[Feature Request]: hold Spacebar in Player to temporarily change playback rate until unpressed

[yyuki11]

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

yt has recently added this feature to their player that when you hold spacebar, video temporarily speeds up until you unpress it
would be neat to have this feature in freetube's player too, maybe give an option to customise the desired playback rate in Player settings too

Proposed Solution

add this feature since current spacebar hold behaviour is pausing and unpausing video which i doubt a lot of people find useful, unlike the proposed feature

Alternatives Considered

None.

Issue Labels

new feature

Additional Information

for correct behaviour check yt's player implementation

[absidue]

add this feature since current spacebar hold behaviour is pausing and unpausing video which i doubt a lot of people find useful

I have to say I doubt it would have become standard video player functionality if it wasn't something that most people want...

Might be better if a different key was picked for that purpose in FreeTube, if it gets added, to avoid people accidentally triggering it and getting annoyed by the video suddenly fast-forwarding, when they wanted to pause or resume it.

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

Maybe this is something they're experimenting with so we'll have to wait and see if this feature really stays within YT, just like #4753

No point in implementing something if they remove it. They collect info on how many users are actually using it that way. So if they remove it its because nobody is using it.

[yyuki11]

I have to say I doubt it would have become standard video player functionality if it wasn't something that most people want...

maybe i worded it wrong, let me re-phrase it

i think that a current behaviour of holding a spacebar that results in rapid pausing and unpausing is not exactly a useful "feature" (frankly it's just an oversight of having the same button do both pausing and unpausing)

to avoid people accidentally triggering it and getting annoyed by the video suddenly fast-forwarding

this, in my opinion is not a problem either, due to the previous behaviour being as much, if not more uncomfortable to encounter
furthermore, it's quite hard to do accidentally since it has a sensible delay for people who have slow reaction time and press buttons for a bit too long

it also works when the video is paused btw, so you can precise seek while fast-forwarding, which i think is neat and offers a better functionality to otherwise unused button (meaning holding a spacebar) too

fast-forwarding is just currently tedious imo
you have to either go to a small flyout/dropdown menu inside the player and choose playback rate(everytime you want to change speed) or use your mouse by pressing Ctrl+Scrollwheel which is imprecise and too incremental (also inverted for some reason e.g. scrolling up is slowing video down)
while holding spacebar is as precise and quick as it gets

hope i cleared a bit of confusion around this feature request/enhancement^^

[absidue]

You may want to take a look at FreeTube's existing keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys, many that match YouTube's ones, as they might already get close enough to want you want: https://docs.freetubeapp.io/usage/keyboard-shortcuts/

[yyuki11]

so we'll have to wait and see if this feature really stays within YT
No point in implementing something if they remove it

i'm not requesting this feature solely because yt implemented it in their own player, i just find this feature incredibly useful for, say, VODs or other videos that have a lot of portions i'd like to skip quickly, sprinkled all across the video, surrounded by the portions i'm interested in
and this feature is both extremely useful, and, as i mentioned before

fast-forwarding is just currently tedious imo
you have to either go to a small flyout/dropdown menu inside the player and choose playback rate(everytime you want to change speed) or use your mouse by pressing Ctrl+Scrollwheel which is imprecise and too incremental (also inverted for some reason e.g. scrolling up is slowing video down)

quick

[yyuki11]

You may want to take a look at FreeTube's existing keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys, many that match YouTube's ones, as they might already get close enough to want you want: https://docs.freetubeapp.io/usage/keyboard-shortcuts/

thanks, i've looked there before and couldn't find the suitable shortcut that would meet my needs

O and P shrotcuts don't really do what is efficient, 'cause if you want to fast-forward quickly and precisely you need to press a total of 2-3 buttons (P to speed up, then when you're done O to slow down and Spacebar to stop the playback if you've found what you were looking for)
while requested feature would be just holding a Spacebar and letting it go and maybe pressing the same button again if you want to catch the moment you need(or just pause the video and then hold spacebar so that when you unpress it, video stops again), quite handy if you ask me
it's just faster this way and doesn't interfere with any other function, so i think it's a small, but not insignificant feature to add(if anyone wants to ofc)

just in case anyone wants to implement it, should this issue be kept open or..?

[absidue]

We can leave it open, it will just be a while before it gets implemented, as we are switching to a different video player, so no new player features will be added by anyone until that is done. TL;DR don't expect this anytime soon.

[yyuki11]

just leave this here in advance then
the delay between a hold button press and speed up is 625ms