ytplayer/BACKLOG.md

YT Player — Improvement Backlog

The /loop works through this top-to-bottom, one item per iteration. Tick an item ([x]) only after it builds, verifies, and is committed + pushed. Add new ideas to the bottom as they come up.

Build & verify protocol (every iteration)

1. Edit the canonical source in WSL (~/development/personal/ytplayer).
2. Sync changed files individually into C:\ytbuild\ytplayer — never Copy-Item -Recurse onto an existing dir (it nests as frontend\frontend).
3. npx tauri build in C:\ytbuild\ytplayer.
4. Launch with --remote-debugging-port=922x and verify via CDP/screenshot (retry the launch a few times — Smart App Control is intermittent).
5. Only if it builds and verifies: refresh releases/, commit (no AI attribution), git push origin main, then tick the item here.

UX / polish

• Empty-state designs for empty playlists and empty history (match the new hero).
• Loading skeletons for search results instead of a bare "Searching…".
• Keyboard-shortcut help overlay (press ?), listing space / arrows / f / m.
• Download/preload progress indicator on cards (percent or a bar, not just a pulse).
• Remember and restore the last playback position per video.
• Toast queue (stack multiple toasts instead of replacing).

Features

• Drag-to-reorder videos within a playlist.
• "Up next" queue panel showing the autoplay queue.
• Persistent mini now-playing bar when browsing other views.
• Cache size cap in Settings (auto-evict oldest past a limit).
• Export / import playlists as JSON.
• More / trending quick-search chips on the hero, rotated.
• Share a single playlist by link, imported additively (never replaces).
• Bulk-import a YouTube playlist URL into a new playlist.
• Per-playlist "available offline" status + a keep-offline pin.
• Service mode: set-list view with a screen wake lock.
• Per-song notes (key / capo / arrangement cues) on playlist entries.

Robustness

• Cookies jar for the YouTube bot gate (deferred 2026-08-27 — not being tackled yet). runYtdlpResilient() already recovers from "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" by retrying against YTDLP_FALLBACK_CLIENTS, so saves no longer fail. The residual cost: while the gate is active, tv_simply/android_vr/mweb typically expose only progressive itag 18, so those saves land at 360p instead of 720p (web_embedded keeps the full adaptive ladder when it works). Fix would be to supply a Netscape cookies jar so the default client stays available: the server already honours YTDLP_COOKIES=<path> when the file exists — what's missing is mounting the jar into the container (compose volume + env) and a refresh story for when the cookies expire. Only worth doing if 360p saves become noticeable in practice.
• Sanitize video_id in cache_download (reject path separators).
• Gate the embedded yt-dlp behind a build flag so debug builds compile faster.
• Surface yt-dlp extraction failures with a retry button.

Done

• Empty-state designs for empty playlists and empty history (match the new hero). 460aaae
• Loading skeletons for search results instead of a bare "Searching…". da2ad27
• Keyboard-shortcut help overlay (press ?), listing space / arrows / f / m. c676786
• Download/preload progress indicator on cards (percent or a bar, not just a pulse). 81aced9
• Remember and restore the last playback position per video. ddfa149
• Toast queue (stack multiple toasts instead of replacing). a4d6b82
• Drag-to-reorder videos within a playlist. 0ba0f56
• "Up next" queue panel showing the autoplay queue. 4376cd9
• Persistent mini now-playing bar when browsing other views. c1855a1
• Cache size cap in Settings (auto-evict oldest past a limit). d15d902
• Export / import playlists as JSON. d15d902
• More / trending quick-search chips on the hero, rotated. c6b8dfc
• Sanitize video_id in cache_download (reject path separators). c6b8dfc
• Gate the embedded yt-dlp behind a build flag so debug builds compile faster. d15d902
• Surface yt-dlp extraction failures with a retry button. c6b8dfc
• Share a single playlist by link, imported additively. 27b28f7
• Bulk-import a YouTube playlist URL. b868dab
• Per-playlist offline status + keep-offline pin. c5f4751
• Service mode set-list view with screen wake lock. 14e1d8e
• Per-song notes on playlist entries. 8ef16a8