if I use more than 1 shell depending on machine? What if the machine does not use Git to sync such files?
- benj111 7y ago
  "You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err" No but you can script the underlying youtube-dl so with the gui front end you get the best of both worlds. Re defaults, that isn't an inherent shortcoming of terminal apps. Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. I agree it's a common problem though.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    > Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. The error in your reasoning is that you assume the existence of a singular right thing. Software that attempts to just do the right thing tends to suffer from what I call Overly Clever Syndrome. I hate waiters or store clerks that second-guess my motivations. Why should I like software that does the same? That said, `youtube-dl $url` will download the pointed-to video in the best available quality, so that's a pretty decent default.