9 ms·

Ask HN: Is Your Spacebar Working on YouTube?

I noticed this earlier, and I'm not the only one, I've asked around and people have tried using it in the search bar on Firefox and it just doesn't work.

quag 6y ago
No
mtmail 6y ago
Three users submitted that to HN in the last 15 minutes, seems to be tracked at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1697551 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1697551
- colpabar 6y ago
  I imagine it has something to do with the keyboard shortcuts for video player controls, which I'm going to list because I think they're neat and was very excited when I discovered them. space - play/pause j - skip back k - play/pause l - skip forward 0-9 - skip to the n/10th point of the video m - mute f - fullscreen t - "theater mode" which is the bigger-but-not-full-screen video size I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones I use often enough to remember. I like to use K to play/pause because I never end up accidentally scrolling down into the comments section.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    There is indeed more. And there is one hotkey to rule them all, pressing "?" which shows all hotkeys. "?" is one hotkey I keep pressing in a lot of random contexts, just to see what it does. In many applications it shows all the hotkeys, or if you add some modifier like shift or alt.
    - the-dude 6y ago
      Apparently ? is the new F1
      - capableweb 6y ago
        F1 is now occupied by the native applications help page. Web applications/pages then need to adopt a different one. "?" kind of also make the UX a bit more obvious, honestly. F1 is based around tradition, "?" is based on the idea that you have no idea.
        tetris11 6y ago
        Just to tangent off this and announce my surprise at the existence of a ToDoList key: XF86TodoList https://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/XF86_keyboard_symbols https://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/XF86_keyboard_symbols
        bmn__ 6y ago
        See `/usr/include/X11/XF86keysym.h` lines 52, 55 (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/proto/xorgproto/-/blob/master/include/X11/XF86keysym.h#L52 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/proto/xorgproto/-/blob/m...): /* These are sometimes found on PDA's (e.g. Palm, PocketPC or elsewhere) */ #define XF86XK_ToDoList 0x1008FF1F /* Invoke To Do List program */
    - thamer 6y ago
      Pressing "?" in Gmail shows a large help window with tons of shortcuts (you need to have keyboard shortcuts enabled under Settings > General for this to work).
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      How are you pressing '?' without shift already being applied?
      - capableweb 6y ago
        I don't normally use en-US locale? Not everyone has the same keyboard layout.
  - bmn__ 6y ago
    > I'm sure there are others ; : for playback speed More features and short-cuts via browser extension: https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube
superfamicom 6y ago
On macOS 10.15.7 (19H114): - Chrome: Yes (89.0.4389.72 (Official Build) beta (x86_64)) - Safari: No (14.0.2 (15610.3.7.1.10, 15610)) - Firefox: No (86.0 (64-bit))
HoverSausage 6y ago
It's working for me. Firefox 78 on Debian
matbilodeau 6y ago
It works in the search bar
- akalsz 6y ago
  For me it's the other way around, in the search bar it does nothing but it does pause videos.
  - matbilodeau 6y ago
    So you alt+32 between search terms ?
  - waiseristy 6y ago
    Same, typing any phrase with 'f' in it also fullsizes the currently running video
kgwxd 6y ago
Nope
recursive 6y ago
No. Version 86 on Windows. Also space to toggle pausing during playback has worked only intermittently for some time. Always solid in Chrome. I think it depends what's focused, but never figured out the details.
mmcclure 6y ago
I noticed this this AM and assumed it was something around Firefox or otherwise specific to me. The situation for me was not being able to create a new playlist when saving a video because it would trigger all of the keyboard shortcuts while typing. It would mostly work...until you get to a letter like "f" and fullscreen blows away the modal. This is a bit of a cautionary tale around the dangers of hijacking "normal" behavior: when a bug happens, you break really, really basic things.
tux3 6y ago
No, it's broken! Firefox 87 beta on Debian
dhimes 6y ago
No. But Alt 32 will give the space (Win 10 Firefox)
alucardo 6y ago
I use k instead of the space bar for a long time.
- tvanantwerp 6y ago
