vincent
11331671c5
ffmpeg only accepts -version (single dash); it exits 8 on --version and writes to stderr, so the status panel reported it missing even when installed. Version flags are now per-tool and both streams are read. The player used max-h-full inside a grid, which a 1080x1920 Short overflowed. Switched to absolute fill with object-contain so portrait and landscape both letterbox correctly. Also sized the window to 1180x780 centered, which fits a laptop display.
3.7 KiB
FlightTube
A desktop app that merges all your YouTube subscriptions into one newest-first feed, downloads the videos you pick, and — when you have no connection — shows only what you already downloaded. Built for the flight.
Tauri 2 · Rust · React · Tailwind CSS 4 · SQLite
How it works
Subscriptions come from Google Takeout, not the API. Export YouTube subscriptions
from Takeout and import the subscriptions.csv in
Settings. No OAuth, no API key, no Google Cloud project, nothing secret on disk.
Video metadata comes from YouTube's public Atom feed — one request per channel to
youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=…, fetched 8 at a time and merged into a single
feed sorted by publish date. Thumbnails are mirrored to local disk so the feed still
renders with no network.
Downloads shell out to yt-dlp, pinned to H.264 video + AAC audio in an MP4
container. That caps quality at 1080p — YouTube only serves H.264 that high, and anything
above it is VP9 or AV1, which the app's own player cannot reliably decode. The tradeoff is
deliberate: every download is guaranteed to play inside FlightTube.
Requirements
brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg
Both are checked at startup; Settings shows their versions and this command if either is
missing. ffmpeg is required because best-quality H.264 and AAC arrive as separate
streams that must be merged.
Running it
npm install && npm run tauri dev
Build a real app bundle:
npm run tauri build
Using it
- Settings → Import subscriptions.csv — point it at your Takeout export.
- Refresh — pulls the latest videos from every channel.
- Download on any video — progress shows live on the button; click again to cancel.
- Click a downloaded video to play it in the app. Click an undownloaded one to open it on YouTube.
- Offline — the app detects a lost connection and collapses the feed to your downloads. The connectivity pill also toggles a forced offline mode for testing.
Videos land in ~/Movies/FlightTube (changeable in Settings).
Limitations
- The Atom feed returns only the ~15 most recent videos per channel. There is no backfill and no pagination — this is a rolling recent window, not an archive.
- Quality tops out at 1080p, by the deliberate choice described above.
yt-dlpneeds occasional updating (brew upgrade yt-dlp) as YouTube changes.- Downloading videos is contrary to YouTube's Terms of Service.
Tests
cd src-tauri && cargo test
37 unit tests cover the three places malformed input actually bites: Takeout CSV parsing,
Atom feed parsing (against a captured real response), and yt-dlp progress-line parsing —
plus the database rule that a refresh must never clobber download state.
Two network-dependent tests are excluded by default:
cargo test --test pipeline -- --ignored --nocapture # full pipeline vs. live feeds
cargo test --test seed_real_db -- --ignored --nocapture # populate the installed app's db
Layout
src-tauri/src/
takeout.rs subscriptions.csv -> channels (pure, tested)
feed.rs Atom XML -> videos, plus fetching (parse is pure, tested)
downloader.rs yt-dlp arguments and progress lines (pure, tested)
db.rs schema and every SQL statement
thumbs.rs local thumbnail cache
net.rs reachability probe
commands.rs Tauri command surface — delegates only
src/
components/ Sidebar, TopBar, VideoRow, DownloadButton, Player, Settings
hooks/ useFeed, useDownloads, useConnectivity
Design notes and the implementation plan are in docs/superpowers/.