Tartube

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MAJOR NEW FEATURES
- Tartube can now be installed from PyPI, or by using the new DEB/RPM packages
(Linux/BSD only; installation from PyPI does not work on MS Windows)
- DEB/RPM packages marked 'STRICT' are also available for uploads to
repositories with lots of rules, such as the official Debian repository.
In 'STRICT' packages, updating youtube-dl from within Tartube is disabled.
The 'STRICT' packages are compiled using new environment variables,
TARTUBE_PKG and TARTUBE_PKG_STRICT (replacing the old TARTUBE_DEBIAN)
environment variable. See the comments in setup.py for more details
- During a download operation, in the Progress tab, you can now right-click a
video and select 'Stop after these videos'. This allows all of the current
video downloads to finish, before halting the download operation
- The download options window (in the Formats tab) did not allow users to
select an audio format before selecting a video format. The reason for this
restriction was that youtube-dl did not download the right formats, if an
audio format was selected first. Unfortuantely, it prevented users from
downloading a separate audio file, when this was available (e.g. an .m4a
file from YouTube). The restriction has now been removed; instead, Tartube
will automatically reorder the specified video/audio formats, so that video
formats are passed to youtube-dl first

MAJOR FIXES
- If an upload operation is automatically performed before a download
operation, and if the user tried to download a single video/channel/
playlist/folder, everything was downloaded instead of the single video/
channel/playlist/folder. Fixed
- Fixed an error in the 'Show system command' dialogue window, that prevented
it from opening at all
- Fixed parsing of download options inside double quotes "..."

MINOR NEW FEATURES
- Added a 'Cancel' button to some dialogue windows that didn't already have one
- Added a copy of the XDG module to the Tartube code, so it is no longer
necessary to install it before running/installing Tartube (Linux/BSD only)

MINOR FIXES
- Fixed a system error during a forced youtube-dl update (MS Windows only)
- Fixed wrong location for config file backups (MS Windows only)
- Fixed wrong location for Tartube temporary/test folders (all systems)
- Fixed missing (or duplicate) dialogue windows after failing to load the
config file and/or database file, in some rare situations
- The config file could not be created if its parent directory did not exist;
fixed
- Fixed loading of the wrong database file, in some rare situations
- Removed the old 'hello world' code intended for testing on MS Windows; it's
no longer required
- If Tartube can't find its icon files, a simple error message is now generated
rather than a long traceback

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This is the first release candidate for v2.0.0.

