I really enjoy using Minitube. It's a very comfortable and lightweight alternative to YouTube playback with flash. The only thing that bothers me is that I have to manually copy and paste interesting youtube links I found into the program to play them back.
Is there any way I can automate this and integrate Minitube into Google Chrome or another web browser?
Integrating Minitube with Chrome using a Chrome extension
Overview
Thanks to a Chrome extension by Nicu Farmache this is now possible. The extension source code may be checked out at the google code project page.
Installation
While trying to install the extension I found that the instructions provided by the author weren't working for me on Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS. These are the steps I followed to get it to work anyway:
Install the extension from the Chrome Webstore
Create a script called
minitubehandler.sh
with the following content:Please note that this will only work with the
minitube-ubuntu
package installed from the Ubuntu Software Center. In order to use the script with other version ofminitube
you will have to edit the path to the minitube executable.Either move the script to $PATH (e.g.
~/bin
) or move it to a folder of your choice and copy down the file pathCreate a new desktop file under
~/.local/share/applications
calledminitubehandler.desktop
with the following contents:Make sure to replace the
Exec
line with the path to your script if you decided against moving it to your$PATH
Assign the desktop file to the extension's MIME type by executing the following lines in a terminal:
Restart Chrome
From now on if you navigate to a YouTube video page you should see a small Minitube icon on the right side of your address bar:
Clicking it will launch Minitube and play back the video or - if Minitube is already running - switch playback to the video in question: