MoviePile now has a Chrome Extension to Download Embedded Videos

http://moviepileapp.com/moviepile_downloader_chrome_extension

by jacktasia • 13 years ago

3 3 13 years ago

jacktasia2• 13 years ago

I'd love to get feedback on this extension or the actual app itself. I haven't been able to get any comments on HN on MoviePile yet. Thanks!

Samuel_Michon• 13 years ago

I just used it to download a clip from Youtube, it works like a charm! (Tested on OS X 10.8.2. Google Chrome 24.0.1312.57)

However, the process could be made clearer on the website and in the app. It would also be nice to have a (contextual) menu item or button in the app to show a file in the Finder. Now I had to search for the media folder.

Also, the installer placed the folders 'MoviePileMovies' and 'moviepile_assets' in the base level of the user directory. I think it'd be more logical for 'MoviePileMovies' to go in the 'userdir/Movies' directory. And can't the 'moviepile_assets' folder be placed in the app package, or in the 'userdir/Library/Application_Support' folder?

EDIT: I took a look at the Kickstarter page, where I found this:

"MoviePile is a Java application, which means that it's cross-platform. You can use it on Macs or Windows or Linux. The sky's the limit! That said, a significant amount of effort will be put into making it seem like a native app. Do you use a Mac? It will feel like a Mac app!"

Sorry, but right now it looks and behaves nothing like a Cocoa app. It doesn't utilize the Mac menu bar. Buttons and menu aren't where a user expects them to be and they're styled very differently – the dark flat UI isn't conform the Apple HIG. For me, that's not a big deal, I'll continue using the Finder and VLC to manage and view the files. However, since you're aiming at average consumers, I feel I have to tell you that you're going to run into problems if you keep this a Java app: many OS X users don't have a Java runtime environment installed.

jacktasia2• 13 years ago

Hey Samuel,

Thanks for the feedback. All of your stuff is definitely on my TODO list but it's about making pragmatic choices early on (it's just a preview right now).

By "feel like a mac app" I basically meant that you'd have a signed .app binary (inside a .dmg that can be dragged to Applications) on a Mac, etc. Normal consumers don't know what Cocca is. I want the app to look the same across platforms...but execute the app like they would expect.

FYI you CAN embed JREs in .app mac bundles, see: http://www.intransitione.com/blog/take-java-to-app-store/ and is what I would eventually do. It works but right now there's a bug in Java 1.7 (related to changes in the Canvas class no longer being heavyweight) that would break the app, and Java 1.7 (first Oracle, not Apple issued Java for mac) is the first version to support this. I actually had to end up backporting the appbundler code to Java 1.6 and then write some objc to launch the (hopefully present) Apple-issued JRE.

I don't mean for this comment to come off as anything other than thankful for your time...but I wanted to answer some of your points so if anyone read this they would understand that I am serious about this project.

Thanks again and if you continue to use the app and have any more feedback please let me know support@moviepileapp.com

MoviePile now has a Chrome Extension to Download Embedded Videos

Related Stories