PIPE-VIEWER(1)

📦
version 0.5.3 · 3 versions
, in alpine 3.24

🎀 NAME 🎀

Okay so this is the PIPE-VIEWER(1) page — yes, from the User Contributed Perl Documentation — and it's literally pipe-viewer: YouTube from command line. Bestie, it's giving terminal main character energy. 💅

Run these when you need the lore:

pipe-viewer --help
pipe-viewer --tricks
pipe-viewer --examples
pipe-viewer --stdin-help

🌸 CONFIGURATION OPTIONS 🌸

api_host 🌐

Hostname of an invidious instance. When it's set to auto, a random invidious instance gets picked on-demand. Slay, spontaneous.

List of public invidious instances:

https://api.invidious.io/

Tor instances are also supported if the socks5://127.0.0.1:9050 Tor proxy is available and the Perl module LWP::Protocol::socks is installed. iykyk.

auto_captions 🎀

When set to 1, auto-generated captions will be retrieved. By default, auto-generated captions are ignored. Lowkey respectful of your bandwidth.

audio_quality 🎧

The preferred quality for the audio-track:

best        # best audio quality available (<=192kbps)
medium      # medium audio quality (<=128kbps)
low         # low audio quality (<=50kbps)

The option can also be set to a numeric value N in order to select an audio-track with <= Nkbps. Numbers are valid, bestie.

autoplay_mode 🔁

Enable autoplay mode, which will continuously play related videos. It's giving "just one more video" energy.

bypass_age_gate_native 🔓

Bypass age-restricted videos, using our internal method.

However, these streaming URLs are heavily throttled by YouTube. No cap, they are throttled.

When this option is disabled, a fallback method will be used instead (yt-dlp/youtube-dl or invidious instances).

bypass_age_gate_with_proxy 🕵️

Bypass age-restricted videos using an YouTube Account Proxy. Iconic workaround behavior.

cache_dir 📁

Cache directory where to save temporary files.

colors 🌈

Use colors for text. Obviously iconic.

comments_order 💬

The sorting order for comments. Valid values: top, new.

confirm ✅

Display a confirmation message after each video played.

convert_cmd 🛠️

Command to convert videos.

Default value:

"ffmpeg -i *IN* *OUT*"

*IN* gets replaced with the input file.

*OUT* gets replaced with the output file.

convert_to 🎵

Format to convert each downloaded video into. (e.g.: mp3).

Load cookies from a file. Useful to overcome the 429: Too Many Requests issue. That error is so annoying fr fr.

The file must be a # Netscape HTTP Cookie File. Same format as youtube-dl requires.

See also:

https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#how-do-i-pass-cookies-to-youtube-dl

copy_caption 📝

When downloading a video, copy the closed-caption (if any) into the same folder with the video.

If merge_into_mkv and merge_with_captions are both enabled, there is no need to enable this option. Efficiency ate.

custom_layout_format 🎨

An array of hash values specifying a custom layout for video results.

align       # "left" or "right"
color       # any color name supported by Term::ANSIColor
text        # the actual text
width       # width allocated for the text

The value for width can be either a number of characters (e.g.: 20) or can be a percentage of the terminal width (e.g.: "15%").

The special tokens for text are listed in:

pipe-viewer --tricks

For better formatting, it's highly recommended to install Unicode::GCString or Text::CharWidth. Do it for the aesthetic.

custom_channel_layout_format 📺

An array of hash values specifying a custom layout for channel results.

custom_playlist_layout_format 🎼

An array of hash values specifying a custom layout for playlist results.

dash 🎚️

Include or exclude streams in "Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP" (DASH) format.

date 📅

Search for videos uploaded within a specific amount of time.

Valid values: anytime, hour, today, week, month, year.

debug 🐛

Enable debug/verbose mode, which will print some extra information.

Valid values: 0, 1, 2, 3.

downloads_dir 💾

Directory where to download files and where to save converted files.

download_and_play ▶️

Play downloaded videos.

download_with_wget 📥

Download videos with wget.

download_with_ytdl ⬇️

Download videos with yt-dlp or youtube-dl.

