This bug fix release finally fixes some videos not starting, especially in languages different than English. Here’s the rest of the changelog:
Enjoy Minitube!
Just a quick note to announce the availability of Minitube 1.4.2. This version addresses a bug with some videos not playing, especially longer ones. Also full length videos now start playing much faster. 1.4.2 also fixes some invalid download filenames on Windows. A brand new Albanian translation is included. Enjoy!
This is the first Minitube release working on all three major platforms. The Windows version, like the Mac one, won’t be free. I hope this will help make the project sustainable. So spread the word to your Windows friends!
Version 1.4.1 brings many new and updated translations. Many thanks to the people who worked on Transifex. Georg Grabler fixed a bug occurring in multiscreen setups. I fixed a bug with videos not auto-advancing when using the Xine Phonon backend on Linux. Enjoy!
A Minitube Windows version is almost ready. Here you can find a beta release that should work on Windows 2000 and above. I hope someone can test it and report in the comments below whether it works or not.
The Windows version, like the Mac one, is not going to be free. Please bear with me as I try to make this project sustainable.
While working on a WordPress theme, I noticed a low MySQL query cache hit rate. There were a lot of SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS queries that were not cached and were slowing down the database.
It appears WordPress uses SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS in most queries in order to implement pagination. Even when you don’t need pagination at all. SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS tells MySQL to do additional work to count the total matching rows and this can make a lot of difference if you have a big archive.
By inspecting WordPress 3.x source code I found an undocumented parameter that can be used with get_posts and query_posts functions. The parameter is named no_found_rows and it accepts boolean values. It tells WordPress not to count the total rows. Here’s a usage example:
query_posts('no_found_rows=true&cat=1&numberposts=1');
Hope this will help WordPress developers around the world lower their carbon footprint.
UPDATE 25 Oct 2016: I checked on WordPress 4.6.1 and now get_posts sets no_found_rows=true automatically. query_posts and WP_Query do not, so you should still set no_found_rows=true when using them and don’t need pagination.
This release introduces YouTube channels support in Minitube. At first I thought it would be just a minor feature. You just search for a username instead of keyword. No big deal. Boy, I was wrong. While trivial from a technical perspective, being able to watch YouTube channel in Minitube brings a whole new depth to the application. Discovering channels is easy thanks to the autocomplete popup, which suggests the most relevant channels for a given keyword.
Version 1.4 also fixes many playback problems. Some of them are actually caused by slow YouTube streams. Minitube now tries very hard to get a fast stream and discards slower ones.
Linux CLI users will enjoy a small new feature. Minitube now can be launched from the command line specifyng a keyword or YouTube URL.
I’m experimenting with Transifex, a collaborative translation system. If you’re interested in helping translating Minitube, head over to Minitube’s project page.
As always, donations are welcome!
Minitube 1.4 is ready to be translated! If you’re interested, please head over to Gitorious, download a .ts file (using the Raw blob data link on the right) and edit it with Qt Linguist. When you’re ready you can send it back to me via email or, if you can work with git, file a merge request.
There is still no simple collaborative translation system for Minitube. So please have patience with duplicate translations, etc
Many people noticed that Minitube, like youtube-dl and other YouTube tools, stopped working on Dec 9. Here’s a new release that brings back the “Minitube experience”.
This version sports a shiny new icon designed by David Nel. I hope you like it as I do. I’m really thankful to David for this contribution.
There a many changes under the hood too. The way video playback works had to be radically changed. The Mac version is more responsive now and never shows the dreaded spinning pinwheel. The changes also led to the (hopefully temporary) disabling of seeking functionality on Linux.
This is the first Mac release based on Qt/Cocoa. This brings minor visual enhancements and fixes. Minitube now requires Leopard or better.
On the i18n side we have a new Macedonian translation by Veta Branislav and updated German (by Jakob Kramer) and Finnish translations.
Now go get your Minitube!
UPDATE! Minitube is now avalaible for Mac PowerPC and Tiger users too.
Hey not so fast! First of all let me thank each and every contributor that took part in the contest. Many worthy ideas were suggested, much more than I expected. But one submission really stands apart from rest. When I saw it I was blown away. Without further ado, please join me in congratulating David Nel for his astonishing creation.
Expect a minor release very soon with this new icon and updated translations.
Even if no one actually complained, I always had the feeling that the Minitube icon could be made better. So I fired Inkscape and well, I failed. I tend to forget I’m no graphic artist. So let’s make an experiment and see if I can reach out to some capable icon designer.
I hereby announce the Minitube icon design contest!
Send your icons to flavio.tordini@gmail.com before November 30, 2010 at midnight. I reserve to keep the current icon if there is no better proposal. I’ll publish the proposals (if any) so everyone can comment on them.
I’m not sure how many icon designers read this blog, probably none. So, if you care about a better icon for Minitube, it is important that you spread the word about the contest!
Contest submissions can be seen here.