NicholasBly/youtube-webos 0.8.0

on GitHub

Summary

This update features a codebase-wide audit focused on performance and efficiency. Consolidated resources across files resulting in lower CPU usage across all TVs.

Key Highlights:

• Performance: Core systems like AdBlock, SponsorBlock, and shortcuts were improved to use less memory and CPU cycles for better responsiveness across the YouTube app.
• Visual & UI Fixes: YouTube homescreen UI and YouTube Kids debug overlay.
• Snappier UI: OLED-Care sliders, remote shortcuts, and scrolling through thumbnails are now significantly more responsive when toggled.
• Build Fix: Fixed typo in webpack causing modern build to include emoji fix from the legacy version.

Optimizations & Improvements

AdBlock

• Faster JSON Filtering: Populated configuration flags once per session and removed redundant API checks -> eliminates unnecessary boolean checks on every single network response.
• Streamlined Telemetry Blocking: Switched from url.href to url.pathname and pre-compiled regex -> skips full URL serialization, saving CPU cycles on outgoing requests.
• Early Exit Logic: The engine now bails immediately if all filters are disabled.

Interface & OLED-Care Mode

• CSS Opacity Rules: Replaced dynamic style rebuilds with pure CSS custom properties (--ytaf-oled-opacity) -> completely eliminates lag/stuttering when quickly changing the Video Shelf Opacity.
• Bundled Styling: Moved runtime CSS injections for SponsorBlock, Auto-Login, and Emoji-Font into dedicated .css files -> removes runtime string parsing and speeds up initial app boot time.
• Event Listener Consolidation: Chained toggleComments, toggleDescription, and playPause into a single helper and merged three separate keydown listeners into one -> saves 4 queries per shortcut press for instant remote response.
• ui.js: Cached document.querySelector('video') in utils.js

Thumbnail Quality & Emojis

• Smart Queueing: Capped the thumbnail request queue to 50 and increased polling intervals -> prevents runaway memory growth and stuttering during fast scrolling.
• Cache Trimming: parsedTextCache now trims the oldest half of its data instead of completely clearing -> keeps recently viewed emojis loaded to prevent visual pop-in during long scroll sessions.

SponsorBlock

• Throttle UI Sync: Overlay position syncing is now throttled to 500ms -> prevents forced layout recalculations, eliminating frame drops on older webOS 3 TVs.
• Load: SponsorBlock segments inject and are shown immediately on video load. Eliminates flicker of colored segments in some scenarios.
• SponsorBlock UI: Fixed segment list category keys - musicofftopic and hook rows now show the correct color and label (previously fell through to gray with raw category text)

Fixes

General UI

• Homescreen Fix: Fixed an issue where the YouTube homescreen was cutting off certain UI elements (#129).
• YouTube Kids: Fixed and removed the debug overlay appearing in the YouTube Kids app (#127).
• Config Saves: Debounced localStorage writes -> prevents the TV from stuttering when quickly dragging color pickers or sliders.

Return YouTube Dislike

• Description Button Fix: Fixed a bug where highlighting and selecting the description button with the LG remote (Arrow Keys/Enter) failed to apply the dislike value and navigation fix.
• Observer Efficiency: Eliminated the bodyObserver and replaced it with a targeted focusin fallback -> reduces background DOM scanning.

Modern Build (webOS 22+)

• Emoji-Font Typo: Fixed a webpack alias typo (emoji-font.ts instead of .js) -> successfully strips out a useless legacy mutation observer, fixing font inconsistencies and shrinking the modern bundle file size.
• Auto Login: Fixed Guest Mode cache invalidation on webOSRelaunch -> signing in and out between app launches is now reflected correctly.