By enabling this option and setting the value of ytdl_cmd to yt-dlp, download speed will be greatly improved. Speed upgrade, bestie.

env_proxy 🌍

Load proxy settings from *_proxy environment variables (if any).

fat32safe 🧃

When downloading a video, make the filename compatible with the FAT32 filesystem.

Additionally, if Text::Unidecode is available, then Unicode characters are converted to ASCII equivalents. Compatibility slay.

features 🏷️

A list of video features, return only videos with the specified features:

live               # Live stream
4k                 # 4K resolution
hd                 # HD resolution (>=720p)
subtitles          # Video has subtitles/closed-captions
creative_commons   # Creative Commons license
360                # 360° field of view
vr180              # Stereoscopic widh a 180° field of view
3d                 # 3D
hdr                # High dynamic range

ffmpeg_cmd 🎬

Path to the ffmpeg program.

force_fallback 🪂

Force the extraction of the streaming URLs to always use the fallback method (youtube-dl / invidious).

fullscreen 🖥️

Play videos in fullscreen mode.

get_captions 💬

Download closed-captions for videos (if any).

get_term_width 📏

Read the terminal width (stty size).

hfr 🎞️

Prefer or ignore High Frame Rate (HFR) video streams.

Try to disable this option if the videos are lagging or dropping frames. Lag is not the vibe.

highlight_color 🖍️

Highlight color used to highlight watched videos.

Any color name supported by Term::ANSIColor can be used.

highlight_watched 👀

Highlight watched videos.

history 🕰️

Enable or disable support for input history.

Requires Term::ReadLine::Gnu.

history_file 📜

File where to save the input history.

history_limit 🔢

Maximum number of entries in the history file.

When the limit is reached, the oldest half of the history file will be deleted.

For no limit, set the value to -1.

http_proxy 🧦

Set HTTP(S)/SOCKS proxy, using the format:

'proto://domain.tld:port/'

If authentication is required, use:

'proto://user:pass@domain.tld:port/'

For example, to use Tor, install LWP::Protocol::socks and set this value to:

"socks://127.0.0.1:9050"

ignore_av1 🚫

Ignore videos in AV1 format.

ignored_projections 📐

An array of video projections to ignore.

For example, to prefer rectangular projections of 360° videos, use:

ignored_projections => ["mesh", "equirectangular"],

interactive 🫶

Interactive mode, prompting for user-input.

keep_original_video 🗂️

Keep the original video after conversion. When set to 0, the original video will be deleted. Bestie, it's gone-gone.

local_playlist_limit 🎚️

When set to a positive value, will restrict the size of the local playlists to this many entries. When this limit has been reached, older entries will be discarded from the playlist.

A reasonable value would be between 500 and 1000.

For no limit, set the value to -1.

maxResults 🔎

How many results to display per page.

Currently, this is not implemented. Not me waiting for this feature.

merge_into_mkv 🧩

When downloading split videos, merge the audio+video files into an MKV container.

Requires ffmpeg.

merge_into_mkv_args ⚙️

Arguments for ffmpeg how to merge the files.

merge_with_captions 💬

Include closed-captions inside the MKV container (if any).

order 🧭

Search order for videos.

Valid values: relevance, rating, upload_date, view_count.

page 📄

Page number of results.

prefer_av1 🧪

Prefer videos in AV1 format. (experimental)

prefer_mp4 🎥

Prefer videos in MP4 (AVC) format.

Try to enable this option if the videos are lagging or dropping frames.

prefer_m4a 🎧

Prefer audio streams in M4A (AAC) format.

By default, the OPUS format for audio is preferred.

prefer_invidious 🐸

Prefer invidious instances over parsing the YouTube website directly.

region 🌎

ISO 3166 country code (default: US).

remove_played_file 🧹

When download_and_play is enabled, remove the file after playing it.

resolution 📺

Preferred resolution for videos.

Valid values: best, 2160p, 1440p, 1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p, 240p, 144p, audio.

show_video_info ℹ️

Show extra info for videos when selected.

skip_if_exists ✅

When downloading, skip if the file already exists locally.

skip_watched ⏭️

Skip already watched/downloaded videos.

split_videos ✂️

Enable or disable support for split-videos. Split-videos are videos that do not include audio and video in the same file.

