Channel-avatar issue and the sluggish-load issue both addressed.
strawcore-core (Sulkta-Coop/strawcore @ 7c71511) — separate repo,
already committed + pushed:
Channel parser was only pulling avatar from the legacy
c4TabbedHeaderRenderer branch. The newer pageHeaderRenderer
(most channels with a 2024+ refreshed header — including WTYP)
was returning empty avatars. Added a deep-nested ViewModel walk
for pageHeaderRenderer, plus a metadata.channelMetadataRenderer
.avatar.thumbnails[] backfill. WTYP and other re-headered channels
should now show their icon.
Persistent feed cache (data/FeedCacheStore.kt):
New SharedPreferences-backed JSON store. ~225 KB at the upper
bound (30 subs * 30 items * ~250 bytes), well within SP's comfort
zone. Survives process death.
SubscriptionFeedViewModel:
Hydrates from FeedCacheStore on init. The Subs tab now paints
cached items in one frame on cold start, then refreshes stale
channels in the background.
Persists the cache after each successful refresh via Dispatchers.IO.
Per-channel TTL bumped 10min → 30min (disk cache amortizes the
cost; stale-from-disk + background-refresh feels like instant).
Per-channel timeout 15s → 10s (slow channel rides cached value
instead of stalling the batch).
Parallelism 8 → 12 (less network-bound now that UI doesn't wait
for first byte).
StreamItem now @Serializable so the cache can encode it.
FeedCache.init wired into StrawApp.onCreate alongside the other
SharedPreferences-backed stores.
Subscription feed is now actually a feed instead of a teaser.
Rust (strawcore wrapper)
Added upload_date_relative and uploader_avatar to SearchItem so
Kotlin can see both. strawcore-core already extracts upload_date
relative ("2 days ago") on every StreamInfoItem and uploader_avatars
on most — we were just throwing them away in from_core. Fixed.
StreamItem
uploadDateRelative + uploaderAvatar fields added. Every construction
site (search/channel/detail/feed) plumbs them through.
SubscriptionFeedViewModel
Per-channel cap 5 → 30. With 30 subs that's up to 900 items in
memory; ConcurrentHashMap entries are small enough.
Sort by parsed relative recency (RECENCY_RE on the "N <unit> ago"
string, signed seconds-ago, tied items break by viewCount).
Opportunistic avatar backfill: every successful channelInfo fetch
updates the stored ChannelRef.avatar via Subscriptions.updateAvatar
when strawcore returns a non-null avatar — fixes the "I just subbed
to a channel and the chip has no icon" case where the channel header
parser missed the avatar at subscribe time but the feed-fetch
layout returns one.
SubsPane (StrawHome)
Hide-watched FilterChip (session-sticky). Cross-references
History.watches by 11-char YT video ID; filters out anything you've
already watched. "All caught up — nothing unwatched" empty state.
Infinite scroll: PAGE_SIZE = 20. derivedStateOf-gated snapshotFlow
watches the LazyListState's lastVisibleItem index; when within 5
items of the bottom, bumps visibleCount by 20. "Loading more..."
spinner at the bottom while there's more to show.
Visible-count resets to PAGE_SIZE when the underlying list shrinks
(refresh dropped items, filter just engaged).
FeedRow now shows: uploader · views · "3 days ago".
SubChip
Lettered fallback when ch.avatar is null. PrimaryContainer-tinted
circle with the first letter — no more broken-image placeholder
while the feed-fetch backfills the real avatar.
SubscriptionsStore
updateAvatar(url, avatar) for the backfill path. Atomic via
updateAndGet, persists to SharedPreferences.
Rewrote the drag-to-dismiss state machine. Old version launched a
coroutine per pointer event to call Animatable.snapTo (which is
suspend) — multiple launches racing per frame caused the stutter.
Two-state pattern now:
liveDrag (mutableFloatStateOf) — updated synchronously inside
rememberDraggableState's callback. One state write per pointer
event, no coroutine spawn during the drag itself.
releaseAnim (Animatable) — driven by a single coroutine in
Modifier.draggable's onDragStopped. Either spring-back to 0 or
slide off-screen + onMinimize.
graphicsLayer reads liveDrag when actively dragging, releaseAnim
otherwise — a single Boolean gate.
