DTube is gradually being expanded to match the features in place at Youtube and stands a real chance of pulling in many users of Youtube to Steemit. One feature that would greatly improve the success of this process is the ability to import videos directly into DTube from a Youtube URL. Additionally, the ability to give DTube a Youtube playlist or Channel ID would allow an entire Youtube playlist/channel to be effectively moved from Youtube to DTube!
This would massively increase the gravity that DTube on the web in general.
View.ly already has a feature to import individual videos from Youtube, so the idea is already proven and to expand on it should be relatively simple given Youtube's extensive and well documented API.
Videos should be imported up to whatever maximum file size can be supported by the storage network D.Tube uses.
UI Changes
The new feature could be easily inserted into the existing video upload page by adding an optional input box beneath the existing 'Drop a file' box that allows input of a usable Youtube URL. The page can validate the content of the box in realtime, informing the user when a valid URL has been entered. Once a valid URL has been entered, a button can become active which allows the user to optionally import the thumbnail, title and text description of the video into the upload page's existing relevant form input boxes.
In the event that a channel or playlist URL is entered, the system could produce a lightbox which displays the list of available videos in the target list and allows the user to select which ones to import by ticking a checkbox next to each entry in the list. The user can also choose whether or not to import the metadata for each video, such as thumbnail, title and description - in the same way they could for a single video on the main upload page.
Once the user has confirmed which items to import, the lightbox can close and the upload page can be updated to display a count of the items to be imported and a progress display of where the import has reached so far in that process. Additional input boxes can be displayed on the main upload page to allow the user to edit the metadata for each video that is being imported. These boxes could be displayed in a horizontal slider element that allows the user to click arrow buttons (left/right) at the side of the screen, so that they can cycle through all of the videos to be imported and edit their metadata without the need to have an excessively long page in the event that a long playlist or channel is to be imported.
note: once a youtube URL has been chosen, the original 'drop a file' box can be removed and the first 2 steps in the 3 step instruction box at the top of the page can be updated to read:
- choose videos to import
- input/edit metadata for imported videos.
Open Source Contribution posted via Utopian.io