Disable this option if the videos are loading too slowly, as non-split videos are not throttled by YouTube. Although, the highest resolution of non-split videos is 360p. Trade-offs, bestie.

srt_languages 🗣️

List of SRT languages in the order of preference.

saved_channels_file 💖

Absolute path to the file where to store saved channels (:save=i).

subscribed_channels_file 🔔

Absolute path to the file where to store subscribed channels (:sub=i).

subscription_results 📬

Comma-separated list of methods used to retrieve videos from subscribed channels.

subscription_results => "uploads,streams",   # include streams in feed

Valid values: uploads, streams, shorts.

subscriptions_lifetime ⏳

Amount of time, in seconds, before rescanning the subscribed channels for new videos (during -ls).

subscriptions_limit 🗃️

Maximum number of subscription videos to store in the local database. Set to 0 for no limit.

thousand_separator 🔢

Thousands separator character for numbers >= 1000.

timeout ⏱️

HTTPS timeout value in seconds. The default value is 10 seconds.

user_agent 🪪

Token that is used to identify the user agent on the network. The agent value is sent as the User-Agent header in the requests.

video_filename_format 🏷️

The format of filename for downloaded files.

The available special tokens are listed in:

pipe-viewer --tricks

video_player_selected 🎮

The selected video player defined in the video_players table.

video_players 🕹️

A table of video players.

The keys for each player are:

arg        # any arguments for the video player
audio      # option specifying the *AUDIO* file
cmd        # the main player command
fs         # the fullscreen option
novideo    # the no-video mode option
srt        # option specifying the *SUB* file

videoDuration ⏲️

Retrieve only short or long videos in search results.

Valid values: any, short (under 4 minutes), average (4-20 minutes), and long (over 20 minutes).

watch_history 📚

Set to 1 to remember and highlight watched videos across multiple sessions.

Watched videos can be listed with:

pipe-viewer -wv

The video IDs are saved in the filename specified by watch_history_file.

watch_history_file 🗄️

File where to save the video IDs of watched/downloaded videos when watch_history is set to a true value.

wget_cmd 📡

Command for wget when download_with_wget is set to a true value.

  • youtube_video_url — the sprintf() format string used to build a YouTube video URL from a video ID 🎬
  • youtube_channel_url — same deal, but for a channel URL from a channel ID 📺
  • youtube_playlist_url — and again for a playlist URL from a playlist ID 🎶
  • ytdl — set this to use youtube-dl for videos with encrypted signatures 🔐

When it's 0, invidious instances get used instead. (Bestie, that's the whole vibe: 1 = ytdl does the work, 0 = invidious steps in.)

  • ytdl_cmd — the command for yt-dlp or youtube-dl when ytdl is set to 1 💻

It's also the command for yt-dlp when it's pulling YouTube comments and ytdlp_comments is 1. One command, two jobs, main character energy.

  • ytdlp_comments — when this is 1, yt-dlp handles extracting YouTube comments ✨ (it's experimental, so like... enjoy but don't @ me)

When it's 0, invidious instances are used instead.

  • ytdlp_max_comments — the maximum number of comments yt-dlp will extract 🔢

Heads up: replies count as comments too, so budget accordingly.

  • ytdlp_max_replies — the max number of replies per thread 💬

Set it to 0 to disable replies entirely (no replies, no drama).

Set it to "all" to extract literally all the replies 👀

🗂️ CONFIGURATION FILES

The configuration files are, and I quote:

~/.config/pipe-viewer/pipe-viewer.conf
~/.config/pipe-viewer/gtk-pipe-viewer.conf

That's where the vibes live, bestie 💖

🔌 INVIDIOUS API REFERENCE

https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/wiki/API

iykyk — that's the API docs right there 📚

🌈 REPOSITORY

https://github.com/trizen/pipe-viewer

The source. The origin story. Go star it fr fr ⭐

Copyright 2010-2024 Trizen.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 😭 (yes, that's the real legal shouting, not me being dramatic)

See <https://dev.perl.org/licenses/> for more information.

Okay that's the whole page, you made it to the end, I'm so proud of you 🫶💜 This was PIPE-VIEWER(1), brought to you by perl v5.42.2 and dated 2024-09-28 — go forth and pipe those videos, bestie, you're literally gonna slay 🌸✨

📦 where this page comes from