Bonus: dismiss now SLIDES the page off-screen before popping nav,
instead of cutting. tween(220ms, FastOutLinearInEasing). Spring-back
on a short drag uses MediumBouncy/MediumLow for a real spring feel
instead of a hard snap. Fling-velocity threshold (600dp/s) also
counts — flick-down past 600dp/s dismisses even if the drag distance
was short.
Two follow-ups on vc=29 (the cutout fix is bundled in too — vc=29
never shipped standalone):
Minibar
Was rendering UNDER the system nav buttons / gesture pill because
StrawActivity uses enableEdgeToEdge() and the minibar was aligned
BottomCenter with no inset awareness. Added
navigationBarsPadding() to the MinibarOverlay Column so it lifts
above the system bar in both gesture-nav and 3-button-nav modes.
Icon
v1 had two overlapping shapes (tilted lime parallelogram + white
play triangle) that fought each other and read as visual noise at
launcher size. Replaced with a single bold white play triangle on
the deep-green (#166534) background — one strong silhouette,
reads at any size, says "video app" without ceremony. PNG fallbacks
re-rendered at all five mipmap densities.
In portrait fullscreen, the camera notch / cutout was eating the top
overlay buttons — SB pill, Speed, Headphones, Videocam, Share, PiP,
Minimize. Tappable area sat under the cutout shadow; presses dropped.
Wrapped the overlay layer (SB pill + control Row) in a Box with
windowInsetsPadding(WindowInsets.safeDrawing). safeDrawing is the
union of system bars + display cutouts + IME, so this single modifier
covers both portrait (notch at top) and landscape (cutout at side)
without per-orientation logic. The PlayerView itself still uses
fillMaxSize with no inset padding — video stays full-bleed and reads
as immersive; only the touch-targets respect the safe area.
Three layout/playback fixes on vc=26-27 feedback plus the long-deferred
app icon.
Layout — VideoDetailScreen
Player surface now fills the screen width (no 16dp side gutters).
Outer Column dropped its 16dp padding; the player Box hangs off the
full width with no rounded corners — NewPipe/YouTube look. Everything
below (title, chips, button row, description, related list) goes back
into an inner Column with 16dp horizontal + 12dp vertical padding so
the body still reads correctly.
Bottom inset: Spacer(windowInsetsBottomHeight(WindowInsets.navigationBars))
appended at the end of the scrollable column. Last related video can
scroll up past the gesture pill / 3-button nav instead of being
obscured by it. (Plain navigationBarsPadding would have pushed the
whole surface up and left a dead band.)
Black-video fix
vc=27's Background button disabled the video track on the controller
via setTrackTypeDisabled(C.TRACK_TYPE_VIDEO, true) and that override
is sticky. Returning to a video left it audio-only with a black
surface. Added a LaunchedEffect(controller, streamUrl) that resets
TrackSelectionParameters to defaults on every entry into detail — if
the user opened a video page, they want video. The audio-only
fullscreen toggle and the Background button still set the override
for the duration of that session; they just no longer leak.
App icon
Replaced the Android default placeholder (sym_def_app_icon, which
fdroid was failing to render anyway) with a proper adaptive icon:
Background: #166534 deep green (sulkta.com brand)
Foreground: tilted lime parallelogram + white play triangle
(literal "straw" nod + video-app affordance)
Adaptive XML in mipmap-anydpi-v26/. PNG fallbacks rendered via
rsvg-convert at all five mipmap densities (mdpi/hdpi/xhdpi/xxhdpi/
xxxhdpi) for pre-API-26 devices. Manifest now points at
@mipmap/ic_launcher and @mipmap/ic_launcher_round.
Three pieces of feedback on vc=26, fixed in one pass:
(1) Swipe-to-minimize was on the fullscreen player, where it fought
PlayerView's own touch handling and felt janky. Moved the gesture to
the VideoDetailScreen — the same place YouTube/NewPipe put it. The
drag handle is the inline-player surface itself (the 16:9 box at
top); outside that, the description scrolls normally. The whole
page translates with the finger via graphicsLayer + an alpha/scale
fade so the motion reads as "the video is being tucked away" rather
than the old jump-and-snap. Threshold 140dp → onMinimize.