  Same. I can't remember why exactly I switched, but I recall space bar being more of a gamble whether I would pause/unpause or scroll down the screen. K seemed to work better.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    For me, if the play/pause button has focus, then the video starts playing for half a second and then pauses, because the button activation and the hotkey cancel each other. "k" does not have this issue.
  - Lendal 6y ago
    For me it was when I figured out K always works while spacebar just occasionally works.
- sidpatil 6y ago
  That only works for controlling the video player. This bug affects the usage of the spacebar in the search field as well.
octocop 6y ago
nope, doesnt work
gioscarab 6y ago
broken
benbristow 6y ago
Nope, seems to be broken for me too. Screencast on my tweet below. https://twitter.com/benbristowuk/status/1369710606257958918 https://twitter.com/benbristowuk/status/1369710606257958918
AlphaGeekZulu 6y ago
I can not enter space in the search widget on - MacOS/Firefox - Ubuntu/Firefox I can enter space in the search widget on - Ubuntu/Chrome - Ubuntu/Brave - Ubuntu/Opera - Ubuntu/Vivaldi
beiller 6y ago
Space bar is hilarious for me on YouTube/Firefox. Some times it gets into a certain focus state (play button focussed?) and hitting space bar will briefly pause it, then resume playback. Hilarity ensues as I scramble, pausing a few times to realize the issue, and change the focus to something else by clicking the video canvas then press spacebar again for success.
- capableweb 6y ago
  This hits something that I've come across before. Web pages are actually 3D with focus, always. But it's not clear, because the representation is 2D and the focus is either limited to certain elements (like <input/>) or has to be manually implemented by the developer. And sometimes, like with YouTube, even long lived websites with supposedly lots of experience get it wrong. And this is hard to think about as a developer, imagine how it is for someone non-internet native, who barely understand the mouse-abstraction we all gotten so used to. I do think touchscreens have made technology possible for a lot of groups who didn't understand it before. Maybe we need something similar for desktop and laptop to avoid 3D in 2D jam we're in now.
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  It's disconcerting when you press the spacebar and the video doesn't pause, but the video settings open... until you remember you went to settings to look for subtitles, but there were none, and you closed it without changing the focus to the page or video. It happens with other video sites, so it's not evil Google handicapping Firefox users.
johnchristopher 6y ago
Firefox 86, Kubuntu 18.04. It works. Ah!
rjsw 6y ago
Broken, it did work yesterday and haven't updated Firefox.
ryanwhitney 6y ago
Nope. Can’t use space in search. Safari on Mac.
zoid_ 6y ago
Google are so clumsy accidentally leaving in these hard to find bugs throughout their products eh? I guess the only solution is for us all to switch to Chrome, everything works fine that way.
- dhimes 6y ago
  psst- you forgot your /sarcasm tag!
hexo 6y ago
It is fascinating that people file this as bug to firefox bugzilla when it is clearly bug on youtube side
- cpeterso 6y ago
  How does one file a YouTube bug? :)
pensatoio 6y ago
Broken AF. Was about to restart my computer. It’s hilarious that something so simple can break.
dathinab 6y ago
Maybe, but I don't have the problem (Linux, FF, wayland).
sidpatil 6y ago
This isn't the first time I've encountered this bug before—I've seen it while using LinkedIn's messenger as well.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
exabrial 6y ago
How about is your cursor working on Google search or was that "optimized"?
frankzander 6y ago
Open the developer tools, disable the caching in the network tab and reload. at least here now the spacebar is working again.
aequitas 6y ago
Reading the headline I was afraid YouTube started disabling the Spacebar for play/pause because of some vague UX reason. But it's the other way around.
colin_fraizer 6y ago
Related question: what precisely does <spacebar> do? (I realize it acts like a typical terminal pager like `more` or `less`; I mean, what is the mechanism?) For example, look at https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v12.x/docs/api/ https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v12.x/docs/api/ It's visible content is all in a `div` with id `content`, which in turn contains two `div` s with ids `column2` and `column1`. On a suitably small window, pressing <spacebar> causes the `div` `column1` to scroll, but what if I want to move the "focus" to `column2`? [I realize this is somewhat tangential, but any pointers to a better place to find info about this would be greatly appreciated.]

