/youtube-comments-timestamps

Enhance your YouTube experience with a browser extension that allows easy navigation through videos using time markers from comments

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT

YouTube Comment Time Marker Extension

YouTube Timestamp Icon

Description

This browser extension enhances the YouTube viewing experience by allowing users to easily navigate through a video based on time markers extracted from the video's comments. It adds functionality to jump to specific timestamps mentioned in comments, and provides buttons for quick navigation between these markers.

How It Works

  • Time Marker Parsing: When a user clicks on a YouTube comment that contains time markers (e.g., "0:00 Intro, 5:00 Chapter 1, 10:00 Conclusion"), the extension parses these markers and converts them into an array of seconds.
  • Keyboard shorcut: Pressing Alt + Q and Alt + W will navigate to the previous and next time markers, respectively.

Availability

Available for Firefox here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/youtube-comments-timestamps/

Installation and Loading Locally

To load and use the extension locally in your browser, follow these steps:

  • git clone this repository
  • Open your browser and navigate to chrome://extensions/
  • Open your browser and navigate to the extensions page (e.g., chrome://extensions in Google Chrome).
  • Enable "Developer mode" (usually a toggle in the top right corner).
  • Click on "Load unpacked" and select the folder where your content.js and manifest.json files are located.

Usage

  • Navigate to a YouTube video.
  • Click on a comment containing time markers to load them into the extension.
  • Use the keyboard shortcuts Alt + Q and Alt + W to navigate to the previous and next time markers, respectively.

Notes

  • The extension is designed for use with YouTube and may not work if YouTube changes its layout or class names.
  • The extension currently works best with full page reloads and may need additional logic for single-page application behaviors (like YouTube's dynamic content loading).

TODO

  • Replace buttons for key shortcuts.
  • handle correctly when reloading page.
  • Add support for custom shortcuts.