Fullscreen keeps the down-arrow button for minimize; the
drag-to-dismiss path is gone from PlayerScreen entirely (along with
its Animatable + density imports). Whichever surface is visible has
exactly one minimize affordance.
(2) The minibar was always visible on every non-Player screen, which
meant it stacked under the VideoDetail page even though the inline
player is already there. Updated visibility predicate to also hide
on VideoDetail — the minibar is now strictly the take-over UI for
when you leave the video page. Tapping the minibar pushes back to
VideoDetail (not fullscreen) so the mental model is symmetrical:
swipe-down to leave, tap to come back.
(3) Two new buttons on the VideoDetail action row:
Background — disables the video track on the controller and
pops out of detail. The foreground service keeps audio going;
the minibar appears on whatever screen you land on. Pre-checks
that the controller is actually playing this video before
leaving — otherwise the minibar would dismiss into empty.
Popout — enters PiP via the activity, same code path as the
fullscreen overlay button. Same controller pre-check.
Nav helper: added Navigator.resetTo(Screen) so that minimize from
a deep-link entry (where VideoDetail is the only stack item) drops
the user on Home rather than no-op'ing.
Color palette pulled directly from sulkta.com's stylesheet — the same
greens used on the website now drive the app theme:
#166534 deep green (light-theme primary, top app bar background)
#4ade80 bright lime (dark-theme primary, accents in dark mode)
#86efac light green (primaryContainer in light theme)
#e8f5e8 pale green (secondary container tint)
#d97706 amber accent (tertiary)
#374137 olive gray (secondary on light, container on dark)
Replaces the made-up forest palette from vc=23 with the real Sulkta
brand. Same M3 tonal-role mapping so derived surfaces stay consistent.
TopAppBar redone NewPipe-style: solid deep-green bar with white
"straw" title, white hamburger + search icons. Clear bold header
instead of the previous white-with-a-pill-underneath layout.
Material Icons swapped in everywhere we had emoji:
drawer Person / History / PlaylistPlay / Download / Settings
minibar PlayArrow / Pause / Close
fullscreen Speed / Headphones / Videocam / Share /
PictureInPictureAlt / KeyboardArrowDown
Pulled in material-icons-extended (4 MB APK growth, all icons).
Consistent renders across vendors; no more emoji font fallback drift.
FeedRow gets a NewPipe-style duration pill burned into the bottom-right
of every thumbnail (mm:ss / h:mm:ss). Live streams / mixes with no
duration leave it off.
Audit deferred-MED items addressed:
MED-6: dropped the PlayerService STATE_ENDED auto-stop. Service
shutdown is now driven only by onTaskRemoved + the minibar's ×.
Removes the implicit "we'll never queue" assumption and is correct
for a future autoplay/queue feature.
LOW-7: DownloadsScreen adaptive poll — 1s while a download is
active, 5s when idle. No more wasted DB queries when nothing
is running.
Opus max-effort audit of the vc=23 post-MediaController-unification
codebase surfaced two CRITs, both in my own recent code.
CRIT-1 + 1b: inline-position-threading band-aid deleted. After the V-2
controller unification, seeking the live controller to its own
currentPosition was always 0-500ms backwards — every inline-to-
fullscreen and minibar-expand handoff jerked playback backward. The
whole `inlinePositionMs` / `onPositionChanged` / `startPositionMs` /
`seekTo` chain is gone. The controller is one player; no handoff
needed.
CRIT-2: PlayerLeaveHandler removed. The registry was fully orphaned —
nothing ever assigned to handler. Media3 handles HOME-to-background
natively via the foreground service. Dropped the file, the
onUserLeaveHint override, and the import.
HIGH-1 + 5: PlayerViewModel collapsed into VideoDetailViewModel. Both
fetched the same streamInfo for the same URL; PlayerScreen used to
spin up two VMs to lift uploader + thumbnail from one and stream URLs
from the other. One VM now exposes both `detail` and `resolved`. Drops
a redundant network fetch and the double-spinner UX on PlayerScreen.
