Feature: Subscribe to playlists #312

[Finebouche]

Pull Request Type

• Bugfix
• Feature Implementation
• Documentation
• Other

Related issue

closes #312

Description

Implemented a button to subscribe to playlist. The playlist now appear in the sidebar with the other channels.
The main feed of the app now update the playlist content as well as the channel contents.

I tried to stay as close as possible to the original channel subscription logic.

It still needs some tweaks, but I wanted to publish this first to be sure I was going to the right direction.

Testing

You can subscribe to any playlist and check if the feed is updated.

To be decided :

• Remove the subscribe button if the channel is already subscrided ?
• Fix duplicates directly in DB managment ?

To do :

• Cosmetic points for the sidebar
• same update on shorts and lives ?

Desktop

• OS: macos
• OS Version: 26.2
• FreeTube version: 0.23.13

[absidue]

While I know that the original feature request was to subscribe to playlists on the subscription page, a lot has changed in FreeTube in the last 7 years and rather than pretending that playlists are channels and hacking them into the subscription page it would be much better if they were treated like user playlists/playlists created inside FreeTube are (they would be a special kind of user playlist that is read-only and would essentially just act as a bookmark for the playlist on YouTube), that is also a lot closer to how it is handled by YouTube themselves.

[Finebouche]

While I know that the original feature request was to subscribe to playlists on the subscription page, a lot has changed in FreeTube in the last 7 years and rather than pretending that playlists are channels and hacking them into the subscription page it would be much better if they were treated like user playlists/playlists created inside FreeTube are (they would be a special kind of user playlist that is read-only and would essentially just act as a bookmark for the playlist on YouTube), that is also a lot closer to how it is handled by YouTube themselves.

Not sure what this means, as a personnal preference I would want to have the video agregated in the main subcription feed to follow when my favorite shows have a new video on huge channels that have many.

Do you suggest to just have them in the list of playlists ? And that's it ?

[absidue]

Not sure what this means, as a personnal preference I would want to have the video agregated in the main subcription feed to follow when my favorite shows have a new video on huge channels that have many.

Do you suggest to just have them in the list of playlists ? And that's it ?

Correct, yes. Cramming playlists into the channel subscriptions page is something you are welcome to do and maintain in a custom personal build for yourself but doesn't belong in upstream FreeTube. The goal is to match YouTube's behaviour in this regard (so just remembering playlists), not to turn the subscriptions page into a generic RSS reader.

[Finebouche]

Looks like previous comment was deleted but indeed, would it work to have the behavior described by @absidue AND as well to have a separate place were channels videos are aggregated ?

(it could also be toggled in the settings ?)

What do you think ?

[github-actions]

This pull request has conflicts, please resolve those before we can evaluate the pull request.

[github-actions]

Conflicts have been resolved. A maintainer will review the pull request shortly.

[absidue]

@Finebouche What I said above still applies, suggesting to hide it behind an option doesn't change that.

[absidue]

I have closed the feature request to avoid future misunderstandings and re-opened one that is more inline with what I said above.

I will leave this pull request open for a while, in case you want to implement the requested changes, if not feel free to close this pull request.

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

#6699

[Finebouche]

Alright, so I added the subscribed playlist in the User playlist as a seperate card.

I also added a item to the subscription parameters, when "on" Freetube add the playlist vids to subscription page, (by default it's off so only the channel are added).

edit: last commit display the correct number of videos in the playlists

[absidue]

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just misread what I said rather than actively choosing to ignore it.

Please get rid of the setting and all connections to the subscriptions (as I already previously mentioned). It should be stored in the playlist database, fed through the playlist datastore handlers, the playlist IPC channels and stored in the playlists store and then only shown on the playlists page. Additionally it should have a dedicated button on the playlist page (near where the copy playlist button is), not be using the subscription button.

Once the idea behind the pull request is working in the right direction then we can start doing code reviews and test the pull request.

[Finebouche]

Hey, I actually completly skip your comment yesterday when I started working again on the PR and then got the email of notificaiton only this morning, so my previous comment and commits were not taking your reply into account unfortunatly.

[Finebouche]

However, the feature i wanted to implement was "Playlists subscription", not "Playslist bookmark" so yes, this Pull Request can be trashed I guess

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

Hey, I actually completly skip your comment yesterday when I started working again on the PR and then got the email of notificaiton only this morning, so my previous comment and commits were not taking your reply into account unfortunatly.

Ah that is very unfortunate indeed

However, the feature i wanted to implement was "Playlists subscription", not "Playslist bookmark" so yes, this Pull Request can be trashed I guess

@Finebouche Just to be clear, are you saying that this can be closed because #6699 is not what you would like to implement?

[Finebouche]

Yes, I am closing it

[Finebouche]

also if Youtube ever allow to subscribe to Podcast (which are basically playlist) we can reuse this code I guess