README.md

   1 # Unnamed Youtube Frontend
   2
   3 Note: this is a work in progress, still unreleased software. Feel free to look around, but keep in mind that this repository will move servers for its public release.
   4
   5 Contributors wanted! Please send me an email (see commit log) or contact `girst` on irc.freenode.net (hanging out in `#invidious` for now)
   6
   7 Test Instance: http://delta.gir.st:8000/ (will move in the future)
   8
   9 TODO:
  10  - reorganize using departmental flask blueprints:
  11    forces decoupling of all youtube <-> reddit and allows 3rd party extensions
  12    https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/1.1.x/tutorial/views/
  13    https://exploreflask.com/en/latest/blueprints.html
  14    - reddit blueprint:
  15      - user should be able to subscribe to subreddits
  16      - show a frontpage-like feed, pin/hide videos (linking their reddit comments)
  17  - abstract database access
  18    we want to be able to choose between at least sqlite and postgres
  19  - implement 'dangerous' functions as disablable blueprint
  20    - search through invidious-api
  21    - proxy for subtitles, hls/dash manifests, ...
  22      - subtitles on /watch
  23      - hls.js for livestreams
  24    - proxy for geolocked videos?
  25  - modern css frontend (flexbox)
  26  - document all the things
  27  - quality of life improvements:
  28    - asynchronically call update-subs and pull-subs on subscribing, iff necessary
  29    - get_video_info on incoming websub-webhook to get exact published date
  30  - development-friendly error handling:
  31    - log unkown info/endcards to file
  32    - save get_video_info/reddit.json/etc with traceback
  33  - proper support for sponsorblock (cached db?)
  34  - cleanups:
  35    - remove jsonify()
  36    - purge magic strings (e.g guest token)
  37    - fix all the TODOs and XXXs
  38    - clean up login stuff
  39      https://flask-login.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
  40      https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-v-user-logins
  41  - find a name!
  42
  43 stuff to look at:
  44  - app.config.from_pyfile('the-config.cfg')
  45    NOTE: this will not work for the non-python/non-flask parts
  46
  47 wishlist:
  48  - proxy googlevideo (and probably thumnails) responses
  49
  50 # Installation
  51
  52 see INSTALL file
  53
  54 # Usage
  55
  56 Since user authentication is not yet implemented, users are for now identified by a randomized token. To "log in", just visit `/feed/subscriptions?token=....`. at the bottom, click 'Manage Subscriptions' and paste the UC...-URLs of channels you want to subscribe to.
  57
  58 If no token is specified, it defaults to `guest`. Since this is a readonly account, you can populate it by directly writing into the database:
  59
  60 first, prepare a file (guest.csv) of channel ids like so:
  61     UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,guest,channel
  62 then from the sqlite3 console, issue:
  63     .mode csv
  64     .import guest.csv subscriptions
  65
  66
  67 # Notes
  68  - caching external api requests
  69    currently using in-memory-backend, which is purged every 10minutes. a real installation should use redis, which should scale better and handle purging for us.
  70    the in-memory cache conflicts with gunicorn's worker model: which is a sepreate process for each request. switch to mulitple gthreads on a single worker to avoid getting the cache torn down after every request (note that threads may leak memory, if my observations from $dayjob are still valid).
  71  - neater sqlite output:
  72     .mode column
  73     .headers on