HIGH-2: AndroidView { PlayerView } in PlayerScreen + InlinePlayer now
has onRelease { it.player = null } so PlayerView surfaces stop
retaining the controller after the composable leaves composition.
HIGH-3: SubscriptionFeedViewModel switched to a per-channel cache.
Each channel's entries refresh on their own TTL — adding one new
subscription no longer invalidates the other 49. Failed/timed-out
channel fetches leave the prior cache entry intact instead of
blanking the feed for that channel.
HIGH-4: onNewIntent override added. singleTask was silently dropping
shared-from-Chrome YT URLs whenever Straw was already running. New
intents now feed pendingDeepLink which the Compose tree drains into
Screen.VideoDetail.
MED-3, MED-8, MED-10, LOW batch: PlayerView control-overlay overlap
fixed by going through one strategy; SearchViewModel.recordSearch
moved into the success branch so errored queries don't pollute recent
searches; Downloader's host whitelist tightened to *.googlevideo.com
only; SubscriptionsStore.clear + HistoryStore.clearWatches/Searches
now use updateAndGet for atomic clear consistent with the other
writers; phase/path/audit-ticket markers stripped from comments
(kept the technical commentary, dropped sprint tags); 4x duplicated
Color(0xCC222222) overlay color extracted to OverlayChromeColor named
constant in StrawTheme; HtmlText + StrawActivity NewPipeExtractor
references replaced with the current extractor.
Net: ~80 LOC deleted overall (the position-threading + handler
registry + duplicate VM more than offset the cache + onNewIntent
additions).
Settings screen now has an Import section. Picks a NewPipeData-*.zip or TubularData-*.zip via the SAF, extracts newpipe.db + preferences.json, and walks the Room SQLite schema (subscriptions / playlists / playlist_stream_join / streams / search_history / stream_history / stream_state). YouTube only — service_id=0 filter drops SoundCloud/PeerTube/etc.
Imported on smoke: 26 subs, 1 playlist with 10 items, 50/11402 watch history (capped by HistoryStore MAX_WATCHES), 20/2242 searches (MAX_SEARCHES), 8 settings keys (SponsorBlock category toggles + default resolution). Resume positions counted (10918) but not yet persisted — Straw has no resume-store yet.
Real MediaController/MediaSessionService unification: a single ExoPlayer
owned by PlaybackService, every UI surface is a MediaController client.
Playback never restarts on screen transitions. Drops the per-screen
ExoPlayer instances; drops the EXTRA_URL Intent-based handoff from vc=21.
Minibar overlay: persistent strip pinned to the bottom of every
non-Player screen whenever something is loaded. Tap to expand to
fullscreen, x to stop and clear, play/pause toggles. Drag-down on the
fullscreen player or the down-chevron overlay button minimizes into the
minibar. Single source of truth for what is playing is NowPlaying — a
process-wide StateFlow refreshed by whichever surface calls
setPlayingFrom.
Custom MediaSource.Factory in the service routes DASH/HLS/progressive
by MIME, and merges video+audio progressives via a side-channel
EXTRA_AUDIO_URL bundle on the MediaItem. SponsorBlock skip loop is now
activity-scoped, hoisted out of PlayerScreen, so segments are skipped in
minibar mode too.
Downloads tab wired into the drawer. Reads DownloadManager every
second, shows status + progress, tap to open, x to remove.
Theme: forest-green primary palette replaces the M3 default lavender /
NewPipe red. Modern, clean, distinct.
vc=20 fixed channel videos but left two player rough edges that Cobb
called out on the phone:
* Tapping 🎧 (background audio) restarted the stream from the
beginning instead of picking up where the foreground player was.
* Pressing HOME on the player auto-entered Picture-in-Picture; what
Cobb wants is seamless background audio.
Both paths now share one handoff: capture exoPlayer.currentPosition,
stop the activity player, start PlaybackService with EXTRA_POSITION_MS,
and seekTo(position) on setMediaItem. Verified on emulator: 🎧 tap from
~34s in-track resumes service at position=34821ms.