I noticed this earlier, and I'm not the only one, I've asked around and people have tried using it in the search bar on Firefox and it just doesn't work.

quag 6y ago

mtmail 6y ago

Three users submitted that to HN in the last 15 minutes, seems to be tracked at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1697551 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1697551

colpabar 6y ago
I imagine it has something to do with the keyboard shortcuts for video player controls, which I'm going to list because I think they're neat and was very excited when I discovered them. space - play/pause j - skip back k - play/pause l - skip forward 0-9 - skip to the n/10th point of the video m - mute f - fullscreen t - "theater mode" which is the bigger-but-not-full-screen video size I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones I use often enough to remember. I like to use K to play/pause because I never end up accidentally scrolling down into the comments section.
- capableweb 6y ago
  There is indeed more. And there is one hotkey to rule them all, pressing "?" which shows all hotkeys. "?" is one hotkey I keep pressing in a lot of random contexts, just to see what it does. In many applications it shows all the hotkeys, or if you add some modifier like shift or alt.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    Apparently ? is the new F1
    - capableweb 6y ago
      F1 is now occupied by the native applications help page. Web applications/pages then need to adopt a different one. "?" kind of also make the UX a bit more obvious, honestly. F1 is based around tradition, "?" is based on the idea that you have no idea.
      - tetris11 6y ago
        Just to tangent off this and announce my surprise at the existence of a ToDoList key: XF86TodoList https://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/XF86_keyboard_symbols https://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/XF86_keyboard_symbols
        bmn__ 6y ago
        See `/usr/include/X11/XF86keysym.h` lines 52, 55 (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/proto/xorgproto/-/blob/master/include/X11/XF86keysym.h#L52 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/proto/xorgproto/-/blob/m...): /* These are sometimes found on PDA's (e.g. Palm, PocketPC or elsewhere) */ #define XF86XK_ToDoList 0x1008FF1F /* Invoke To Do List program */
  - thamer 6y ago
    Pressing "?" in Gmail shows a large help window with tons of shortcuts (you need to have keyboard shortcuts enabled under Settings > General for this to work).
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    How are you pressing '?' without shift already being applied?
    - capableweb 6y ago
      I don't normally use en-US locale? Not everyone has the same keyboard layout.
- bmn__ 6y ago
  > I'm sure there are others ; : for playback speed More features and short-cuts via browser extension: https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube

superfamicom 6y ago

On macOS 10.15.7 (19H114): - Chrome: Yes (89.0.4389.72 (Official Build) beta (x86_64)) - Safari: No (14.0.2 (15610.3.7.1.10, 15610)) - Firefox: No (86.0 (64-bit))

HoverSausage 6y ago

It's working for me. Firefox 78 on Debian

matbilodeau 6y ago

It works in the search bar

akalsz 6y ago
For me it's the other way around, in the search bar it does nothing but it does pause videos.
- matbilodeau 6y ago
  So you alt+32 between search terms ?
- waiseristy 6y ago
  Same, typing any phrase with 'f' in it also fullsizes the currently running video

kgwxd 6y ago

Nope

recursive 6y ago

No. Version 86 on Windows. Also space to toggle pausing during playback has worked only intermittently for some time. Always solid in Chrome. I think it depends what's focused, but never figured out the details.

mmcclure 6y ago

I noticed this this AM and assumed it was something around Firefox or otherwise specific to me. The situation for me was not being able to create a new playlist when saving a video because it would trigger all of the keyboard shortcuts while typing. It would mostly work...until you get to a letter like "f" and fullscreen blows away the modal. This is a bit of a cautionary tale around the dangers of hijacking "normal" behavior: when a bug happens, you break really, really basic things.

tux3 6y ago

No, it's broken! Firefox 87 beta on Debian

dhimes 6y ago

No. But Alt 32 will give the space (Win 10 Firefox)

alucardo 6y ago

I use k instead of the space bar for a long time.