MAJOR NEW FEATURES
- You can now run multiple instances of Tartube on your system at the same
time. Multiple instances cannot load the same Tartube database; they must
each load their own database. Tartube will now remember the databases it
has loaded. If there are three databases (perhaps one on your main hard
disk and two on an external drive), you can start Tartube three times, and
they will each load a different database. This behaviour can be configured,
if necessary. Click 'Edit > System preferences... > Filesystem > Database'
- HookTube acts as a redirection service for YouTube. Because of lawyers and
their evil machinations, HookTube's functionality is not as extensive as it
once was. Added the Invidious website (https://invidio.us/) as an
alternative
- Added custom downloads. To start a custom download, click 'Operations >
Custom download all', or right-click a video/channel/playlist/folder. A
custom download is just like a normal download, until you customise it. To
do that, click 'Edit > System preferences > Operations > Custom'. Custom
downloads can be used to divert YouTube requests to HookTube or Invidious,
and to insert a delay between video downloads when the website is
complaining about robots
- Added a new toolbar at the bottom of the main window, below the list of
videos. The toolbar is hidden, by default. To reveal it, click the 'Show
filter options' button in the bottom right-hand corner. Buttons in the new
toolbar can be used to sort the videos alphabetically, rather than by date,
and to search for videos whose name matches a string (or regex). The button
to search for videos by date has been moved into this toolbar
- If you find a video that can't be downloaded, and you're not sure why, you
can now perform a test download. First, click 'Operations > Test
youtube-dl...' (or right-click a video in the main window's list). Copy the
video's URL into the dialogue window, and then click the OK button. Click
the Output tab to see the results. If the test successfully downloads the
video, then the problem was with Tartube. If the test fails to download the
video, then the problem is with the underlying youtube-dl software (or with
the video website)
- During a test, it's possible to omit the video URL, while specifying some
youtube-dl download options. For example, you could fetch the youtube-dl
version number with the option --version
- Added a new operation for tidying up files in Tartube's data directory
(folder). To start the operation, click 'Operations > Tidy up files...'.
You could also right-click a channel and select 'Channel actions > Tidy up
channel', and so on. A dialogue window appears, in which you can specify
which files should be tidied up. Choose carefully, because any files
deleted as a result of this operation cannot be recovered
- The main window's switch button (in the toolbar near the top of the window)
now has six settings, rather than four. Click the button repeatedly to
cycle through them
- Interesting and important videos can now be bookmarked (e.g., by right-
clicking a video and selecting 'Mark video > Video is bookmarked').
Bookmarked videos are visible in the new 'Bookmarks' folder. Bookmarking is
an alternative to favourites; bookmarks usually apply to a single video,
whereas favourites usually apply to a whole channel, playlist or folder
- Also added a new 'Waiting Videos' folder. This acts as your own private
playlist - a list of videos that are waiting to be watched. To make a video
visible in this folder, right-click it and select 'Mark video > Video is in
waiting list'. When you watch the video, it will automatically disappear
from the 'Waiting Videos' folder (this doesn't happen to bookmarked videos)
- The previous version was unable to delete a channel, playlist or folder (see
below). That error caused a partially-deleted channel/playlist/folder to
appear in the Videos tab, on the left-hand side. In case similar errors
occur in the future, a feature has been added to look for errors and
inconsistencies in the Tartube database and automatically fix them. Click
'Edit > System preferences... > Filesystem > DB Errors > Check' to use it
- Tartube can now fetch a list of available video formats for a video. Right-
click the video and select 'Fetch > Available formats'. Click the Output
tab to see the results
- Tartube can also fetch a list of available subtitles for a video. Right-click
the video and select 'Fecth > Available subtitles'. Click the Output tab to
see the results
- Tartube can now remember the size of its main window, and use the same size
when it restarts. This feature is disabled by default. To enable it, click
'Edit > System preferences... > Windows > Main window > Remember the size
of the main window when shutting down'

MAJOR FIXES
- In the previous version, Tartube was unable to delete a channel, playlist or
folder. Fixed
- Some procedures took an extremely long time. For example, after right-
clicking a channel and selecting 'Channel contents > Mark videos as new',
the procedure could take several minutes if the channel had hundreds of
videos, or several hours if it contained thousands of videos. The faulty
code has been fixed, and the procedure now takes just a few seconds, even
for many thousands of videos
- Videos in a Tartube folder (for example the 'Unsorted Videos' folder) were
added to the download list in a 'Check all' operation, even when they had
been checked before. This no longer happens, by default. To restore the
original behaviour, click 'Edit > System preferences... > Operations >
Downloads > For simulate downloads, don't check a video in a folder more
than once' to deselect it
- Fixed the button for finding videos by date, which was not working at all in
the previous version
- Fixed an occasional 'signal is not defined' error when the user stops an
operation (for example, a download operation)
- Various inconsistencies in the way alternative download destinations are
handled have all been fixed. Download operations sometimes freezed
indefinitely, because Tartube doesn't download two channels/playlists/
folders with the same download destination at the same time. The code has
been updated to prevent the freeze from ever happening again
- Fixed some more crashes caused by Gtk during a download operation

MINOR NEW FEATURES
- Videos downloaded into a temporary folder are deleted when Tartube restarts.
After shutting down Tartube, users often like to copy these videos
somewhere else on their hard drive. You can now ask Tartube to open the
temporary directories (folders), before shutting down, which will remind
you to do something with the videos. To enable this behaviour, click
'Edit > System preferences... > Filesystem > Temporary folders'
- In the main window's list of videos, the date is now displayed as 'today' and
'yesterday' when possible. This behaviour can be disabled in 'Edit > System
preferences... > Windows > Main window'
- During refresh operations, a progress bar is now visible in the bottom-left
corner of the window (just like the one visible during a download
operation)
- When setting an alternative download destination for a channel/playlist/
folder (for example, by right-clicking a channel and selecting 'Channel
actions > Set download destination...'), the dialogue window has been
updated to show the previously selected alternative at the top of the list.
This should save a lot of time when setting the alternative download
destination for many channels/playlists/folders
- The alternative download destination, if any, is now visible in the tooltips
for the channel/playlist/folder
- Improved the appearance of the dialogue windows seen when Tartube runs for
the first time
- Tweaked the appearance of the list of channels/playlists/folders in the
main window, so that for items with long names, more text is visible

