[Feature Request]: Continue playback when navigating around Freetube

[Splitpeach]

Guidelines

• I have searched the issue tracker for open and closed issues that are similar to the feature request I want to file, without success.
• I have searched the documentation for information that matches the description of the feature request I want to file, without success.
• This issue contains only one feature request.

Problem Description

When leaving the currently playing video page to search other videos or navigate around the app the video playing stops and the page is closed.

Proposed Solution

Allow the video to continue playing when navigating away from the video. E.g. When searching for other videos on Freetube, allow playback from the video already playing to continue and minimize the player to the bottom of the screen.

Alternatives Considered

Pretty simple solution. No other alternatives necessary.

Issue Labels

ease of use improvement, new feature

Additional Information

No response

[absidue]

As mentioned in the README, most things should be done upstream, only open issues and pull requests in this repository if they are specific to the Android code in this repository, which this request definitely isn't. Rewriting the entire watch page and player handling (yes it would be a massive amount of work) to support something like this would have to happen upstream.

[ChunkyProgrammer]

@absidue tbf, they did open an issue on the FreeTube repo FreeTubeApp#6671

[Splitpeach]

As mentioned in the README, most things should be done upstream, only open issues and pull requests in this repository if they are specific to the Android code in this repository, which this request definitely isn't. Rewriting the entire watch page and player handling (yes it would be a massive amount of work) to support something like this would have to happen upstream.

I'm not actually sure that this isn't strictly applicable to the Android app only... This isn't an issue on desktop. You can create tabs on Desktop and continue to search other videos.

As chunkyprogrammer said I did open this on the FreeTube repo and got told to bring it here.

[absidue]

You are asking to completely rewrite the watch page, player and global app state. Those changes would be so major, that FreeTubeAndroid would likely have change from a soft fork to a hard fork. That is because pulling in upstream changes would go from being annoying, difficult and taking a long time to an absolute nightmare, because the two code bases would be very incompatible, so changes would likely have to be ported instead of just merged in. As upstream is maintained by a group of people and FreeTubeAndroid just by one, such a massive increase in maintenance burden would likely make the project impossible to maintain for a single person, effectively killing the project.

[Splitpeach]

I mean, ok I appreciate it may be some significant work, but then the reality is that Freetube Android simply does not compete with most other comparable Android apps like Grayjay, Newpipe etc which all have these features.

I like Freetube as it often seems to be more resilient somehow than other apps but it just doesn't have some of the basic features that you see with the alternatives.

Just the reality unfortunately.

[schmidtaidan64-boop]

would anyone know how I could edit the code for myself alone? I would like to see if I could have ChatGPT rewrite the videoplayer to implement this feature since I wouldn't know what im doing.

[absidue]

@schmidtaidan64-boop If you don't know what you are doing, I would highly suggest you learn about programming first. The chance of you getting anything decent from ChatGPT when you don't know what you are doing is very low and even if you managed to get something that somewhat works, you will have to keep it up-to-date with all future FreeTube changes yourself. Also if you do get something that somewhat works, you won't be able to submit it to the FreeTube repository, as we don't accept AI generated rubbish for obvious reasons.