More "Queue" and "Watch Later" buttons!

[alaestor]

⚬ PROBLEM:

• There's no fast and efficient way to add videos to "Watch Later" or "Queue" from the homepage, search results, or upload notifications.

⚬ SOLUTION:

• Add buttons to video listings on the homepage, search results, and upload notifications to quickly add videos to the "queue" or "watch later", similar to the buttons that appear on thumbnails in the suggestion lists.

⚬ RELEVANCE / SCOPE:

• Potentially, this feature would be applicable for everyone who likes to open more than one video at a time, especially people who rely on upload notifications like me and end up opening a dozen tabs in the morning.
• I believe the Queue and Watch Later features are superior to opening multiple tabs, but they're underutilized by the community. This change would allow more people to use them, and have a much better experience as a result.
• I don't think this change could negatively impact anyone so it could be enabled default, but it should be configurable (for reasons explained in "Side Effects")

⚬ "SIDE EFFECTS":

• There may be some users who have built muscle memory where they may accidentally click these buttons, especially if they only appear while hovering.
• It may be perceived as "clutter", especially for people who only open one video at a time, or don't want to use the Queue / Watch Later features.

⚬ "CONTEXT":

Youtube's "Watch Later" and "Queue" features have many benefits over videos in new tabs, such as: autoplay, reduced resource usage, retaining volume/speed settings, and the ability to remove watched videos. These features are underutilized because they have one major problem that make them very inconvenient: adding videos to your "queue" or "watch later" is a pain in the butt!

Youtube did well with the suggestions list, where there are buttons over the thumbnails to quickly add to queue or later with a single click.

However on the homepage and search results, you need to click a drop-down to access these functions. (two clicks)

Worst of all, on upload notifications, you actually need to open the video, then click a drop down, then click on "save", then click to it to your "watch later" playlist! (four clicks!)

Many people, like me, use notifications because subscriptions and the homepage are unreliable for following your favorite channels. For us, there's only one feasible workflow: shift+click and open all videos in new tabs.

For people who want to add them to the queue or watch-later playlist, it requires an additional 4 clicks per video, then a 5th to close the tab. Basically, no one does this and I'd question the sanity of anyone who did.

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SHORT Table	(Summary)
Problem	Outside of the suggestions list, it's hard to add videos to "Watch Later" and "Queue".
Solution	Add buttons to videos shown in the homepage, search results, and notification shade.
Alternatives
Scope	Potential to improve the experience of any users who open multiple videos.
Side effects	Risk of "increased clutter" and possibly interfering with random muscle memory(?)
Context	native Watch Later / Queue features are underutilized due to poor UI

[SaxenaShiv]

I'd like to propose an idea to enhance the YouTube user experience, particularly in search results and on the homepage. Imagine if the "Add to Queue" and "Save Later" buttons found a home right beside the filter options in search results, providing users with a seamless way to organize their video preferences without unnecessary clicks.

Additionally, consider the empty space beside the voice search icon on the homepage. What if this space was utilized to incorporate the "Add to Queue" and "Save Later" buttons? This strategic placement would not only maintain a clean and uncluttered interface but also offer a convenient location for users to manage their video selections effortlessly.

These subtle adjustments aim to streamline the user journey, making it more intuitive and efficient. I believe these enhancements could contribute significantly to an improved YouTube experience. What are your thoughts on implementing these user-friendly tweaks? 🚀🎬

[alaestor]

... did an LLM write this?

Anyways; the buttons would have to appear on the video listings themselves, not at the top of the page, otherwise you wouldn't be able to specify which video you wanted to add to the queue / watch later? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, and you're thinking of them like toggling a mode of some sort?

As for placement, I think the best option would be to have them under or to the side of the triple-dot dropdown menus: this would be consistent across search, homepage, and notification shade. That would be quite safe, as there's already empty space and it would have minimal risk for muscle memory, and wouldn't appear so cluttered if they only appear while hovering over the video listing (mimicking the native triple-dot).

The biggest friction point for me is the notification shade. The tripe-dot menus already have "add to queue" and "save to watch later" options, so two clicks isn't a big inconvenience over one... But the triple-dot menu in the notification shade only shows options to disable notifications and has nothing about the video it links to. Having a consistent interface would be nice, but the notification shade is the really annoying part. Why YouTube hasn't done this already is a mystery to me... The suggestions feed is very intuitive and user-friendly, but notifications make us resort to shift+clicking a bunch of tabs open.

[SaxenaShiv]

Hey, had a thought about making things smoother for users – what if they can easily pick multiple videos, you know, for tossing into the queue or saving for later? We can toss in some checkboxes for that hand-picked vibe, and maybe throw in a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl+A or Cmd+A for a one-click select-all party.

Totally get your point about muscle memory and keeping things safe with the selection process. But, what if we trigger the parent component responsible for loading all the listings from there? Think that could work?

And here's a wild thought – what if we prompt users to pick multiple videos right after they hit "Add to Queue" or "Save to Watch Later"? Gives them the reins. What's your take on that?

[alaestor]

You've got to be using an LLM... But I'm not sure what benefits that would offer; it seems convoluted to enter a "selection mode" and click a bunch of boxes and then click another button to add them, when you could have one-click buttons on each video just like YouTube already does in the suggestions feed.