MINOR FIXES
- Fixed a 'No such file or directory' error seen during a download operation,
if an external hard drive suddenly become disconnected (for example, if
the cable falls out)
- Fixed rare problems in loading Tartube's config file
- After a download operation, the list in the top half of the progress tab
often had one or two items in it, even when 'Hide active rows after they
are finished' was selected. Fixed
- The length of lines of text, and spacing between lines, in various dialogue
windows has been made uniform
- Improved the appearance of the main window by adding frames around everything
- Renamed some misnamed icon files. The old icon files were being used in the
MS Windows installer, so fixed that too
- If the user performed two successive refresh operations, the second one
halted after a couple of seconds. Fixed
- When videos are deleted from Tartube's database, any post-processing
artefacts are now deleted with them
- Fixed a few incorrect regex-matching actions
- The user can specify that the main 'Download all' button should be
desensitised, but the setting was not applied correctly after Tartube
restarted. Fixed
- Removed a duplicate menu option in the Video Index popup menu
- Tartube channels, playlists and folders keep counts of the number of videos
inside them, including the number of favourite videos, downloaded videos,
and so on. The code was not working correctly, so the counts were not
always accurate. This version updates the code and recalculates all of the
counts
- Fixed folder icons with an incorrect colour in various edit windows
- Fixed markup errors for videos whose URL contained an ampersand character
- Fixed the Gtk warning when closing the 'Add new video(s)' dialogue window
- Updated the installer scripts for MS Windows, so they don't try to update the
Windows registry (the code has never worked)
- You can no longer set videos as favourite, or new (etc), in an empty channel,
playlist or folder
- In the video list, labels can be right-clicked to copy a video's location
(for example, so it can be copy-pasted somewhere else). This did not work
the same way for every clickable label, and in some cases did not work at
all. Fixed
- Tooltips for videos contained & rather than a simple ampersand character.
Fixed
- Tartube debug messages for the mainapp.py file (which can only be enabled
by editing the file) now have a second debug flag, so the timer functions
can be filtered out
- Checked all keyboard shortcuts to remove duplicates

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MAJOR NEW FEATURES
- The structures of files and directories (folders) in Tartube's data
directory (into which all videos are downloaded) has been changed in
response to Git 28. Tartube will be able to recognise both structures
forever, so there is no need to move anything around on your computer. (If
you actually want to move things around, see the README file)
- Creating a channel/playlist/folder starting with a full stop (period) is no
longer allowed; some channels/playlists/folders might be automatically
renamed when you open Tartube
- The edit and preference windows have been reorganised, adding a second
layer of tabs in many windows. This should hopefully make things a little
easier to find
- In the download options window, you can now specify multiple languages for
your subtitles, instead of just one (Git 47)
- Added some more filename formats (in Edit > General download options...
> Files > File names). When downloading a partial playlist (for example,
starting at the 5th video), youtube-dl cannot create files with the correct
number (naming the first file downloaded 1, instead of 5). Tartube can
now handle this correctly. In the drop-down box, use one of the formats
containing 'Autonumber' (Git 47)
- You can now limit the length of a download operation. This is particularly
useful on small devices, or when leaving Tartube to run overnight. Click
Edit > System preferences... > Scheduling > Stop, and choose one or more of
the new options (Git 47)
- When adding new videos, channels or playlists, you can now turn on clipboard
monitoring. Simply select a URL (for example, in your web browser), press
CTRL+C to copy it to your system's clipboard, and then Tartube will
automatically paste it into the dialogue window (Git 52)
- The MS Windows installer now includes a copy of AtomicParsley, so there is no
need to install it yourself. This does not affect Linux/BSD users, who can
continue installing AtomicParsley by the usual methods
- The list in the top half of the Progress tab is often full, and it's
sometimes difficult to see what is being downloaded right at this moment.
You can now hide finished rows, if you want to, so that active rows appear
at the top of the list

