This is a very simple trick. I started using it eversince video hardware acceleration on Chrome was removed. mpv has it, so not only you get a video in a popup, but it's hardware accelerated.
- Copy the link or highlight the link with the mouse
- Press a keyboard shortcut to start playback
The copying part is easy. This has been tested with:
- Youtube (highlight link address on browser, or copy link with right mouse click)
- Twitter (right mouse click and copy link)
- Faceboot (highlight address of video on browser)
The command to playback comes simple from mpv http://...... So let's set up mpv first.
sudo apt install mpv
This will also install the youtube downloader, youtube-dl. However I find this is not working well, and creates choppy playback. As such I replace it.
First uninstall youtube-dl with:
sudo apt remove youtube-dl
Then install yt-dlp with pip.
Install pip if not installed already:
sudo apt install pip
Then
pip install -U yt-dlp
Because mpv still looks for the youtube-dl binary, make a soft link and place it in the path.
ln -sf ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp ~/.local/bin/youtube-dl
Done
xclip is what reads the contents of both the PRIMARY (what text you highlight with your mouse and paste with middle click) and the CLIPBOARD (what text you select and do ctrl+c or copy with right click then copy, and paste with ctrl+v).
sudo apt install xclip
This is just putting the command together and saving it as a little bash script with the following contents:
#!/usr/bin/bash
mpv $(xclip -o)
Save the script as (e.g) youpv, then do chmod +x youpv and place it in your path (or copy it to a known path with, e.g sudo cp ./youpv /usr/loca/bin).
Whatever DE you use, make a shortcut for that script. In Gnome, go to Setting,s Keyboards, Shortcuts, Custom, and make one for /usr/local/bin/youpv when you press e.g. ctrl+shift+v.
You're done.
Copy a link using your mouse (highlight or copy or whatever), then press ctrl+shift+v. Wait a few seconds for playback to start on its own window.
Enjoy!