YouTubeDiscordPresence — Enhanced README

This fork enhances the original YouTubeDiscordPresence extension and native host with better activity data, thumbnails, localized button labels, and small quality-of-life improvements.

Overview

• Browser extension sends rich presence for YouTube and YouTube Music.
• Native desktop host (YTDPwin) bridges the extension to Discord’s Rich Presence API.
• This enhanced version focuses on:
  • Clear activity type (Watching vs Listening)
  • Smarter thumbnail selection
  • Author-first small text (Spotify-like)
  • Localized button labels (English/Vietnamese)
  • Robust native host reconnect

What’s New (Enhancements)

• Activity type: type=3 for YouTube (Watching), type=2 for YouTube Music (Listening).
• Thumbnails:
  • YouTube: use the video thumbnail when available; livestream falls back to a live icon.
  • YouTube Music: prefer square album art from lh3.googleusercontent.com when useAlbumThumbnail is enabled; otherwise fall back to track thumbnail; icon fallback only when no thumbnail exists.
• Small text: shows the author (up to 64 chars). For livestreams, adds [LIVE] prefix.
• Localized buttons:
  • English: “Listen Along”, “Watch Livestream”, “Watch Video”, “View Channel”.
  • Vietnamese (auto-selected when navigator.language starts with vi): “Nghe cùng”, “Xem livestream”, “Xem video”, “Xem kênh”.
• Button behavior: Discord shows up to two buttons; they appear when you hover or interact with the activity card.
• Native host reconnect: exponential backoff on disconnect; resets on successful reconnect.
• Stable update cadence: 1s worker interval + 800ms send guard to avoid spamming.

Install the Extension (Unpacked)

1. Open Chrome → chrome://extensions/.
2. Enable Developer mode.
3. Click “Load unpacked” and select the Extension/ folder.
4. Note the extension ID (shown under the loaded extension).

Configure Native Host Manifest (Whitelist Your Extension ID)

The native host must allow your extension ID. Edit Host/main.json and add your unpacked extension ID to allowed_origins.

Example Host/main.json:

{
  "name": "com.ytdp.discord.presence",
  "description": "Component of the YouTubeDiscordPresence extension that allows the usage of native messaging.",
  "path": "YTDPwin.exe",
  "type": "stdio",
  "allowed_origins": [
    "chrome-extension://hnmeidgkfcbpjjjpmjmpehjdljlaeaaa/",
    "chrome-extension://<YOUR-UNPACKED-ID>/"
  ]
}

Copy the manifest to the installed location (run PowerShell as Administrator):

# Backup current manifest
Copy-Item "C:\Program Files\YouTubeDiscordPresence\main.json" "C:\Program Files\YouTubeDiscordPresence\main.json.bak"

# Overwrite with the edited manifest from the repo
Copy-Item "d:\assign-uit\YouTubeDiscordPresence\Host\main.json" "C:\Program Files\YouTubeDiscordPresence\main.json"

Restart Chrome and reopen YouTube/YouTube Music.

Build the Desktop App and MSI

Prerequisites:

• Visual Studio 2022 (or 2019) with “Desktop development with C++”.
• Extension “Visual Studio Installer Projects” (for .vdproj).

Steps (GUI):

1. Open YTDPwin/YTDPwin.sln in Visual Studio.
2. Set configuration to Release | x64.
3. Build project YTDPwin.
4. Open YTDPsetup/YTDPsetup.vdproj and ensure it includes Primary Output from YTDPwin (Release). Adjust Product Version if needed.
5. Build YTDPsetup to produce the .msi (typically under the setup project’s Release output folder).

Optional from command line (requires devenv.com):

$devenv = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\devenv.com"
& $devenv "d:\assign-uit\YouTubeDiscordPresence\YTDPwin\YTDPwin.sln" /build "Release|x64" /project "YTDPsetup\YTDPsetup.vdproj"

Change the Discord App Name (Mini Status)

The short “app name” text shown next to your avatar is the Discord Application’s name. To customize it:

1. Create a new app at https://discord.com/developers/applications with your desired name (e.g., “YouTube Presence Enhance”).
2. Copy its Client ID (Application ID).
3. Update Host/main.cpp:

   // Replace the old ID
   const int64_t APPLICATION_ID = <YOUR-CLIENT-ID>;

4. Rebuild the desktop app and MSI, reinstall.

Note: Discord does not allow dynamic mini status text via Rich Presence. Title/author/channel appear inside the activity card only.

Troubleshooting

• No buttons visible: buttons only appear when hovering the activity card in Discord.
• “Native host disconnected”: ensure the MSI is installed correctly; the manifest path is valid; try reinstalling the MSI.
• Extension sends data but Discord times out: restart Discord; ensure the desktop host can reach Discord; the send cadence is limited to avoid timeouts.
• YouTube Music album art missing: album art is used when the thumbnail URL is from lh3.googleusercontent.com and useAlbumThumbnail is enabled; otherwise we fall back to track thumbnail.

Limitations

• Discord Rich Presence supports only two buttons and does not expose a custom timeline bar UI.
• Square thumbnails (1:1) require cropping via a proxy or host-side image processing; not part of this enhanced extension.

Quick Test

• YouTube Music: should show Listening, author small text, localized buttons, and album art or track thumbnail.
• YouTube: should show Watching, author small text, video thumbnail, and buttons for “Watch Video” and “View Channel”.

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This enhanced README summarizes how to set up, build, and use the improved presence features while staying within Discord’s Rich Presence constraints.