HOME-on-player triggers the same path via StrawActivity.onUserLeaveHint
→ PlayerLeaveHandler.handler (a tiny registry the active PlayerScreen
registers in a DisposableEffect; cleared on dispose so the hook is a
no-op anywhere else in the app). The previous DisposableEffect that
called setAutoEnterEnabled(true) is gone; manual PiP via the ⊟ overlay
button stays — that one is still useful and user-triggered.
Also fixes a latent IllegalStateException that the new HOME path
exposed: PlaybackService and PlayerScreen both built MediaSession with
the default empty ID, which the system rejects when both live in the
same process. Service now sets .setId("straw-bg") so the two
sessions can coexist during the brief activity-vs-service overlap
during handoff.
Smoke (emulator 1440x3040):
* Subscriptions feed renders (vc=20 fix carries over).
* 🎧 from ~34s in NCS / Different Heaven → service playing
position=34821ms, no session-ID crash.
* HOME from PlayerScreen → focus moves to NexusLauncher,
PlaybackService running with isForeground=true,
pictureInPictureParams=null on the activity (no PiP).
vc=19 shipped with empty subscription feeds because
strawcore-core's channel_info was parsing the wrong tab + the
wrong renderer type.
strawcore-core e6fbbb7 fixes both — second-browse to the Videos
tab + parse lockupViewModel. This bump pulls that in.
NCS Spektrem + Rick Astley both play through Rust → ExoPlayer h264
MediaCodec on android-emulator. 4s frame-diff verified, zero
PlaybackException. Phase 7 + Phase 8 of the NPE port arc done.
Path C (rustypipe iOS-client extractor) shipped on vc=16-17 returns
googlevideo URLs that the YT iOS-bound progressive-download path
deliberately caps at ~917 KiB end byte. Any seek past that returns 403,
making non-HLS videos unplayable. ExoPlayer's IosSafeHttpDataSource
chunking workaround in vc=17 doesn't help because the cap is on the
URL itself, not on the chunk size.
Rolling back to the vc=15 (0.1.0-AA) state — NewPipeExtractor — so
Cobb's phone auto-updates back to a working version while the
strawcore/rustypipe extractor strategy is re-thought (need a non-iOS
client that returns reliably-streamable URLs, OR a Lucy-side stitching
proxy that fetches iOS chunks server-side and re-serves DASH/HLS).
Branched from 5b36de888 (the vc=15 commit) — purely a versionCode +
versionName bump, no other changes.
Tap the 16:9 thumbnail box on VideoDetail and the video plays right
there in the card — like YouTube. Uses its own ExoPlayer (released on
nav-back via DisposableEffect) with PlayerView's built-in controls
(play/pause/seek/duration bar).
Top-right ⛶ pill on the inline player jumps to the existing fullscreen
PlayerScreen which still has the full toolset (speed picker, audio-only,
share, PiP, background, SponsorBlock chip). Restarts from 0 on entry —
seek-position handoff between inline + fullscreen is a future refinement.
Inline player state (playing/not-playing) is keyed on streamUrl so
navigating to a different video resets it back to the thumbnail-with-
play-overlay default.
Under the thumbnail: title → uploader → chips → buttons → description →
Recommended → More from <uploader>. The Z2/W2 inverted layout shipped in
Y put discovery cards before the title — bad UX, fixed back to standard.
Inline player coming next.
VideoDetail card order (top → bottom under the player thumbnail):
Recommended → More from <uploader> → Video details
NewPipeExtractor fan-out: streamInfo brings 'related', and a parallel
ChannelInfo+VIDEOS-tab fetch brings 'moreFromChannel' (filtered to drop
the current video). Same data shape as feed/search rows; reuses RelatedRow.
Home top bar gets a YouTube-style search pill in the title slot — tap
takes you to the search screen. The drawer 'Search' entry is gone (the
pill replaces it).
Section header below the top bar — 'Latest from your subs' / 'History' —
makes which view you're on obvious. Empty subs state is friendlier.
Status-bar padding (statusBarsPadding) added to VideoDetailScreen,
SearchScreen, ChannelScreen, SettingsScreen — fixes content rendering
under the Pixel camera cutout in edge-to-edge mode.
