tubuler is a free and open source application for downloading YouTube videos, based on the youtube-dl command line tool. The application is built on Electron with front-end components provided by Bulma. Under the hood is a Flask back-end with youtube-dl.
tubuler was built with accessibility, simplicity and openness in mind. youtube-dl is one of the many great free and open source tools out there. As a command line tool however, youtube-dl poses a barier for users who might not be familiar with the CLI. tubuler was made to change that.
Pronouncing tubuler is similar to tubular, a term which was used by surfers and skaters in the 80's.
Using tubuler is easy: simply paste the YouTube video link into the app and click download. tubuler automatically chooses the best video and audio quality. The download time varies depending on the length of the video and its quality at which it was uploaded. tubuler can also work on other video streaming sites.
tubuler is currently available for macOS. Builds for Windows and Linux may be available in the near future. You can also download this repo and build tubuler for your platform of choice (see Building tubuler).
To get a development environment up and running, clone this repo and run the following steps:
npm install- Installs Node.js dependencies
npm run deps- Creates Python virtual environment and installs dependencies
npm run babel- Transcribes source files
cp -r node_modules/bulma/css .- Copies over Bulma CSS files for front-end
npm start- Starts tubuler
tubuler is split into two different parts: the Electron front-end and the Flask back-end. Running the app starts the Flask app in the background. When the user submits a URL, a POST request is made to the back-end which triggers the video download to the user's selected location.
The front-end code is split into two directories:
src/: Development source files (all development happens here)lib/: Source code used by Electron
JS development adheres to ES6 to standardize development. When running or building tubuler, Babel is ran first to transcribe the files in src/ to the files in lib/. Looking into package.json can give more clarity into the development workflow.
All Python source files are in the src/download_video/ directory. The Flask app can be ran independently by running the following command in the root of the tubuler:
$ ./venv/bin/python src/download_video/app.py
Once the app is running, we can use cURL to call the Flask app:
$ curl -X POST -H "Content-type: application/json" \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "[youtube_video_url]", "ydl_opts": {"outtmpl": "[path]/video.mp4"}}' "localhost:5000/download_video"
where [youtube_video_url] is the link to the video you wish to download and [path] is a directory on your machine where you want to save the video.
Before running the Flask app by itself, we need to create a Python virtual environment first by running npm run deps. This creates a virtual environment venv/ where all Python dependencies are contained. The back-end is developed in Python using PEP-8 formatting.
To build tubuler, the Flask app needs to be made into an executable. To start, we need to comment/uncomment lines so we use the executable instead of the Python code. In src/pythonProcess.js, the beginning of createPythonProcess() should look like the following:
// Run app using Python
// const script = path.join(__dirname, 'download_video', 'app.py');
// pyProcess = spawn('./venv/bin/python', [script]);
// Run app executable
const script = path.join(__dirname, 'download_video_dist', 'app', 'app');
pyProcess = execFile(script);
Once that's done, we can build the app by running npm run build. This will create a directory containing the standalone tubuler app.
If you have any ideas on how to make tubuler better or if you're having issues, feel free to contribute here.
tubuler is free and open source.