YT-Yanker : A tool for downloading videos and audio

Welcome to my first blog post!

I don't have a lot of experience writing in a journalistic manner, but I'm hoping to practice my explanation and storytelling skills here. I welcome any and all comments (the comments are still reviewed first but I promise to allow criticism).

I enjoy putting together a couple of videos every once in a while, and I liked to add some flare to them by adding some video and audio clips from youtube. However I found that a lot of existing media converting websites were either slow, sketchy, or downloaded the wrong file type that masqueraded as an mp3 or mp4. I'm not sure how a DASH file can have an mp3/mp4 extension, but I wasn't able to edit videos with those files. ⁠ ⁠So I set a self-imposed challenge to create my own audio/video converter. I present to you... !

(To my knowledge,) The site is fully functional and downloads videos and audio files like butter.

Personally, I have only worked with mp3, mp4, and wav files for my smaller video projects. Therefore, my first goal will be to add more audio/video formats in the future to learn more about how to manipulate them!

My second goal is to make the user experience easier and require less actions.

Looking at the site now, the current flow involves the following steps to achieve the desired reward of obtaining the correct audio/video file

1. The user selects the format using the interactive buttons above the search bar

2. The user copies the youtube video address

3. The user pastes the youtube video address into the search bar

4. The user clicks on the search icon to find the video

5. After a small delay, the user clicks on the download button to begin downloading the file

6. After a delay dependent on the size of the file, the user is left with the fully downloaded file

Looking at this list, multiple parts could be improved/removed entirely. The 4th step of using the search icon could be done away by having the search bar automatically searching upon change. The 5th step of having to click on the download button could also be done away by having the server automatically retrieve the file first.

Replacing the 4th step could be as simple as making some changes to the client application. For replacing the 5th step, I theorize that I can have the server download the file to a Binary Large Object immediately upon search and store it in the client. This way, the user can see the download progress instantly retrieve the file for a more satisfying experience.

⁠Minor Update 2023-May-16th:

My 3rd next goal will now be to add a Progress indication rather than a bland loading indicator for a more responsive experience

I feel excited to tackle these challenges. If you've got a thought on my methodology, I'd love to start a chat with you in the comments or email! ⁠