Phase U (rustypipe Rust extractor) rolled back. Symptom: black screen
on play, root cause: rustypipe 0.11.4's JS deobfuscator can't parse
current YouTube player.js (YT changed the obfuscation pattern, no
upstream rustypipe release since June 2025). Switching clients
(Web → TV → Android/Ios) didn't help — the deobfuscator init fires
universally.
Kept in place for the future:
- rust/strawcore/ Cargo workspace + UniFFI scaffolding
- crafting-table runtime install (rustup + 4 Android targets +
cargo-ndk + NDK r27c)
- The U-2..U-5 commits in history (re-runnable when rustypipe is
fixed or we fork it).
Restored from commit 9550b207a (v0.1.0-T):
- NewPipe.init() in StrawApp.onCreate
- libs.newpipe.extractor + libs.squareup.okhttp deps
- NewPipeDownloader.kt + Thumbnails.kt
- ViewModels (Search/VideoDetail/Player/Channel/SubscriptionFeed) on
NewPipeExtractor calls
- VideoDetailScreen Download dialog using NewPipe's StreamInfo
Future-direction memo: openclaw-workspace/memory/project_rustypipe_fork.md
— fork plan + revival path for the Rust extractor when we're ready
to maintain it.
Verified working in the Android emulator: dQw4w9WgXcQ plays, ExoPlayer
reports state=PLAYING(3), position advancing, video surface rendering.
Black-screen-on-play bug: rustypipe's default player() uses YT's Web
client, which serves stream URLs that are session/UA-locked. ExoPlayer
fetching with a different UA gets a silent 403 from googlevideo and
renders a black surface.
Fix: pin stream_info() to player_from_clients(id, [Tv, Ios]) — the
TVHTML5 + iOS Innertube clients serve direct-play URLs that work in
any HTTP player. Same trick NewPipe uses. No Apple/iOS code involved
— it's just the API client identifier rustypipe sends to YT.
Also added a Player.Listener in PlayerScreen that Toasts any
PlaybackException (codeName + message) so future stream failures don't
look like silent black screens. Logs to logcat 'StrawPlayer' too.
channel_info(url) UniFFI suspend fn. ChannelViewModel +
SubscriptionFeedViewModel both swap. NewPipeExtractor (Java) is OUT —
zero org.schabi.newpipe classes in the APK now.
Cleanup:
- NewPipeDownloader.kt deleted (was the OkHttp adapter)
- Thumbnails.kt deleted (rustypipe returns full URLs)
- NewPipe.init() dropped from StrawApp.onCreate
- libs.newpipe.extractor removed from build.gradle.kts
- STRAW_USER_AGENT + strawHttpClient() now live in net/Http.kt
- RydClient + SponsorBlockClient + PlayerScreen + PlaybackService all
read from net/Http.kt instead of the extractor package
rustypipe API quirks beat:
- channel_videos(id) is the right method (channel() doesn't exist)
- ChannelInfo struct = basic metadata; Channel<T> wrapper carries
name/avatar/banner + .content is the paginator of videos
- description is String (not Option), subscriber_count is Option<u64>
End state: strawApp Kotlin is ~UI + thin glue to strawcore. The Rust
core handles search / streamInfo / channel / channel_videos via UniFFI
suspend fns. Tokio + reqwest + rustls + rquickjs all packed in
libstrawcore.so (~6MB per ABI). APK 40MB total.
stream_info(url) UniFFI suspend fn replaces NewPipeExtractor's
StreamInfo.getInfo() for both VideoDetailViewModel and PlayerViewModel.
One Rust round-trip drives the detail screen render AND the player's
resolve(). The VideoDetailUiState.info field cached on detail load is
reused by the Download dialog so we don't refetch.
Deferred to U-3.5:
- like_count (rustypipe's player() doesn't surface engagement data;
a separate query is needed)
- related (player() doesn't include 'up next'; comes from a separate
endpoint). Kotlin gets empty list for now — RelatedRow handles it.