MAJOR FIXES
- The Gtk graphics libraries have historically been full of bugs, which made
applications using Gtk unstable. Most of these bugs are fixed, but the
fixes can take years before they propogate into operating systems. If Gtk
v3.22 (or lower) is installed on your system, Tartube automatically
disables some minor cosmetic features to prevent crashes. If you are using
Gtk v3.24 or later, and are still experiencing unexplainable crashes, you
can now disable the cosmetic features regardless of Gtk version. Click
Edit > System preferences... > General > Modules, and select 'Assume that
Gtk is broken...'
- On Linux/BSD, attempts to update youtube-dl from the Tartube menu so,etimes
produced a 'permission denied' error. There are now new settings available
in 'Edit > System prefences... > youtube-dl > Shell command for update
operations'. If you installed youtube-dl using pip/pip3, the 'recommended'
options should now work, if they didn't work before. Some pip3 warning
messages, which caused Tartube to think the update had failed, are now
filtered out
- A user complained that his Tartube database file had been corrupted. We are
still not sure what the cause was, but the code has been changed to make
that kind of corruption impossible
- Fixed some occasional crashes when, during a download operation, Tartube
tried to sort the videos in the selected channel/playlist/folder
- When switching databases, if Tartube couldn't load the new database, it tried
again after being restarted, rather than trying to load the previous
(readable) database. This has now been fixed
- Some youtube-dl download options could be applied to playlists, but not
channels, even though youtube-dl allows them to be applied to be both.
Fixed, and updated some labels to make it clearer what the options are for
(Git 47)
- In all edit windows, the 'Apply' button at the bottom of the window did not
work. Fixed

MINOR NEW FEATURES
- Tartube icons have been updated, in some cases making them easier to identify
- In the Progress tab, added tooltips to assist with identifying undownloaded
videos (Git 51)
- More types of YouTube error message can now be filtered out
- We have also added a customisable list of strings (or regular expressions);
if set, any matching error/warning messages (on any website) are filtered
out
- In the Video Index popup menus, 'rename default location' has been changed
to a much more comprehensible 'rename channel', etc
- You can now open a video in its system directory (folder) by right-clicking
it, and selecting 'Show location'
- You can now switch databases from the main menu. Click File > Change database
(which opens the preference window at the correct page; hopefully this is
quicker than trying to find the right page yourself)
- There was no way to save Tartube's config file (except by shutting down
Tartube). To do that, you can now click File > Save all
- If Tartube is unable to read the config file and/or database file, the text
in the resulting dialogue windows has been improved. In some circumstances,
multiple dialogue windows were produced; this has now been fixed
- In the download options window, the option to 'embed subtitles with video'
now appears in two different places, to make it easier to find (Git 47)
- If the 'Add new video(s)', 'Add a new channel' or 'Add a new playlist'
dialogue windows are open, you can now drag-and-drop into them (Linux/BSD
only). Modifications to the code mean that it's no longer possible to
drop one URL into the middle of an existing one, rendering both of them
useless
- Tartube checked URLs for validity before adding them, but this did not work
as well as intended. The code has been improved, so less garbage should
appear in the 'Add new video(s)' dialogue window, and so on
- You could already download a temporary copy of video(s) by right-clicking
them and selecting 'Temporary > Download', but that can be inconvenient
for multiple videos, as you had to wait for each download to finish. You
can now select 'Temporary > Mark for download' instead, which creates a
copy of the video in the 'Temporary Videos' folder. When you're ready to
download them all, just download that folder
- Minor improvements to aesthetics for some textviews and treeviews

