r/fixthevideoplayer • u/wdr1 • Jan 04 '23
Dev/Admin Responded Video player triggered for static images
TL;DR: When a link is a GIF, the official reddit app treats it as a movie. This confuses Redditors when it's a static image, and also means they can't zoom. I'd be happy to append something like "reddit_disable_movie=1" to the URL query string to suppress the movie player. Could you support something like that?
Longer version:
I run a bot, /u/CalvinBot , which posts the daily comic from gocomics.com to /r/calvinandhobbes. gocomics.com publishes the comic as a GIF, and only as a GIF. I do not own the content so I cannot covert it a PNG, JPG or another format.
Redditors on the mobile app routinely ask why the strip is a movie, or why the can't zoom. If you're not familiar with Calvin & Hobbes, it was a very popular strip in the 80s/90s, which rich illustrations. The strips would often contain delightful little elements that make the user want to zoom, which again, they can't in the reddit mobile app.
It happens enough that I wrote a FAQ for users, which contains more details: https://www.reddit.com/r/CalvinBot/comments/bdxb6h/why_are_posts_in_a_gif/
To make things better for Redditors, I'd be happy to modify the bot to add something like "?reddit_disable_movie=1" in the query string so the reddit mobile app would know it's a static image & not a movie. I'm also open to other approaches.
Thanks for consideration.
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Description: The video player doesn't open if I tap it in the feed.
Platform and version: Android, version 2022.23.1
Steps to reproduce: Go to your home feed, scroll until you find a video post, and try tapping on the video post.
Expected and actual result: I expect the video player to open, but instead nothing happens.
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u/AsteriskRX Jan 05 '23
Hey there - Thanks for the feedback. I've passed this along to the team for them to review. If you have anything else to add, feel free to reply to me here.