[ImprovedTube]

hi! @alaestor maybe add the css path already? ublock origin's element picker makes it automatic and convenient unlike the broswers' dev tools

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Are you using Pockettube and do you see us getting 1000 of patreons too? (being older, with more users)

Zooming out, without having done much of this on Youtube, i guess for productivity one could have a feed like an inbox /RSS Reader, with one title per line. Thumbnail on the right, small & faint until mouseover. And an ever improving set of keywords/patters/regex gently predicting which you will likely select or not?

[alaestor]

Sorry, I feel like the request/suggestion I'm trying to make has been lost somehow.

To clarify, this is about the extension for desktop browsers. I'll attach some screenshots to visually communicate what I'm talking about. I'm hoping that it would be possible to use this extension to improve YouTube's interface to make it more convenient. I haven't looked into the technical feasibility or implementation details, as I don't know much about web development.

I suppose having a third-party notification manager / queue system, enabled by RSS or something similar, could be a work-around for the shortcomings of YouTube's interface; but that alternative would be beyond the scope of this issue and probably beyond the scope of this browser extension.

[ImprovedTube]

hi, not lost. (of course a picture is still efficient for potential future readers who might not want to read much, besides maybe not the easiest for you depending practice. We can now also move it up below the title of the thread. )
previously i thought of:

1. you have the nice option to direct us to an exact position or two on the page (copy & pasting the css selector), where we may add the button/s: Right-click "block element" (with ublock origin installed & try adjusting the sliders. If you didn't: it is convenient & universal (used more than all our specific stuff.)
   • So we can add this as an 'intro (our issue templates, readme.md, wiki.)
   • Raising efficiency to complete this, you'd raise the probability that i chose it next. Or you might start another lasting chain reaction of volunteer's work :)
2. Btw, did you try https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/youtube-playlist-helper/ibdakohjhchaagmccfedeejmeillongg (, pockettube, ..., ???, 'pockettube playlists')

• A whole feed has independent UI / less maintenance potentially. Does that sounds good/inspiring? I understood neither notification nor youtube.com/feed/subscriptions were best/complete for you.
  • 'Reverse engineering' anything undocumented or changed frequently like youtube.com isn't necessarily minimal or at least not the most peace-of-mind for an unfunded service. (Is this service an underestimated Sisyphus?)
  • Yes, single-issue structure may be good for fast work (which also can be automated). Yet humans can talk wholesome, if we talk at all - or at least to me half of the issues are also an inner discussion, whether i will take another burden of maintenance (more often not, while i have too much of this already)

[alaestor]

Btw, did you try [...]

I hadn't, but thanks! Youtube Playlist Helper works for videos in the notification tray (I think because they're working based off of URLs).

A whole feed won't be hard. Does that sounds good/inspiring? I understood neither notification nor youtube.com/feed/subscriptions were best/complete for you.

I'd prefer to use the native YouTube playlists rather than a third-party solution, if possible. The feeds and notifications are fine for most casual users; the only problem is that they make it difficult to add to Watch Later.

the css selector

• each notification in the feed is ##ytd-notification-renderer.unread.yt-multi-page-menu-section-renderer.style-scope and ##ytd-notification-renderer.yt-multi-page-menu-section-renderer.style-scope
• With inspect element, I see ytd-notification-renderer.style-scope:nth-child(1) > a:nth-child(1) with a role="link" can contain an href beginning with /watch?v= which could be used to get the value that would be added to the WL playlist.
• ###menu > .ytd-notification-renderer.style-scope / ##.ytd-menu-renderer.style-scope.dropdown-trigger is the triple-dot dropdown; additional buttons should probably be placed under it.

Pardon my ignorance, as I know nothing about web development or how browser extensions function. The most reliable way to add things to YouTube's playlists is with their official v3 API, but that requires OAUTH2; is that something the user would have to configure? That would be a deal-breaker for user-friendliness, which would explain why so many extension developers create their own playlist alternatives rather than using Youtube's.

Is this service an underestimated Sisyphus? [...] whether i will take another burden of maintenance

I understand and I'm very sympathetic. I suspect some parts of this wouldn't be too big of a burden: I doubt the CSS selectors for notifications would change frequently. But, if the YouTube API for playlist 'insert' isn't feasible, then that would make this feature hell to maintain: the only alternative would be to reverse engineer or hijack the native "add to..." UI, at which point I don't think this feature would be realistic. (The work-around would be to use something like the Youtube Playlist Helper).

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Ultimately, this is a problem caused by YouTube's bad notification UI. I was just hoping that it would be an easy fix, and it would be more productive to talk to an extension developer like yourself rather than trying to complain at Google for them to fix it...

If it isn't a trivial solution, then just ignore this feature request.

Thank you for your time and consideration :)

[ImprovedTube]

What about:

• a/the button also adding to blocklist (both at once) (to not show in recommendations again, what is/was already scheduled)

AND a quick hover UI? (alternative to a button):

• mouse-over each video's preview tiles (or ytd-notification-renderer) & a shortcut (space key or right click or enter or any)

• background color gradually intensifies for 5 seconds while mouse-over, finally the video is added to another list called the mouse hangers, to have the option to review one's behavior later.

(hi! @alaestor @SaxenaShiv )

[Droyk]

Related #2460