MINOR FIXES
- Fixed incorrect operation of the checkbuttons in the Errors/Warnings tab.
Added new checkbuttons to separate Tartube errors/warnings from youtube-dl
errors/warnings (Git 50)
- 'Child process exited with non-zero code' errors still appeared in the
Errors/Warnins tab, even if the user has disabled them. Fixed
- Tooltips for videos could not be enabled/disabled if no channel/playlist/
folder was selected. Fixed
- On MS Windows, edit/preference windows will no longer increase in size, if
there isn't enough room for each window's tabs
- Fixed rare 'Permission denied' errors when trying to create a directory
(folder) on the filesystem
- In the download options edit window, the combobox for audio formats had
multiple and ever-increasing empty spaces. Fixed
- In the download options window, File > File names, the default value for the
custom format was garbled. Fixed, and it should now be working as intended
- During a simulated download, videos which are not in a channel or playlist
(for example, videos in the 'Unsorted Videos' folder) did not appear in
the Results List in the Progress tab. Fixed
- Fixed an unprintable character in the licence declaration, visible in
Tartube's 'About' window
- When deleting a video, Tartube will now delete more related files (such as
those produced when post-processing a video)
- Removed a few duplicate ISO 639-1 language codes

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MAJOR NEW FEATURES
- Drag and drop (for example, from a web browser into Tartube's main window)
is now fully working on Linux/BSD. On MS Windows, drag and drop does not
work at all for any Gtk application. It is unlikely that the Tartube
authors can do anything about this (Git 35)
- The 'Add new video(s)' dialogue window can now handle URLs representing
channels and playlists, as well as URLs representing individual videos.
During a download operation, if Tartube is expecting an individual video
but receives a channel/playlist, it will automatically create a new
channel, and download videos into that channel. You can change this default
behaviour, if you want (Edit > System preferences... > URL flexibility
preferences)
- To change the name of the new channel/playlist, right-click it and select
'Filesystem > Rename default location...'
- If Tartube creates a channel, which should really be a playlist, then you
can now convert one to the other. Right-click a channel and select
'Channel actions > Convert to playlist'. Right-click a playlist and select
'Playlist actions > Convert to channel'
- In the download options windows, it's now very easy to tell Tartube to
convert videos to sound files. Open the window by clicking 'Edit >
General download options...', click the 'Hide advanced download options'
button if necessary, click the 'Sound only' tab, select your preferences,
and apply them by clicking the OK button at the bottom of the window
- You can now see the download options applied to a video, channel, playlist
or folder without having to download anything. Right-click a video/channel/
playlist/folder and select 'Downloads > Show system command'
- During a download operation, the system commands used are now visible (by
default) in the Output tab. The system command can also be displayed in the
terminal, if required; this is disabled by default

MINOR NEW FEATURES
- In the Output tab, the summary page is now hidden by default. To make it
visible, click 'Edit > System Preferences... > Output >
Show a summary of active threads' and then restart Tartube
- In the Errors/Warnings tab, added checkbuttons to filter out errors and/or
warning messages, if required (Git 50)
- In the Progress tab, in the top half of the window, you can now right-click
an unnamed video to open it in your web browser. This will be useful in
identifying videos that did not download, and whose name is unknown to
Tartube (Git 51)
- Columns in the Progress tab have been rearranged a little, so that the
user can more easily see how quickly the download is progressing, when
Tartube's main window is small

MAJOR FIXES
- Fixed multiple issues with Tartube, when running under Python 3.8
- Replaced all remaining references to the Python os.rename() function, which
can cause crashes on some filesystems (Git 34)
- Fixed crashes caused by the new YouTube error messages (January 2020), which
some versions of youtube-dl cannot handle correctly
- Fixed issues with the default location for videos, again. Fixed an issue
with adding folders inside the currently selected folder (Git 36, 46)

MINOR FIXES
- Fixed various Gtk warning messages, visible only on some systems
- Videos whose name contains an ampersand (&) character could not be opened by
clicking the 'Media player' label in the Video Catalogue. Fixed
- The properties windows for videos, channels and playlists showed a folder
icon, instead of a video/channel/playlist icon. Fixed
- The popup menu in the Progress tab, in the top half of the tab, did not work
as intended during a download operation, and again after a download
operation. Fixed both sets of issues
- Coloured text was not displayed in the Output tab correctly. Fixed

