Web Extension: Open In Player

Opens URLs (video) in mpv or vlc

Requirements

Open in MPV

ytdl:// URL's needs to be associated with mpv for this extension to work

1. System wide association:

   • On linux, this can be done with creating a .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/
   • Example (mpv-ytdl.desktop):

      [Desktop Entry]
      Type=Application
      Name=mpv-ytdl
      Exec=mpv %U
      Terminal=false
      NoDisplay=true
      MimeType=x-scheme-handler/ytdl

   • And then run update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications
   • You can test if this works with xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/ytdl and it should show you the respective .desktop file.

2. For use Firefox browser only:

   • Navigate to address about:support.
   • Look for an entry Profile Directory or Profile Folder (on Windows).
   • Open this directory or folder to find handlers.json file.
   • Open the file to edit it (you may need to format it to be readable, you could do that with your text editor or an online tool like jsonlint.com).
   • In this JSON file, there are few schemes defined, you will need to add a new one named ytdl with and empty object {} at the end of schemes object value, like this:

      "schemes": {
      	// <other schemes here already>,
      	"ytdl": {}
      }

   • Restart Firefox.
   • Navigate to address about:preferences#general and find the Applications section. Here, you will find the ytdl entry.
   • Choose the Action for the ytdl entry as to open with mpv.

Open in VLC:

vlc:// URL handler needs to be created

Create vlc-handler.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications/ or /usr/share/applications/

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=VLC URL handler
Exec=/usr/share/handlers/vlc-handler %U
Terminal=false
NoDisplay=true
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/vlc

And then run update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications

Create file handler /usr/share/handlers/vlc-handler or ~/.local/share/handlers/vlc-handler (but specify full path in .desktop file)

#!/usr/bin/env bash

request="${1#*://}"             # Remove schema from url (vlc://)

vlc "$request"

Make it executable: sudo chmod +x /usr/share/handlers/vlc-handler