Type quirks vs my initial guesses (caught by cargo check):
- details.duration is u32, not Option<u32>
- channel is split into channel_id + channel_name, not a struct
- like_count doesn't exist at this query depth
- VideoFormat::Webm (lowercase mb), VideoCodec::Avc1 (not H264)
- video_only is a separate vec (video_only_streams), not a bool flag
User-visible:
- BUG: 'clicking a second item went back to the first video' — VideoDetailViewModel
guard was short-circuiting on Activity-scoped ViewModel reuse. Now tracks
loadedUrl and only skips when the requested URL matches.
- BUG: PiP / window mode now auto-enters on Home gesture (Android 12+ via
setAutoEnterEnabled). Manual PiP button reports failure cause via Toast.
- HOME REDESIGN: replaced 3-tab bottom nav with hamburger ModalNavigationDrawer.
Default view = sub feed. Drawer items = Subscriptions / History / Search /
Settings. Top-left hamburger like normal Android apps.
Audit pass #2 (Opus max-effort) — CRIT + HIGH fixes shipped:
- CRIT-1: PlaybackService now calls startForeground() inside onStartCommand
with a media-playback notification + channel. Pre-fix could throw
ForegroundServiceDidNotStartInTimeException on Android 12+ and crash-kill.
- CRIT-2: AndroidManifest service exported=false. Previously any installed
app could craft an Intent and drive playback from attacker URLs.
- HIGH-1: 🎧 background handoff stops the activity player before starting
the service so we don't dual-host two ExoPlayers + MediaSessions.
- HIGH-2: onStartCommand returns START_NOT_STICKY and tears down on null
intent; no more crash-restart-crash loop after OS kills.
- HIGH-3: stop service on STATE_ENDED / STATE_IDLE via Player.Listener.
onTaskRemoved checks playbackState properly so we don't hold WAKE_LOCK
forever after a video ends in background.
- HIGH-4: Downloader validates scheme=https + googlevideo/youtube host
before handing the URL to DownloadManager.
- HIGH-5: filename sanitization extended to ASCII control chars, DEL,
Unicode bidi-override block, leading-dot, trailing whitespace.
- HIGH-6: SubscriptionFeedViewModel cancels prior in-flight refresh,
caps parallelism at 8 via Semaphore, applies 15s per-channel timeout.
- HIGH-7: sub feed error banner now shows above cached items when refresh
fails (previously hidden, looked indistinguishable from success).
- HIGH-8: PlayerViewModel falls back to lowest-available stream when no
stream is under the max-resolution ceiling (was: silent black screen).
- HIGH-9: network_security_config explicit cleartextTrafficPermitted='false'
on the RYD domain-config block (doesn't inherit from base-config).
- MED-1: PlaybackService.onDestroy nulls field before releasing session to
close a race with onGetSession during teardown.
- MED-6: Downloader catches enqueue exceptions, returns -1L, caller toasts
'download refused (bad URL)' instead of crashing.
Deferred (audit said 'can wait'): MED-2..5, MED-7..11, HIGH-10 UX consistency.
Phase P — bottom navigation:
- StrawHome restructured as a Scaffold with Material3 NavigationBar.
- Three tabs: Home (search + last 10 watches), Library (full watch
history with count), Subs (channel chips + aggregated feed).
Phase Q — subscription feed:
- New SubscriptionFeedViewModel fans out per-channel ChannelInfo +
ChannelTabs.VIDEOS fetches in parallel via async/awaitAll.
- Each channel contributes top 5; merged across all subs, capped at
200, sorted by view count as a soft-recency proxy (extractor doesn't
reliably surface upload timestamps).
- 10-minute cache TTL avoids hammering YT on tab re-entry.
- Subs tab renders the feed below the avatar row with a Refresh button.
Phase R — download:
- Download button on VideoDetail (next to Play / Share). Pops a tiny
dialog: Audio (best audioStream) or Video (best videoStream/
videoOnly fallback).
- Uses Android's DownloadManager — saves into app-private external
files dir (Android/data/com.sulkta.straw.debug/files/Movies/<kind>/).
Notification + progress for free. No WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE needed.
- Filenames sanitized (no /:*?\"<>| chars), capped at 120 chars.
Phase S — background audio:
- New "Background" overlay button (🎧) on the player. Tap to pause the
activity player and start PlaybackService with the audio URL.