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MAJOR NEW FEATURES
- Tartube now creates an icon in the user's system tray. Closing the main
window now closes to the tray, by default. To disable this behaviour,
click Edit > System preferences > Windows > Deselect 'Close to the tray...'
- When that functionality is enabled, Tartube can be shutdown by clicking
File > Quit. Scheduled download operations will still take place if Tartube
has been closed to the tray. Implements Github issue 37
- Tartube can now show a desktop notification at the end of a download
operation, rather that a dialogue window. This does not work on MS Windows.
On other operating systems, enable desktop notifications by clicking
Edit > System preferences... > Operations > Show a desktop notification...
- When you click the 'Add new video(s)' button, the folder displayed in the
dialogue window is now the same folder that's selected in the main window
(if any). The same applies for adding channels, playlists and folders.
Fixes Github issue 36
- If you normally use the 'Check all' button rather than the 'Download all'
button, and if you want to download a temporary copy of one of the videos,
there's now an easier way to do it. In the Videos tab, right-click the
video, and select 'Temporary > Download' or 'Temporary > Download and
Watch'. A copy of the video is downloaded into the 'Temporary Videos'
folder, without affecting any other folders

MINOR NEW FEATURES
- The icons for channels and playlists have been replaced, to make it easier to
tell them apart. Some other icons have been replaced too
- Videos can now be dragged and dropped from a web browser (or similar
application) into Tartube's main window, which automatically adds the video
to the currently selected folder (or 'Unsorted Videos', if no folder is
selected). Unfortunately, the code is not yet working reliably. We are
looking for a solution (Github issue 35)
- The layout of the Format tab in the download options window has been improved
to alleviate confusion experienced by users trying to download a video to
a sound format such as .mp3 (only). See the new section in the README file
- A number of new video/audio formats have been added, for example several new
60fps formats, implementing Github issue 40
- When you apply download options to a video/channel/playlist/folder, the
options are now cloned from the default set of options (those visible in
Edit > General download options...). To disable this behaviour, click
Edit > System preferences... > Operations > When applying download options,
automatically clone general download options. Implements Github issue 39
- The options already applied to a video/channel/playlist/folder can now be
reset to match the general options, any time you want. Use the new button
at the bottom of the download options window, in the General tab

MAJOR FIXES
- Fixed a rare crash when the video's JSON filename was too long for the
operating system
- In the download options window, Formats tab, the user can add up to three
video formats. The third format, if added, was always ignored. Fixed

MINOR FIXES
- If you perform a refresh operation on a folder, the operation now applies to
all videos, channels, playlists and folders inside it
- After adding a video to the folder that's currently selected, the video does
not appear immediately in the video catalogue. Fixed
- In the Progress and Errors/Warnings tabs, the column headers scrolled away
along with the rest of the list. Fixed; they are now always visible
- Video nicknames were not set correctly after an update operation. Fixed
- During a refresh operation, a video's name was compared against the full
filepath (filename and extension), which produced none of the intended
matches. Fixed
- The edit/preference windows had a tendency to increase in size without
limits. Fixed
- A video's annotations.xml file was not deleted correctly, when required.
Fixed
- In the download options window, the option 'hls-prefer-ffmpeg' is now working
correctly
- In the download options window, the 'prefer avconv over ffmpeg' options have
been desensitised on MS Windows, as there is no known method of using
Tartube with avconv on MS Windows
- youtube-dl creates a file, ytdl-archive.txt, recording all the videos that
it has downloaded. This can interfere if the user tries to re-download the
video(s) for any reason. Create of the ytdl-archive.txt file can now be
disabled (Edit > System preferences... > youtube-dl > Deselect 'Allow
youtube-dl to create its own archive...')
- If creation of the archive file is nonetheless enabled, Tartube can now
re-download video(s) without problems
- In rare circumstances, Tartube was unable to redraw the video catalogue
(the right-hand side of the Videos tab). Fxied

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MAJOR FIXES
- v1.3.007 was completely broken when replacing an earlier installation. Fixed
- When Tartube's data directory was copied from one place to another (for
example, from one external drive to another), Tartube did not adapt to the
change very well. The way file paths are stored in Tartube's database has
been changed to eliminate this problem

MINOR FIXES
- Fixed an invalid time value which (sometimes) prevented a refresh operation
from completing correctly