YouTube, as you probably know, is the largest video repository out there. I read somewhere the average person views about 185 videos a month. I know I fall way below that average, but one thing I do notice when I watch all these videos on the YouTube site is the lack of features. Magic Action is a great solution for adding usable features to YouTube.
Magic Actions is an extension for Google Chrome (also available for Firefox) that adds few different viewing modes and other features to the YouTube page. If you want to tweak the options even more, on the Magic Actions settings page you have a lot more to tinker with.
What Changes You’ll See
The first change will notice is the bar of additional icons underneath the YouTube window.
Before Magic Actions
After Magic Actions
As you can see there are a few different additional features. If you aren’t paying attention, you might miss the addition to the top of the screen near the YouTube logo and search bar. There is a light switch. This will change the background from light to dark. Here’s a before and after.
Before
After
Magic Actions Settings
Now you have seen what Magic Actions can do, let’s take a closer look at how to do it. The first option in the row of icons brings you to the Magic Actions tutorial page. There you can read over some of the basics of what you can do. The second icon, the gear, is the settings. This is where you can make some modifications and tweaks. The first section lets you choose some of the basic options like volume control, on-screen display (OSD) options and whether or not you’d like the HD automatically turned on or what resolution you’d like.
Moving down the list you’ll see some other pretty useful options. The first one is to block apps. If you hate the ad that pops up a few seconds into each video this might be an option, click on. Also, the enable cinema option which will talk about in a minute is automatically checked. If you choose to watch it in a different view, you can select that here. another personal favorite stops autoplay. The autoplay feature is something I’m not a fan of personally.
A little farther down the list are more settings. These are not all that important in how you view the video, they are more to make a more minimalist YouTube viewing experience.
The Views
When it comes to YouTube, how you view the video can really make a difference. Magic Actions gives you a couple different choices of viewing. The first is Cinema mode. This mode darkens the rest of the screen and allows you to focus on the movie window itself. You still have the same basic YouTube controls as if the movie were embedded into a webpage along with a few sharing options and Magic Actions buttons.
The next view is Expanded view. This view is similar to a full-screen view of from YouTube but doesn’t stretch out this video as much, just makes it larger.
The last view is not so much is viewing mode, so much as a way to take a better look at a video. This is a zoom option. Essentially what you can do is zoom in on the screen to take a better look at a part of the movie as it’s playing.
Conclusion
Magic actions add some pretty cool and simple features to really enhance viewing YouTube videos. While this may not be something you use for a quick sports highlights or video about a cat doing something funny, if you’re watching something a little more full length, the different viewing options will come in handy.
Download Magic Actions.