tvanantwerp 6y ago
Same. I can't remember why exactly I switched, but I recall space bar being more of a gamble whether I would pause/unpause or scroll down the screen. K seemed to work better.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  For me, if the play/pause button has focus, then the video starts playing for half a second and then pauses, because the button activation and the hotkey cancel each other. "k" does not have this issue.
- Lendal 6y ago
  For me it was when I figured out K always works while spacebar just occasionally works.
sidpatil 6y ago
That only works for controlling the video player. This bug affects the usage of the spacebar in the search field as well.

octocop 6y ago

nope, doesnt work

gioscarab 6y ago

broken

benbristow 6y ago

Nope, seems to be broken for me too. Screencast on my tweet below. https://twitter.com/benbristowuk/status/1369710606257958918 https://twitter.com/benbristowuk/status/1369710606257958918

AlphaGeekZulu 6y ago

I can not enter space in the search widget on - MacOS/Firefox - Ubuntu/Firefox I can enter space in the search widget on - Ubuntu/Chrome - Ubuntu/Brave - Ubuntu/Opera - Ubuntu/Vivaldi

beiller 6y ago

Space bar is hilarious for me on YouTube/Firefox. Some times it gets into a certain focus state (play button focussed?) and hitting space bar will briefly pause it, then resume playback. Hilarity ensues as I scramble, pausing a few times to realize the issue, and change the focus to something else by clicking the video canvas then press spacebar again for success.

capableweb 6y ago
This hits something that I've come across before. Web pages are actually 3D with focus, always. But it's not clear, because the representation is 2D and the focus is either limited to certain elements (like <input/>) or has to be manually implemented by the developer. And sometimes, like with YouTube, even long lived websites with supposedly lots of experience get it wrong. And this is hard to think about as a developer, imagine how it is for someone non-internet native, who barely understand the mouse-abstraction we all gotten so used to. I do think touchscreens have made technology possible for a lot of groups who didn't understand it before. Maybe we need something similar for desktop and laptop to avoid 3D in 2D jam we're in now.
ASalazarMX 6y ago
It's disconcerting when you press the spacebar and the video doesn't pause, but the video settings open... until you remember you went to settings to look for subtitles, but there were none, and you closed it without changing the focus to the page or video. It happens with other video sites, so it's not evil Google handicapping Firefox users.

johnchristopher 6y ago

Firefox 86, Kubuntu 18.04. It works. Ah!

rjsw 6y ago

Broken, it did work yesterday and haven't updated Firefox.

ryanwhitney 6y ago

Nope. Can’t use space in search. Safari on Mac.

zoid_ 6y ago

Google are so clumsy accidentally leaving in these hard to find bugs throughout their products eh? I guess the only solution is for us all to switch to Chrome, everything works fine that way.

dhimes 6y ago
psst- you forgot your /sarcasm tag!

hexo 6y ago

It is fascinating that people file this as bug to firefox bugzilla when it is clearly bug on youtube side

cpeterso 6y ago
How does one file a YouTube bug? :)

pensatoio 6y ago

Broken AF. Was about to restart my computer. It’s hilarious that something so simple can break.

dathinab 6y ago

Maybe, but I don't have the problem (Linux, FF, wayland).

sidpatil 6y ago

This isn't the first time I've encountered this bug before—I've seen it while using LinkedIn's messenger as well.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

exabrial 6y ago

How about is your cursor working on Google search or was that "optimized"?

frankzander 6y ago

Open the developer tools, disable the caching in the network tab and reload. at least here now the spacebar is working again.

aequitas 6y ago

Reading the headline I was afraid YouTube started disabling the Spacebar for play/pause because of some vague UX reason. But it's the other way around.

colin_fraizer 6y ago

Related question: what precisely does <spacebar> do? (I realize it acts like a typical terminal pager like `more` or `less`; I mean, what is the mechanism?) For example, look at https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v12.x/docs/api/ https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v12.x/docs/api/ It's visible content is all in a `div` with id `content`, which in turn contains two `div` s with ids `column2` and `column1`. On a suitably small window, pressing <spacebar> causes the `div` `column1` to scroll, but what if I want to move the "focus" to `column2`? [I realize this is somewhat tangential, but any pointers to a better place to find info about this would be greatly appreciated.]