This is not a minor update. By popular demand, the interface has moved to the video page itself, rather than reside in a separate window. This means that VideoSkip will no longer load invisibly behind the video. It is also accessible when the video is fullscreen. But there is more. Read on for a list of improvements.
The picture below shows what it looks like now when you click the little VideoSkip icon on the browser with a video showing on the page (right-click and show in new page to see it bigger). You can move the interface around by dragging its top, and whatever is behind shows faintly through it. You can also change its size with Ctrl+ or Ctrl-, the better to see the text.
When you click the VideoSkip logo or the X at the upper-left corner of the interface, it collapses into an icon, resulting in what you see in the second picture.
This icon disappears after 4 seconds (handy for actually watching the movie), but returns if you move the mouse. Clicking it opens the interface back. It can be repositioned as well.
This behavior also works in fullscreen, so you can change filter settings, or even edit the skips in fullscreen.
But this isn’t all. There are two new options for skipping or blanking out undesirable content. The control label “blur”, used instead of “video” or “blank”, causes the image to be blurred rather than going dark for the duration of the skip. The control label “fast” causes content to pass at 16x speed, with arguably hilarious effect, rather than skipping outright.
I almost implemented a third “muffle” label, which would cause the sound to be muffled and speech indistinguishable rather than being muted. Pretty hilarious sometimes, but some services had problems with my first attempt, so I dropped it from this release. Let me know if you think it’s worth it putting it back.
All of this took a lot of programming, but I also learned a lot in the process. Maybe I’ll use the tricks in my other apps.
Meanwhile, enjoy VideoSkip 0.4.