- PlaybackService is a Media3 MediaSessionService with its own ExoPlayer
configured with our custom DataSource.Factory (User-Agent set, cross-
protocol redirects). Foreground service + media notification.
- Audio survives activity death — swipe the app out of recents, audio
keeps playing. Stop via notification or open-the-app-and-tap-stop.
- onTaskRemoved keeps the service alive iff something is playing.
Versions shipped: P+Q as vc=4, R as vc=5, S as vc=6. Each landed in the
F-Droid repo for the day-by-day refresh path.
Day-N+ ideas: real MediaController unification (single Player for both
foreground + background paths), MergingMediaSource on the service side
for high-res YT videos, real upload-timestamp sort for feed once the
extractor exposes it consistently, queue/playlist.
VideoDetail screen:
- New "Related" section at the bottom — pulls
StreamInfo.relatedItems, filters to StreamInfoItem, renders as
inline thumbnail rows. Tap → push another VideoDetail. Up to 20
items shown. Each row uses bestThumbnail() for hi-res.
Settings screen + PlayerViewModel:
- New "Playback" section with a Max-Resolution picker:
Auto / 1080p / 720p / 480p / 360p / 144p. Persisted to
SharedPreferences (KEY_MAX_RES) via SettingsStore.maxResolution
StateFlow.
- PlayerViewModel.resolve filters videoStreams + videoOnlyStreams by
the ceiling before picking the max-bitrate one. Auto (Int.MAX_VALUE)
is unchanged behavior. Choosing 720p caps the renderer so 1080p/4K
streams are skipped — saves bandwidth on mobile + helps low-end
decoders.
Phase P next ideas: bottom navigation tabs (Home / Subs feed /
Library), Download (audio + video), the MediaSessionService refactor
for true background audio after activity death.
Player overlay (top-right) now hosts four buttons in a row:
- Speed: 1× by default; tap opens a dialog of 0.25× / 0.5× / 0.75× / 1× /
1.25× / 1.5× / 1.75× / 2×. Applies via exoPlayer.playbackParameters.
- Audio-only toggle (📻/📺): toggles Player.TRACK_TYPE_VIDEO via
TrackSelectionParameters. Saves bandwidth + battery for screen-off
listening. Toast confirms state.
- Share (↗): Intent.ACTION_SEND with text/plain containing the YouTube
URL + the video title as EXTRA_SUBJECT. Hands off to Android share
sheet.
- PiP (⊟): same as M-1 but now part of the row instead of its own
floating square.
VideoDetail screen: Play button now lives in a Row with an OutlinedButton
"Share" that fires the same ACTION_SEND chooser. Same UX surface for
users who land on detail without going to player.
Version: STRAW_VERSION_CODE 1 → 2, STRAW_VERSION_NAME "0.1.0-day1" →
"0.1.0-N" so the F-Droid client sees this as an upgrade.
Phase O next (per Cobb's "where are all the features"): quality picker,
related videos on detail, download (audio + video).
Initial Sulkta fork of NewPipe with a new :strawApp module that ships a
clean Compose-based Android APK at applicationId com.sulkta.straw.
What's here:
- :strawApp — thin Android application shell, MaterialTheme + StrawHome
Composable. Lives alongside legacy :app so we don't break upstream.
- buildSrc — STRAW_APPLICATION_ID/VERSION constants alongside the existing
NEWPIPE_APPLICATION_ID_OLD/NEW.
- docs/sulkta — RECON.md (NewPipe codebase breakdown) + DECISIONS.md
(stack + scope decisions).
NewPipe's :shared KMP scaffold is at 892 LOC and renders nothing; this
fork picks up there and races ahead. Day-1 ships a hello APK; day-2 wires
NewPipeExtractor + Media3 player + SponsorBlock + Return YouTube Dislike.
GPL-3.0-or-later per upstream.
Move important version properties to buildSrc directory to access between modules
as needed.
Also add a simple task to generate a simple BuildConfig class to access version name.
This is better than adding dependency on a third-party library/plugin.
Signed-off-by: Aayush Gupta <aayushgupta219@gmail.com>
